An interesting, beautiful and rarely seen manzanita from the diverse mountains outside San Luis Obispo, Santa Margarita manzanita looks a bit like Arctostaphylos glauca, which it grows amongst, but with the hairs of pajaroensis or columbiana. So far it’s been fairly well behaved in cultivation, withstanding our coldest winters, summer heat spikes and nursery culture with ease.
A fantastic species in the center of manzanita diversity around San Luis Obispo. This is our favorite selection of this very lovely blue leaved species with slightly fuzzy leaves and pink stems. The new growth is a lovely pinkish orange with red accents around the leaf edge that later fade to a soft blue.
A compact selection with new growth that ages to a subtle purple color late in the season when conditions are dry. It contrasts beautifully with the blue older growth. Purple Waves forms a large mound that has great texture when the foliage turns purple late in the season.
A larger leafed form with super vigorous upright growth. Plants get a little larger overall than the typical form and grow quite quickly when young.
Likely our favorite of the many Arctostaphylos luciana selections we’ve made, this one has wonderfully blue foliage along with a deeply auriculate clasping leaf that gives a texture similar to juvenile Eucalyptus foliage. Named for our friend’s daughter Lucia Mae who was born just before we found this beautiful plant.
A favorite manzanita of many Arcto-philes, this clone introduced by one of our favorite local nurseries, Xera Plants, it has become very popular since they introduced it. We’ve rarely seen an Arctostaphylos canescens that we didn’t want to grow, but this subspecies and form is particularly pleasing with silvery blue leaves and pink stems on new growth that age to become stunning mahogany trunks. Not the easiest manzanita to cultivate so be sure to site it very carefully, but once it is established it is a wonderful addition to the landscape.
Really handsome little selection of the rarely seen Mt. Diablo manzanita, Knobcone Point has beautiful grey blue clasping foliage and nice glossy bark in time. Very dense grower, and best in lean soils in full sun where it can maintain the handsome compact habit. We’ve yet to see these grow larger than 4′ tall and about as wide, though in the wild they grow into large upright shrubs. Named presumably for Knobcone Point in Mt. Diablo State Park, one of the only places you can catch this stunning manzanita in the wild.
A selection of our native Whiteleaf Manzanita named for the very cool Cat Faced Spider we found climbing on it. We’ve tried many different Arctostaphylos viscida selections and they often are very disappointing in the nursery and in the garden, either due to their slow rooting, collapse after potting, or spotty foliage when it gets into the garden. This one has so far been quite easy and seems to have less winter leaf spots than other selections, though it should still be sited somewhere with great air circulation.
A favorite new silvicola selection we found with our good man Stormo in one of the few places this stunning manzanita grows. We’ve long been smitten by the kaleidoscope-esque patterns that growth tips on manzanitas can get, not dissimilar from why we find Hebes so attractive, and this one is a beautiful example of that form. Very nice when viewed from above! And the red edging around the leaf edges really adds to the wonderful texture on this one.
An exceptionally blue form of Arctostaphylos luciana, so blue in fact that we had to call it it Blueciana. While all forms of this species have a wonderful blue to grey coloring to their leaves, we found this one particularly striking. In the wild it had a fairly compact habit and has proven to be exceedingly adaptable to garden conditions if provided good drainage and minimal summer water.
