What's not to like?

New Zealand Flax. I will say one bad thing about this plant, but it isn't the plant's fault: Some varieties are far too big for their locations in a garden.

Now to the good stuff:

New Zealand Flax is a terribly well-behaved plant well-suited to water-wise gardens in southern California. You see it everywhere--just a spiky blast of colored foliage that might be light green, dark green, pink, red, crimson, almost white, or yellow. These many colors are often mixed and matched as longitudinal stripes on the strappy foliage.

The plant is exceptionally easy to propagate; just pull a pup off the side of a mature plant, making sure the pup has some roots. Stick it in the ground and nurse it along with water for a few weeks, and it's bound to make it.

NZ Flax can be under two feet tall, or up to what, eight feet or more? Be wary of varieties named Guardsman or Godzilla. (As far as I know there is no Godzilla flax, but there should be.)

Some flaxes are stiff, pointy, and upright, while others are curvy and weepy. None of them has the eyeball-piercing potential of a yucca or an agave, though, so the spiky fierceness is more for show.

They bloom in a most interesting manner. An upright spike emerges and branches out into an interesting articulated sort of candelabra of buds. Each of these will open to an unimpressive flower, but the overall shape makes up for the lack of showy floral interest.

What if you have a flax that looked cute in the pot, but is now taking up more sapce than a VW Beetle? Only one thing to do: part it out. Dig it up (easy task), divide it into smaller chunks with roots, and put an ad on craigslist. It'll be gone in a weekend. Heck, root the chunks in pots and sell them on craigslist!

When I worked as a garden designer, some clients rejected this plant for being too spiky, or looking like a cactus. Hmmm. It might not have a place in every garden, but it has a several in mine, where it adds color and form and never, ever, causes me a moment's worry.

Tell me, then, what there is to dislike about New Zealand Flax!

Starting the plant inventory

This is for people who love plants. I like them better than most anything, and frankly I don't care if they are in nursery pots or botanical gardens. I like to watch them grow. I love saving ones that are almost dead. Propagation fascinates me. I eat plants every day, I love them so much!

The first plant I will describe is a tree. Pittosporum undulatum, commonly known as Victoria Box.

The tree easily self sows, is not terribly long lived nor especially attractive. It drops annoying sticky seed pods on the ground.

It has a fragrance that is hypnotic in early spring, sometimes late winter. When I worked in a nursery, people would come in in early spring asking if we knew what the wonderful smell they were smelling was! They'd want to buy one, but we didn't sell them. The plant is a commonplace, old-fashioned, and somewhat messy green nothing...so why try to sell them?

The best place to buy this plant is San Gabriel Nursery. You can discuss with their workers whether the fragrance of Pittosporum undulatum is better than Sweet Olive, but trust your own nose! Sweet Olive might be more refined (okay, it is in fact better), but it does not project across your whole garden that way the Pitt does.

Note to Ms. Eastman: This tree is growing along the fence on the south side of your driveway, on the neighbor's side. It has dark green leaves with wavy edges, and small creamy white flowers. They might be blooming already.

Happy impending spring!