......I have found that even growing outdoors, leaves can be kept relatively pristine with proper care and culture....
The key words here are "with proper care and culture".
I absolutely agree that leaves in the wild can be in dreadful condition because no little elves are out tending them, squashing snails, heavily fertilizing or spraying, etc. They take root and survive where they can. In cultivation, most of us take at least some care in keeping the varmits at bay and tending the plants with fertilizer, at east once in a while.
I never saw the old Cyms in Orange County which I suspect are further south in warmer weather than the old nurseries in the foggy Santa Barbara area like Stewarts, Dos Pueblos, and Gallup and Stribling as well as some of the early wealthy private growers of the 1940's and 50's. I visited as a child some of these nurseries in the early 60's but never recalled "ugly" plants. Perhaps I was just too young to see.
I grow almost completely under oaks in the Bay Area and have some foliage damage but nothing that cannot be trimmed away for display purposes.
Hybrid Mode
