Little Things Lately

 Pachyphytum in flower

The weather is allowing for gardening again, and flowers are more abundant again.  The last daylilys of the year...
 The last few Clematis flowers...


Roses, of course.
And the last of the Dahlias.  
The fall-blooming Aloes are beginning.  There's an emerging stalk on A. suprafoliata:
Aloe deltoideodonta var fallax is farther along.


I'm enjoying it all while doing this and that.  A new plant to place somewhere:  Arctostaphylos bakeri ssp. bakeri 'Louis Edmunds'.
 Added some succulents around the base of the new fountain:
 Noticed the surviving new 'Mini King' Protea has a flower forming.  The other one died in our last intense heat wave.  I'd shaded it, but not soon enough.  I replaced the fried plant with Aloe aculeata, there on the right in the photo.  The shade cover will be on the survivor a while longer--we're expecting a hot weekend ahead. 
 The original 'Mini King' that sat doing nothing for a year--or was it two?--has finally grown a few inches, and has two flowers forming. 
 I've been cleaning the masses of drying spring and summer grown foliage out of the 'Rozanne's, leaving a small mound of fresh new growth and flowers. 
 Moved the compost pile to a place in the back, behind the 'Reed' Avocado, which hides it nicely.  It's full of old 'Rozanne' foliage.
 Burying a pipe to the lime tree.  It will transport pond water to the tree when I clean the filters.   The lime tree's water need is surprisingly low, but a little more will help it recover from the damage it suffered being shaded by the Eucalyptus that was removed this spring. 
 Some small Aloes planted, and the compost pile hidden behind the Avocado tree.  That pair of pots is staked so as to be a hose-guard for the Aloes.  The recently transplanted 'Green Tower' boxwood are getting regular soaks so they recover from their relocation. 
 That's what is going on in the garden.  It's sane out there.  It's a sane place, a fun place, a happy place, a garden.  Little things, lately, count. 

Comments

  1. You have clematis in your garden, how lovely! I really like them but local nurseries don't sell them I always thought they would not like hot climates but yours looks very pretty! I wish I could get one!

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    1. There are a few native to Southern California, believe it or not, so there must be a tropical-tolerant species of some sort--but the tropics/subtropics has so many fabulous vines, you probably have some I would envy!

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    2. The "viticella hybrids" like Mediterranean climates pretty well. Those are the ones that do best here.

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  2. Yes, the garden is understandable, even when the world is not. You've been busy, not that that surprises me in the least. I'm also tackling the lots of little things at the moment, like planting bulbs - some 150 are in and I think I just have about 50 more to go, although I vaguely recall that I may still have an undelivered order. The slow progress of your protea renews my hopes that mine may bloom - someday.

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    1. Bulbs, eh? There are some good ones--I meant to order more Tritelias a few weeks ago, because the ones I have are so fabulous and so reliable, but..where does the time go? Never seem to get around to bulbs--maybe next year.

      I think here the 'Mini King' is just slow--or else they are sped up by fertilizer, but one must avoid phosphorus--so I'd rather just let them be slow and see what happens. 'Mini King' seems to like a little less brutal heat than 'Pink Ice'. That's all I've concluded so far.

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  3. A solid month without a drop of rain, a good part of those days "hot" (80s), has me newly empathetic with dry gardeners. Pretty weary of watering; it's enough work attending to things in their 1st to 3rd year that I've held back on any new planting -- just a few moves/divisions.

    But, oh, the light! Coming through grass plumes and white asters and milkweed fluff and fiery red foliage... It helps.

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    1. A month?!? Different climate! I guess where you are not a lot of people have or need automated sprinkler systems?

      Fiery red foliage? Autumn color? Every climate has its advantages. Our "autumn color" here is mostly...brown.

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    2. Automatic watering systems are pretty rare here, but the reality is that month-long dry spells are pretty regular; every grasses to have one, but there's no telling which season it will fall in. Early fall is the most common (four of last seven years). OTOH it's highly local; there's a part of the county placed just right relative to a gap in the mountains so that it gets any rain that comes along from the west or south. By contrast, we're in a rain-shadowed spot -- a mini steppe in the eastern woodland. ;>

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    3. Here's an artifact of the micro-area differences in rainfall: This week's Drought Monitor is up, and the county is *still* not marked as even 'abnormally dry'. Either the higher-rainfall areas are pushing the county average past the drought threshold, or the DM is telling me that zero precipitation in September is the new normal. Suspect (& hope) it's the former. [Haven't been out to the north county to see -- too busy watering.]

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    4. Clearly reading too many English garden books lately: I puzzled for a moment over what kind of tree would be called a 'lime tree' here, since it didn't look like a Tilia, then smacked forehead. A nice echo of what was there before your neighborhood!

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    5. Ah, I almost wrote "Key Lime" as that is what it is, but didn't--and always wondered what a non-citrus "lime tree" was--had to look that up one time. This was a lemon-growing hill, surrounded by orange-growing flats. Lemons grown commercially back then were very slightly less cold hardy, and this hill gave them an extra few degrees of protection. Before the "urban heat island" conditions, frosts were much more common. Now with all the concrete and asphalt, frosts have become rare--we got one in the last decade that caused very slight damage to a few bougainvillea leaves...

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    6. And of course plants common to your area's gardens are usually not Agaves, etc., plants that can do a month or two without water without difficulty!

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    7. Extremely grateful that I got and made use of 'Perennials and their Garden Habitats' (Hansen & Stahl) when Timber brought it out in the U.S. All joking aside, the site of the main garden has real resemblances to some steppe and prairie conditions -- full exposure to prevailing winds, clay soil, and flatness (or what passes for it in Dogpatch Appalachia; the top of a small hill was scraped off to make the bricks for the house).

      Because I do next to no watering of anything fully established, I credit guidance from H&S for the high survival rate of plants that went in 20-plus years ago: globe thistle, perennial statice, sedums, barberry, smokebush, and native aromatic asters, yucca, and grasses. The reserves of clay soil help thirsty but deep-rooted things like Siberian iris and Miscanthus endure the random droughts.

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  4. Oh god - no doubt about that! The garden is one of the few sane places I know of, these days. I definitely need more time in it.

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    Replies
    1. Hope you are able to get out there and enjoy!

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