I pulled the Larkspur. As summer begins, a few other small tasks to hurriedly finish. Heat looms. Summer, the season of emergency spot watering, complaining about the heat, and Dahlias. The heat arrives Friday.
Most all the Zinnia seedlings are planted. Sunnier days and the soil gave them an instant boost after doing nothing for weeks during June-Gloom.
Finally branching!
Some Catharanthus still to be planted. Hopefully that will be easy.
New plants. They require protection until cooler weather returns in October.
Didn't need them, have no place for them. Two beautifully grown, thriving Leucandendron 'Ebony', because they were a screaming bargain price.
A free Zantedeschia hybrid, picked up at an end-of-year garden club meeting:
A trio of golden Duranta erecta in front of a arch laden with rose 'Eden':
But, back to new plants.
Leucophyllum 'Lynn's Legacy', is a tough, heat-enduring plant, but being small, needs vigilant summer protection at this size. Can do.
A few new-old plants, rooted from cuttings stuck in a glass of water for a week or two. One is Pelargonium peltatum, already planted and flowering:
As to last minute-before-the-heat tasks, the remaining sweet peas, drying out fast, must be pulled. Carpenter bees will have to make do with Salvia 'Mystic Spires Blue'.
Note pollen on bee's shoulders:
Shade needs to be rigged for the shade bed replanted this winter--it's not as shaded in early summer as well as I thought. Once the oak tree grows a little more, it will be.
Beach umbrella not quite enough:
Lastly, this year's end-of-June floral highlights.
Trachelospermum...the fragrance is heavenly.
Last year the Clematis didn't get enough sun, and rabbits ate the Trachelium.
Everything looks lush and lovely, especially those Agapanthus. I am growing a Zone 5-hardy variety but I doubt it will ever amount to much. The same is true of my Forest Pansy when compared to the one in the gorgeous garden. We are at the edge of the happy zone for that tree and it is having problems. It has been so hot and dry here that I think I need a couple of umbrellas like yours for my mostly shade garden.
ReplyDeleteReading about Agapanthus care from UK sources--they form next year's flowers around the end of summer so fertilizer then is supposed to help a lot. Also crowded roots help. I'm trying a deciduous species myself (deciduous are the most cold-hardy ones--from the eastern side of SA which has colder wetter conditions than the west) and am hoping I get flowers--may put that one in a pot so the roots get crowded to see if that helps with flowering. Potted of course probably not an option for your cold winters.
DeleteThe 'Forest Pansy' trees around the neighborhood here seem to do pretty well. I had the California native Cercis and it was a disaster. The eastern species is nicer.
A friend bought a bunch of umbrellas from Ikea they were some ridiculous price like $1 each and she got 10 or 20 and puts them all over her garden during extreme heat waves.
I'm glad you got some larkspur blooms. I'd have been tempted by a low-priced Leucadendron 'Ebony' too, even with no place to put another one. I'm overwhelmed by your plentiful Agapanthus 'Twister' - I have only a single plant, just starting to bloom like the rest of my noID Agapanthus.
ReplyDeleteWhy must Mother Nature move from one extreme to another?! We had a week of sunshine and comfortable temperatures and now a heatwave looms. The marine layer is hanging on again today but I still expect it to break by mid-afternoon. I'm about to head outside to start pulling out the sweet pea vines while temperas are still on the cool side.
The Larkspur were so pretty! I really loved them.
DeleteThe 'Twister's have shocked me--one clump not that big has 21 flower stems!!!!!!!!! On the other hand the 'Prunetucky Summer' has one.
Yesterday wasn't bad. There was a good ocean breeze coming in. Weekend should not be too extreme--mid 80's at most. Or maybe I'm just hoping our area will be tolerable.
So beautiful. Love these stunning photos. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHappy you liked the pictures. Thank you!
DeleteWow, that first arrangement is gorgeous! Your floral highlights and views from your meeting location are stunning, too. Happy summer!
ReplyDeleteThe Larkspur were a joy!!! Happy summer back atcha!
DeleteWe have heat arriving next week. I dread it. I planted Love in a Mist seeds last fall and only a few have come up and just now getting ready to bloom. Very odd. I am embarrassed to say that I don't really know how to pinch zinnas. Do you pinch out the main stalk or all over? I'm going to try that.
ReplyDeleteDreading heat also. I like it cool myself.
DeleteI tried Love-In-A-Mist one time--they didn't do much but they are really pretty flowers.
I don't really know either I'm trying it after last year when they were so sad. From what I read when the Zinnia seedlings are 4-6" tall or have 3 or 4 sets of true leaves (the seed leaves don't count) you pinch the top of the main stem leaving 2 or 3 pairs of leaves Then they branch and you get a bushy plant with more flowers. All the once I pinched so far are indeed branching, so we'll see what happens.
ones not "once". Also you can pinch the side stems as well when they have about 3 sets of leaves.
DeleteOkay, well that makes sense. I asked Michael about it and he says he pinches them but he was talking about pinching out the main bloom after it starts to fade.
DeleteAh, every gardeners nemesis, the plant sale. So easy to justify yet another purchase when the garden is already full. In the second photo of the plant sale garden there is an arch with a perfect green carpet over top. Do you know what the plant is? A beautiful garden to end your club's season.
ReplyDeleteYes that's Italian Cypress trimmed over the arches. Took a few years to get that effect. The lavish rain we got this winter made them especially lush.
DeleteBargains are tough to pass up, when the price and the plant are both great, even when there's no room, But I'll find places somehow!
The pollen laden bee is so cute. Ugh, I need to get out today and work on shading. We'll be 100 for 3 days in a row, that is too much of a heat up for me & the garden. Twister is amazing! Your hydrangeas look perfect, I love all the blending colors.
ReplyDelete100F, yuck. Sorry to hear that! Forecast here is is 86F starting Saturday--that's bad enough. Stay cool out there and good luck rigging some shade. I'll be doint that too
DeleteKind of surprised to read you "I pulled the Larkspur". Not perennials then? It just that I was so thrill to have mine return this year, first success after multiple failings in the past. It may have been the cloche protection.
ReplyDeleteLeucandendron 'Ebony' on the cheap is a fantastic find. You can deal with placements later :-D
Reading how you add sulfur to the soil for blueish hydrangea blooms gave me a chuckle. Here in the PNW, we add lime to get the opposite coloration switch. It's quite a phenomenon; I don't know of any other plant that does that.
Carpenter bee with Salvia 'Mystic Spires Blue': a beautiful photo!
Chavli
Consolida ajacis is annual. They are reliable reseeders. The annual version of Delphiniums. The perennial versions are not fond of our climate.
Delete"deal with placements later" Hah! Ain't that the truth!
Funny yes that regions where the Hydrangeas are pink, gardeners want blue, and where they are blue, the gardener wants pink. That's a gardener for you!
Those bees are fast. 9 out-of-focus photos for every one that is sort of in focus.
Hunkering down and waiting to plant until the fall rains resume. I've already lost half of what I planted this year due to heat and dry arriving a month early. This is the kind of weather that if you even miss one day, the new plants crisp within seconds. A good learning curve - if this is the kind of weather we are going to be having from now on, I will be buying a lot less plants in spring. The only problem is that it is so hard to forecast the weather months out in advance! That Agapanthus is amazing!
ReplyDeleteAnd you have such interesting plants. It's tough going when the heat arrives early. Same here--new plants need constant attention lest they toast. I rig little shade houses for most of them.
DeleteI'm impressed with that Agapanthus--it has far exceeded expectations and it seems to have one trait that is especially good--unlike the old standard Agapanthus that has the wide fleshy leaves that make perfect condominiums for snails, that one has thinner and narrower leaves that stand up enough to make a much less attractive refuge for them. An unexpected plus!
Beautiful flowering plants even with the heat. We had temperatures up to 104 in the East Bay (SF BAY area)and had some burn . Like you I use umbrellas to protect plants.
ReplyDeleteHow do I sign up for your Emails.. Would love to follow your blog.. Thanks
I read NorCal had a bad heat wave--our turn will no doubt come soon. Hope your garden got through it without too much damage.
DeleteI'm very sorry but I no longer have the email feature--Blogger got rid of it, and I've never found a satisfactory replacement that did not include ads (for goodness knows what), or have iffy privacy policies, or were offered by companies in sketchy countries with uncertain privacy laws...
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