The UCSC Arboretum is, hands down, the best place in the USA to see South African and Australian natives. Go there! Having lived a mile away for 4 years, I know that the low each year is about 32-35F with extremes in the upper 20s. However, every 10 to 15 yrs, the temp gets down to about 18F for about 5 minutes. This wreaks havoc on their Leucospermum collection. Most things recover just fine since the ground temp is always above freezing.
They have a cactus collection. I didn't write this one down. You can see the Endangered Aloe polyphylla growing in the background. (Did I mention that I hate CITES? The USDA distroys endangered plant seed if you try to ship it without the correct paperwork because of CITES. SOMEONE PLEASE rewrite it!)
Epacris impressa var grandiflora: pretty flowers on such a straggly bush.
They have many Grevilleas from Oz, but I was there for South African stuff.
The Proteas were mostly done with, but a few were left: grandiceps.
The biggest (and therefore best) Protea in the world: magnifica. Its nearly the size of your hand with fingers outstretched.
The Leucospermums were in full bloom. Spectacular. This one is concarpodendrum, I think. If you live in Coastal California, why don't you have thes plants?! And If you do have them, why don't you have more!?!... Oh yeah, I forgot that your yard was the size of a postage stamp and that it's worth $1.3M. Nevermind.
Ls tottum or hybrid.
NOID.
Awesome NOID Ls cordifolium hybrid.
Brilliant Ls reflexum.
The all yellow version of reflexum. These plants are mostly very large. Your average Protea is a 10ft semisphere. Some like the Ls cordifolium and tottum only get to 3ft tall, but 9ft wide, as you can see at the bottom of the photo.
One of my favorites: Leucadendron argenteum, the Silver Tree. It is so silver it glows, if you've never seen one. Sadly, only hardy to z9! Too bad they get to 30ft so it won't fit in my Greehouse (yet...)
And here's one of the SAfr garden curator: Ron Arruda. He was nice enough to give us a tour the following week, so more photos to come. The blooming plants along the trail are all Ls cordifolium. You can see a large Restio on the left, and I think a Melaleuca or something white blooming off in the distance. Far center is UCSC campus in the Redwoods.
Last, my Favorite new plant: Mimetes cucullatus. It's in Proteaceae and from SAfr. Stunning color. Sadly, I've heard reports of only 4-5% germination at Kirstenbosch. And Silver Hill Seeds just ran out for this year! Bleh.
