Front Slope Progress/July Miscellany

We've enjoyed more than a week of very mild (for July) weather, mild enough to make outdoor activity possible for heat-avoiders (me).

Front slope status:  struggled though some irrigation improvements.  Beloved to the rescue!  Addition of a section, some repositioning, and new rotator nozzles have improved coverage.  Those things accomplished, plus the mild weather, enabled planting activity.
Agave 'Leaping Lizards', purchased on our vacation last October, finally got a place of honor (with irrigation!):

 A couple of months ago, two Agave ovatifolia 'Moby 2.0' from Pam in Austin, Texas went in.  Lots of empty space around them, but they get large and need the space.  To their left, an extra big space for an eventually extra big Agave marmorata, planted a year or two ago:

And the main re-planting area:

 1. Aloe 'David Verity'
2. Aloe 'Erik The Red'
3. Aloe alooides
4. Aloe sabaea
5. Agave salmiana 'Medio Picta'
6. Agave 'Blue Glow'
7. Senecio mandraliscae
8. Agave 'Mateo'

You can just stick cuttings in the ground and they will grow.  Even in July.  

Trying a new experimental tactic on the ever-problematic edge of the front slope:  a little ditch, in hopes the soil won't drift into the street.  Filling the ditch with the equally problematic Sencio mandraliscae, an easy-to-root, vigorous grower that requires more maintenance than I care to give it.  It has ugly flowers that bees and butterflies love.  So it stays, for now. 

In other front slope events, another Yucca 'Bright Star' flower is emerging.  The first is already fading, but it was spectacular for a few days:

A surprise summer flower stem just appeared on big bold Aloe rubroviolacea. Perhaps it was the extra irrigation it got from all the testing of the irrigation rework. 
Photo-bombed on the lower right by a Senecio flower.

 Two Drimia maritima (formerly Urginea maritima) flower stems also appeared this past week.  None of the three bulbs flowered last year, for reasons only they know.  Happy to see them back.  

 Mulch and time to grow will finish off the front slope for a while.  I'm still working to convince myself putting down six cubic yards of mulch won't physically hurt.  That, in itself, is a project. 

Elsewhere in the garden...

Bumblebees! 

 Liatris spicata flowers opened in the patio/koi pond garden:

 With Dahlia 'Nuit d'Ete' and Salvia 'Ebony Embers'

New small project:  improving the appearance of the patio.  A lot of odd small tools and materials like plant ties, the screens that go in the bottom of pots to hold soil in, pond-water tests--items that are good to have handy and that are accessed frequently (almost daily), end up on the patio and look so very untidy.  Must figure out a way to store them so they are at hand, but not visible.  Toolbox? 

Almost got an Oriole portrait at the urn.  
What skinny legs he has!

Finally worked up the courage to split the Aechmea blanchetiana 'Orangeade'.  It was massive, though not at all heavy.

 Two rosettes to a big blue pot on the patio.  Twice a day sun hits it just right and it lights up and glows

A rosette each to pots sunk into the ground.  I put one back in the original spot, on the right, and the other where a seedling day lily got a trial and failed in the beauty department.  Both rosettes have a Lomandra 'Platinum Beauty' as a companion, unfortunately not a wowza combination.  I thought maybe something in the burgundy-foliage range would be far better.  Another project for the list.  

Behind the right side Lomandra, Begonia 'Irene Nuss'  is having another good year after quite a few sad ones:

Stuck the recently purchased little Pentas in the empty place in front of the Aechmea:

That garden to-do list never seems to get shorter.  No complaints there.  A mild July has been heaven.