Ray Hartman California Lilac

Year-round

Ray Hartman is a garden hybrid California lilac bred from island ceanothus and Carmel ceanothus, and it acts like the tough chaparral ceanothus that already thrive around Los Angeles, with powder blue to dark blue flower spikes in late winter and early spring.

• This is a cultivar, a garden cross, not a wild species, so treat native range claims for it with caution, but it was bred from and behaves like Southern California native ceanothus species.
• Give it full sun to light shade and well drained soil. It handles LA basin clay, loam, and sand once it is established.
• It grows fast, often several feet a year, reaching roughly 10 to 20 feet tall and wide, so give it real room when you plant it near a walkway or fence line.
• Deer and rodents will chew soft new growth, so a temporary cage around a young plant is worth it in areas near open hillsides.
• Los Angeles rarely sees frost below the plant's cold tolerance, so winter cold is not a real concern here. The bigger risk in this climate is summer water.

Fall

Fall in Los Angeles is still dry, so keep the water off, and it is a good time to plant a new Ray Hartman ceanothus so its roots have the whole wet winter to settle in before next summer.

• Hold off on watering into early fall. The Las Pilitas growers note that avoiding water this time of year is part of what gives the plant a long life here.
• If you are planting new, fall is a solid choice in Southern California, ahead of the winter rains that will do most of the establishment watering for you.
• No fertilizer needed. Let fallen leaf litter sit as light mulch rather than raking the bed bare.
• There is little to do for curb appeal this season beyond removing any dead or storm-damaged twigs.

Winter

Winter is the Los Angeles rainy season and the start of bloom time for Ray Hartman, and frost is essentially a non issue here since the plant tolerates cold well past anything the LA basin sees.

• Los Angeles averages very few, if any, frost nights, and this ceanothus shrugs off cold into the mid teens Fahrenheit, so no frost protection is needed in this metro.
• Let winter rain do the watering. No supplemental irrigation should be needed in a normal rain year.
• Flower buds begin forming now, so this is not a pruning season, save shaping cuts for right after bloom in spring.
• If Santa Ana winds knock loose or broken branches down, clean cuts back to a healthy side branch rather than leaving a ragged stub.

Cleaning up any wind-broken branches after a Santa Ana event keeps the shrub looking intentional from the curb rather than storm damaged.

Spring

Spring is bloom season for Ray Hartman in Los Angeles, when the powder blue to dark blue flower spikes open, and it is also the one good pruning window before flowers fade for the year.

• Flowers typically open late winter into early spring here, so enjoy the bloom rather than pruning during it.
• Once the blooms fade, do light shaping only, thin a few crowded inside branches and trim flowering tips, working from the plant's center outward.
• Never cut back into old, leafless wood. Ceanothus will not resprout from it, so a hard cut there leaves a permanent dead patch.
• Skip fertilizer. LA's rainy season already gives it what it needs, and ceanothus roots fix their own nitrogen.

Light post bloom shaping keeps the shrub tidy and full looking from the street, but stop at thin outer growth, not old wood.

Summer

Summer is the season to leave this plant alone in Los Angeles. Once it is established, extra water in the dry months is the single biggest way people accidentally kill a California lilac here.

• Once established, plan on little to no supplemental water from roughly June through September. LA's dry season is exactly the rest period this plant expects.
• If it is on a drip line with lawn or annuals, separate its zone or cap it off. Regular summer irrigation and soil disturbance are the two things known to shorten a ceanothus's life.
• A newly planted shrub, first summer only, can get an occasional deep soak to help roots establish, then taper off.
• Watch for wilting leaves after a heat wave. If the soil underneath is still damp, that is heat stress, not thirst, and more water will not help.