This Week In The Garden

Two  'Peter Mayle, a 'Sweet Madamoiselle', and four 'Dee Lish'

 

December Gully Rose Bouquets became a thing  without forethought or planning.  Roses purchased on impulse some years back needed to be planted somewhere, and they ended up down in the back gully, which is plenty sunny in spring, summer, and autumn, but fully shaded come winter.  Roses that ended up in the gully were of tall, narrow growth habit, and the flowers were always pink.  Again, unplanned.  It just happened.  

Because of their location, they begin rapid spring growth a month or six weeks after the rest of the roses, and continue later in the year, too.  By December, they are towering, over 7' tall.  Shaded, the soil is cool and moist, producing large, long-lived flowers as a result.

 'Rose Rhapsody':

Towering:

 Two 'Dee-Lish', (three if you count the bud), two 'Geranium Red', one 'Rose Rhapsody' and three Garvinea Gerberas:

The bouquets became a thing because it seems a shame to let the flowers go unseen and un-enjoyed.  The saturation of the colors and the size of the flowers, and the freedom from Thrips damage is delightful.

Also going somewhat unseen are the 'Snow Glow' Agaves up on the west slope.  I thought they'd be more visible, and constantly visible, in that location, but the Russellias grew taller than I expected, hiding the 'Snow Glow's.  

Unless one ascends the slope to admire them:

Typical gardening results.  Careful plans fail.  No plan at all works out fine.  

 Also deserving of a more constantly visible location is Gasteria acinacifolia, the largest species in the genus. 

Elegant and undemanding:

 More demanding has been the edge of the front slope.  The mess issue (soil and mulch constantly littering the curb and street) was somewhat solved this past winter by digging a trench along the edge.  As an experiment, I planted what might survive in such a nasty place, 100% dry and ferociously hot most of the year.  What failed and what succeeded?  

Fail:  Echeveria agavoides.  As Echeverias go, this is one of the toughest, but insufficiently tough for the trench.

Survivors that are in recovery:

Success:  Aloe brevifolia.  They survived summer looking fairly decent.  Another plus:  the hot dry conditions curbed the species enthusiasm for offsetting. 

Verdict still out:  the smaller, redder version of Aloe dorothea survived the summer, as did Crassula pubescens. 

Colorful, but how happy?

 Back in the gully, a clash of ideas.  On Thanksgiving our strongest Santa Ana wind event of this autumn filled the back culvert with fallen leaves.  I raked them all into this area and stomped them down as free mulch.  

Except...a week later I as dismayed to see...fallen leaves gone. 

...that our no-mow-just-blow guy thought to be helpful by raking up my free mulch.  It was all in the green waste bin.  Sigh.  I rolled the bin down the stairs and put all those nice dry leaves in a slightly different location, where the existing mulch was thinning, and where no-mow-only-blow guy would not be so tempted to rake them all up. 

Plans.  Bah, humbug!

 A nice surprise from the Mandarin tree:

 This year's fruit has flavor.  Last year there was no fruit at all, and the year before (the little tree's first crop), the fruit was tasteless.  It might just as well have come from a grocery store.    Still, I'm on the fence about keeping the little tree.  Not much of a snacker of these.  The oranges, limes, and avocados are insanely delicious--the Mandarins are not at that level.   We'll see how the  flavor is next year.  Young trees, as well as young roses, are rarely capable of producing their best.

Our Southern California autumns are a mix of things.  Some plants evoke a sense of autumn...

...while others evoke spring.  Though all the fall blooming Aloes are, well, fall blooming, so many different Aloes flowering at once recalls the feeling of springtime, renewal...

 ...with Lavenders for evoking summer.  And fall.  And winter and spring, for that matter: 

  We got a touch of rain twice in the past few days--anticipating winter.  Not much rain, not even a tenth of an inch (2.5 mm), but the current forecast predicts a better chance for early next week. 

Sunshine in the meantime:

 Shade, too:

Oops, forgot one last Aloe...polyphylla, still in its nursery pot.  Waiting to plant it where close-to-flowering Agave 'Kara's Stripes' is now.  That's got to be absolutely all of the garden's Aloes.