Some plants for a Mediterranean garden could be:
Oleander
Mediterranean Fan Palm
Cirus
Lavender
Olive

These are the only ones I could think of off the top of my head! Good luck!

We just returned from Italy and came away with one biggy ---- terracotta pots filled with geraniums EVERYWHERE.... from the humblest home to the Noble Houses... pots and pots of geraniums.

And, to the list above: grapes. :^)

Thanks everyone! Especially, Joe . . . what a list!

Green

Also, a Mediterranean garden is more than just a collection of certain plants.

It bears lots of rich/bright color.

There's generous use of tiles and stones of all kinds.

There'a almost always a water feature, often semi-formal or fully formal.

There's plenty of outdoor living space.

The general tendency is toward the semi-formal, including the use of boxing and hedging.

Joe

Joe, is this one of the lists on your CD? If so, how can I get a copy?

sumcool:

Yes, that is a shortened version of one list from the "Styles" section of my CD. It's one of 16 styles lists and one of 120 lists in total on the CD. I think there's close to 9,000 plants on the lists.

Just to make sure you're covered, the plants on these lists are suited to Sunset WGB zones 15-16-17; that's the Central Coast from SF to Santa Maria.

If you're interested in more details, you have to e-mail me separately. I don't want to make too big a sales pitch here.

Joe
gardenguru@yahoo.com

We created a Mediterranean style courtyard by taking out all the shrubs and laying a layer of brown-gold 3/4"gravel over all and then embedded a few pieces of flagstone here and there. Have a bistro set-2 chairs and small table, a fountain and all the following in pots of varying sizes- Arbutus (strawberry), Little Ollie (olive), Bay Laurel, lavender, fig trees, limequat, Meyer lemon, geranium and Don Juan climbing rose. We sprayed the sidewalk with stain to match the gold-brown color of the rock. Very nice and low maintenance.

I highly recommend the book "Sun Drenched Gardens: The Mediterranean Style" by Jan Smithen and Lucinda Lewis - it's gorgeous, and a wonderful source of inspiration.

Also, there are several California chapters of the international Mediterranean Garden Society. THe So. Calif. Chapter will be having their next meeting Saturday, November 19th, 2005, 2 p.m.,at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
Botanical Complex Auditorium, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino

Kassiebum's garden sounds very much like what we saw ... a lot of hardscape with just the right plant(s) to highlight the setting --- AND pots AND pots full of geraniums and begonias everywhere.

When planting your mediterranean plants in the ground, should I use fertilizer (like Osmocote) or just use the natural soil to keep it lean as in the Mediterranean region?
What do you guys do?

I think plants grow and look better with a little fertilizer--- and I like Osmocote.

Thanks, Westelle. Wasn't sure because with natives I learned not to fertilize.
DH and I bought the plants to redo a section of our garden, some native and some mediterranean, now we'll have fun planting in the rain, some with fert, some without.

There's Mediterranean and then there's California-style "Mediterranean." See the book, California Gardens: Creating a New Eden by David C. Streatfield for fine historic survey from natives, Hispanic, Victorian, Arts & Crafts to modern gardens with lots of photographs.
I recall gardens in Southern Europe being more cool in hue, greens, silvers, a smidgen of color from tiny flowers and gravel. California Mediterranean is more colorful because of borrowing more highly colored plants from other arid regions, Australia, South Africa, etc. (e.g.phormium).

Has anybody gone to a meeting of Med. Garden Society? I live in Orange County, and so it would take me over an hour to drive to that meeting. I'd like to know what goes on, and if it would be too far above my head. I just only recently got into gardening, but I've been reading some books about it.

We have a branch here on the Central Coast. People are very nice and run the gamut from professionals to newbies. There's also a wonderful quarterly magazine for members. Why don't you give it a try?

Mediterranean garden styles run the gamut, from native or naturalized species that must survive on winter rainfall only, to gardens that also mix in some commonly seen subtropicals and have become so ubiquitous in mediterranean climate gardens that they almost seem to be natives. Bougainvilleas and many of the showiest blooming plants from summer rainfall/year round rainfall parts of South Africa could be included in this category, such as Plumbago capensis, Strelitzia reginae, Tecomaria capensis, etc.

There is no one style of Mediterranean garden, and the Sunset climatic zones where they can be grown would include most of California where it is not desert or has sustained winter snow on the ground. To be true to the concept of a sustainable mediterranean garden, there shouldn't be a majority of plants all needing summer water to do well, as this is actually a season of dormancy in true medit climates, where rains generally occur fall through spring only. Water loving plants are usually restricted to patios or containers with sun and wind protection to minimize the use of scarce water. This lesson is most taken to heart where water costs reflect the natural scarcity. Not that many Californians are willing to garden with no summer watering at all, although it can be done...

I would add the newish book put out by the East Bay Municipal Utility District here in the San Francisco East Bay. It has very good photos of different styles and plant photos to get your thinking started on how to design your preferred vision of a mediterranean garden.

The mediterranean gardens I know are all Greek, both island gardens and town gardens. My friends on Aegina grow olives, lemons, apricots, table grapes, figs, tomatoes, roses (tall unkempt hybrid teas!), bougainvilleas (but they are getting rid of them because of the thorns), plumbago, lemon verbena.
The most important feature of their garden is the patio roof and the vineclad pergola over the car, both for shade.
One of their neighbours' garden is covered with the same succulent all over that gives the effect of grass.

A feature of less grand gardens is painted olive cans used as plant containers, with pelargoniums as the most common pot plant, osteospermums the second most popular. (For that authentic look you may also throw some empty plastic water bottles around the yard.) In the Cyclades woodwork and gates are painted blue on white houses, nearer the mainland any color is used or the wood may be varnished only. Houses are ochre, pink, yellow.

If the gates are blue, then do those gardens also use some blue plants to pick up that blue? I've noticed that there aren't any truly blue plants out there. Most of the plants that are called blue are really more purple. The house has some cobalt blue colored tile as a repeating motiff which I wanted to pick up on by using blue plants, but that doesn't seem possible.

Not cobalt blue, but definitely blue colored:
Senecio mandraliscae and S. serpens
Clerodendrum ugandensis
Agave attenuata 'Nova'
Plumbago capensis 'Royal Cape'
Dianella tasmanica, D. ensifolia,
Thunbergia grandiflora
Agapanthus species
Aristea ecklonii
Ceratostigma species

There are many blue Salvias, as well.

Brenda

Ceonothus have blue flowers (many shades of blue, white too). I've seen flowers in ultramarine blue (Agapanthus 'Ella Mae'). It's Cerulean blue that is unusual, Tweedia caerula has it, but it's a small, dainty flower. I grow the richer blue Plumbago in a blue glazed pot and it's gorgeous.

This is a newbie question, but if the plants aren't the same shade of blue as those tiles, then does that still work? I got the idea of using the same color for the plants as the tiles from a cover of a sunset magazine where they used purple plants that picked up the same color purple on the walls. But, I believe that those two purples were the exact same shade.

Marianne,

What's with the plastic bottles around the yard? It just struck me reading your post.

Thanks,
Green

Marianne, I really appreciated your information on Greek gardens - and your sense of humor (the water bottles!).
Do you know what are the most popular vines used on pergolas?

Sorry I am late checking in on this forum. I garden in cold Sweden and rarely get the chance to do any Mediterranean gardening although I visit my friends in Greece every other year. I was allowed to prune their roses one winter.

To be frank, the Greeks are not great gardeners and to provide shade seems the most important thing to them, hence the many trees. I think my friends are exceptions to this norm. But they are slaves to their very old gardener who will not let them grow whatever they want. He recently put his foot down on cypresses because he said they are cemetery trees. I have not noticed much color schemes in Greek gardens, they may grow magenta bougainvilleas next to scarlet geraniums. I have never noticed any picking up of the house paint and the bright blue used in the islands would be difficult to match anyway. My friends' shutters, doors and gates are dark red so anything goes in their garden. But I think the light is so strong around the Mediterranean that colour clashes do not offend the same way they would under our pale northern sun. Furthermore, the Greek soil is such a bright terracotta red that it invites strong colours.

The mosts common vine for pergolas is grape vines, the small green seedless dessert grapes. Bougainvilleas in every colour is very common but I am sorry I don't know the names of other common climbers. One is yellow, flowers a bit hibiscuslike, another is pale blue and heavily scented.

Oleanders, daphne in Greek, is the most common street tree in suburbs round Athens, but it is rarely grown in gardens.

Check to see if your local library has 'Sun Drenched Gardens: The Mediterranean Style'. Good book.

Thanks, Hoov, I'll try the library tomorrow.

We are redoing our landscaping front and back and added a pool! We are doing the formal look in the front (face North) with english boxwoods hedged but in the back we would like a little less formal. Our pool decking is tumbled marble stone set in sand. It is very mediterranean looking. Not only do we need mediterranean plants but pool and bee friendly as well. Also, our backyard faces South and we receive full sun all day! Is the list that Joe posted applicable to our area here in San Jose - 95120 Almaden Valley? Help...all suggestions welcome.

Floatingaround: I just looked up San Jose in my Sunset Western Garden Book. Looks like San Jose is in Sunset zone 15. Do you have the Sunset Western Garden Book? This is my 'Bible'---very good book, get it if you don't already have it! There is a section on plants to use near swimming pools (pages 130-131)---this may be helpful to you.

Becky

Hi Becky - The zone thing is very confusing but by zip we are zone 9? I like you thought we were 15 too! I do have the book but looking for a little more input from some of the garden experts out there! Thanks - Tracey (floating around was the name I used for the pool forum....I really need to change that!)

Hi Floatingaround. We are both in USDA zone 9. BUT, you are in SUNSET ZONE 15 where I am in SUNSET ZONE 19. You get a lot more frost than I do down here in Temecula, California. The SUNSET ZONES are used by that book. Hope this clarifies the zone thing.

I will post any recommendations I have on the other thread of yours.

Becky

One of my favorite vegetables is Brassica nigra or Italian mustard. I have never seen it sold as green or seeds in oriental or American markets which have many other mustards, mainly Chinese or Indian. My wife was in Milan,Italy this spring and saw this mustard in every vegetable market she visited.

It was introduced to us when I was a child by the minister of our church who was orignally from Sicily. We were the only Chinese family and in fact the only non-ethnic Italian in the whole congregation.

I have been growing them for 4 years and cooking them Chinese style. I got the seeds from 2 wild plants growing in a vacant lot in Stockton. It is a very common weed with its beautiful yellow flowers along the roadside and freeway.

August is the best time to seed them.

Here's something a little unusual and in fact I didn't see it above in Joe's list, however, I assure you it is Mediterranean. It's a bulb, a very LARGE bulb with the common name of Sea Squill or Sea Onion (Urginea maritima). I took this photo this morning. Sea Squill is the plant with the white flowering stock. It's presently about four feet tall and may grow another foot or more.

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I just happened upon this posting, and feel compelled to add a bit of info regarding fertilizing new plantings.

The current "rule" regarding California native plantings is NOT to fertilize or amend soil at planting. This is especially true if the plants are native to your local area. In theory, if it's a native, the soil should contain everything your plant needs.

That said, by virtue of normal landscaping practices, we have mucked things up for our plants. Still, with natives, it's best to start without fertilizer.

If your plants are from other Mediterranean climate areas of the world, then a little starter fertilizer may be helpful. It may also be necessary to amend the soil to improve drainage. They key is to match the plant's natural habitat and needs as closely as possible. Note: if you have clay soil, but your plant is native to an area with different characteristics (rocky, sandy, low phosphorus, etc.), you need to be mindful of this. Clay is wonderfully fertile, but tough on plants that prefer better drainage.

If you do choose to fertilize, organic fertilizers are better for the plants, soil, and the environment.

for pergulas, in addition to bougainvilleas try mandavillas and thunburgia (full sun)