I have a bad case of ceanothus envy. \u00a0For those of you who don\u2019t know this (mostly) western groundcover or shrub, it goes by the common name \u201cCalifornia wild lilac.\u201d \u00a0Its flower panicles, especially when seen from a distance, look similar to those of common lilac (Syringa), though the leaves differ. \u00a0Every spring it flowers all over the hills and in gardens in various parts of the West. I saw lots of it on my last visit to San Francisco and California\u2019s gold rush country. \u00a0The shrubs I saw were mostly bright sky blue and were an incredible sight, growing in great profusion.<\/p>\n
In my part of the world, USDA Zone 6b (or 7a on the latest hardiness chart), we can only grow one ceanothus, Ceanothus americanus or New Jersey tea. \u00a0It is not unattractive, with white flowers, and it was used by both Native Americans and early settlers as a substitute for black tea. \u00a0Presentable and useful though it may be, as far as looks go, it can\u2019t hold a candle to its western cousins.<\/p>\n
Part of every gardener\u2019s life falls under the heading \u201caccepting the things we cannot change.\u201d\u00a0 The zone hardiness of ceanothus is one of those things. However, it does provide yet another reason to save pennies for springtime trips to California.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a bad case of ceanothus envy. \u00a0For those of you who don\u2019t know this (mostly) western groundcover or shrub, it goes by the common name \u201cCalifornia wild lilac.\u201d \u00a0Its flower panicles, especially when seen from a distance, look similar to those of common lilac (Syringa), though the leaves differ. \u00a0Every spring it flowers … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[444,445,443,448,447,446],"class_list":["post-652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring","tag-california-lilac","tag-california-wild-lilac","tag-ceanothus","tag-native-plants","tag-new-jersey-tea","tag-syringa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":653,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions\/653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}