The garden is tired and disheveled; so is the gardener. This year the transition from the dry season to the cool season was abrupt. (Will this cool season even be rainy?) Summer dragged on and on. Autumn was instantaneous.
The roses respond quickly to even a few days of cool weather:
Callistemon 'Slim' responds to water with new flowers, no matter what the temperature:
Overall the garden looks cringe/raggedy close up. Not so bad from a distance. There's still non-green color--Catharanthus and Salvias the late-summer/early autumn heroes.Salvia 'Red Rome':A few Dahlias hanging on thanks to the cool-off:Zinnias could be pulled. No mildew, but nearly all the flowers are half-eaten by something. I saw the goldfinches working around the top tips of the plants--assuming pecking at insects? They were not damaging the flowers, and they were at it for a while, so they must have been getting something. Hemerocallis 'Bella Sera' goes on and on and on:One Dahlia seemed to be checking out the new late growth on a neighbor. I'd cut off all the old toasted stems. Gomphrena haageana watching the investigation at lower left: Planted some months ago, the shrub-habit Lantanas suddenly look great again. They took a hit from the two September heat waves, but bounced back in just days:Catharanthus and Pentas, summer heroes. The Catharanthus will start shutting down soon, but the Pentas may go to early December before they shift into winter-miserable gear. Worth keeping though. They revive by mid-Spring. Glad the roses revived. I missed them. That's the best Dahlia 'Dracula Dark Angel' has looked since July. Nice October surprise: There's what most of the Zinnia flowers look like: Nice accidental pairing of Agave 'Joe Hoak' with the gold trailing-habit Lantana. I thought that was a shrub-habit (compact) Lantana at purchase--wrong. The chopped-back Cupheas recovered quickly with a soaking and splash of fast-acting liquid fertilizer. The lingering summer weather for them, was a good thing: Sweet pea seedlings appearing!The tiny Dahlia sprouts that appeared in late spring from remnants of failed clumps--the ones I moved to a raised bed grew happily and produced a few flowers--they will be viable clumps again next year (I hope). The Zephyranthes have been a joy this late summer and early autumn. Mangave 'Kaleidoscope' is the background plant: More Clematis flowers from late growth--though our recent little rain shower knocked them over.Gerberas too welcomed the cooler weather with flowers: Sprekelia, too. We're all glad it cooled down.Hot days forecast yet again but only briefly--Tuesday and Wednesday. Garden and gardener can manage that. Happy October blooms!
Opened the front door this morning to check on the weather outside and first thing I saw was a wet sidewalk. It made me so happy.
ReplyDeleteWasn't the rain awesome? I was thrilled, too.
DeleteYour garden is looking beautiful? I look forward to each new post.
ReplyDeleteYou are very kind, Jeanette. Thank you.
DeleteI was startled to see a daylily in bloom - I think I have to look for 'Bella Sera'. I love the pink dahlia. I'm trying to decide how long I'm going to baby my late-blooming dahlias before pulling all the tubers up to get my cool season garden started. Work on cutting my plants back has just begun but I'll follow your "recipe" with my Cupheas and Lantanas, all of which are on the scraggly side at present. I'm glad you've avoided mildew - my cutting garden is rank with it.
ReplyDeleteHave plenty 'Bella Sera' if you can't find it. I'm wondering too about what to do with the Dahlias over the cool season--will probably let them sit until they re-sprout next spring. The lazy way.
DeleteKept expecting mildew, but not getting it. Perhaps the drought killed it off. Drought has to be good for something...
Hi Hoover, your garden looks so pretty and here we are almost halfway through October. I love that nosy little dahlia checking out it's neighbor. What a beautiful creamy rose, looks like some kind of David Austin? That's a nice shot with your fountain area too. We did get heavy mist down here all day yesterday and it's still clouded over.
ReplyDeleteThank you Brenda, very kind of you. I've been working for a few years trying to get a better-looking late summer and fall garden--its starting to get there. In years past from about August to November it looked so terrible, I had to do something!
DeleteThe yellow rose picture 2 is 'The Poets Wife', an Austin rose, yes. It's a good one.
Hope you got some rain--we got more last night.
Wow, the views from a distance and close up are equally impressive and beautiful! I'm a huge fan of Zinnias, your roses are stunning, and everything else is awesome, too. My memories of Callistemon are special...I remember watching a hummingbird flit in and out of a grove of the blooms at a California botanical garden. Sweet.
ReplyDeleteI need to figure out the zinnias...may have planted them too late. Will try again next year and see if I can do better.
DeleteThe hummers really love the Callistemons. I was out watching them fight over the flowers the other day, zooming around one shrub that was particularly full of flowers. So entertaining.
So lovely. Hardly raggedy from my point of view. Your garden is a very pleasant mini-vacation, filled with flowers. I love flowers. They make me happy. Elizabeth
ReplyDeleteI had some ragged foliage pictures, but I thought nahhhh. Pretty is more fun. I love flowers too!
DeleteLoving the view of the urn and blooms next to the wall. Outstanding! We don't have autumn here either. In fact, it continues to be hot and dry. Yuck
ReplyDeleteThe rain will be there soon! Here the hot and dry will return. :( We're never satisfied.
DeleteFourth photo in of your garden: I think it looks spectacular. Still so much happening in your garden. Joe Hoak is a stunner. We have yet to have a hard frost here but the weather is still pleasant. It's interesting to see how fast the plants responded to the cooler temperatures and commenced reblooming and the gardener rejuvenated and ready to attack projects again.
ReplyDeleteI think we're more sensitive to changes in the weather when we're out in it all the time.
DeleteYour garden looks refreshed by the cooler weather - not toasted at all. The Poet’s Wife must be much tougher than her delicate good looks imply - lovely!
ReplyDeleteIt would have been too sad to post photos of the toasted bits!
DeleteDavid Austin's yellow roses, e.g. TPW, 'Golden Celebration' and 'Molineux', have done particularly well here. Seems to be their climate. The pinks and reds are feast or famine, mostly famine.
That Zephyranthes / Mangave 'Kaleidoscope' shot is delicious! Our final days of warm sunshine are being usurped by seriously unhealthy levels of smoke in the air from nearby fires. Silly me for leaving so much of the Great Migration to the end.
ReplyDeleteVery sorry you are having smoke. We know how awful it is. N-95 masks? We had a box for fire weather, which came in handy for Covid. Doesn't help with the eye stinging, though.
DeleteThe Zephs--wonderful plant. They stagger their bloom depending on tiny sun/water variations, so their blooms season is extended.
So glad you're catching a break with the temps and some rain! The warm dry October up here made news in the national WashPost as more records fall in the PNW for heat waves and length of days without rain, etc. -- not news to gardeners, though, is it? The lay public, however, has to have this pointed out to them, I guess...
ReplyDeleteThe heat wave we're getting now is the classic one we always used to get at the start of September--three days of dry heat. September now is an extra month of Summer. :(
DeleteGiven all the issues you've been dealing with this gardening year, things look good to me. Frankly, I would swoon walking into your garden and seeing those roses. And that Dahlia 'Dracula Dark Angel' is dramatic enough to make me finally take the Dahlia plunge.
ReplyDeleteDahlias are really fun. If your summers are not too hot, they can be spectacular. They can be grown from seed, too.
DeleteVery kind, thank you!