Finally Cooler! And Harry

 

Verbena 'de la Mina' against a background of orange Gazanias

Finally, cooler weather!  Hooray!  

Mailbox planter bed replanted with late Spring purchases that survived summer on the shaded patio:

 Reading about Teucrium aroanium on the San Marcos site--which said T. aroanium was really T. cossonii.  So my aroanium is a cossonii?  Good!  T. cossonii is a great plant.  

Here's a plant, purchased as T. cossonii, thriving across the driveway from the mailbox bed:

And still flowering: 

Looks about the same, for sure.  
 

Also added to the mailbox bed, an impulse-buy Tulbaghia 'Flamingo' (arrowed):

Tulbaghia, native to South Africa, common name "Society Garlic" is a fairly commonly grown plant in Southern California.  It is fairly tough. This area of the garden bakes in all day sun and dries out quickly. Tough plants are needed there.   Rabbits are also an issue, and they don't eat Tulbaghia because of its garlic-y scent.  

Removed from the mailbox bed, a lot of Crassula pubescens that found the area just too hot and dry to be happy:

 Unsure what to do with them. 

 One of the Aloe striata trio in the bed had no roots--too dry for the Crassula was too moist for the Aloe.

It should re-root in a few months and be re-plant-able:

Besides the mailbox bed refresh, what else?  It's like the first day of school--a bit chaotic, a lot hopeful.

 

 Whoops-a-daisy:  a six pack of Gazanias, purchased on the mistaken idea they were Gaillardias, are now flowering.

 I like! 

Pentas plants, rooted from cuttings of a neighbor's seedling last year, are developing into actual plants this year.  I like, too.  So far, rabbits seem to ignore those, too:

I swore this piece of Aloe vanbalenii wrenched a year or more ago from the large clump on the front bank ,was in January, dead.  It was dried up and brown.  

Look what spring and summer did to it: 

Nice to be wrong.

I thought one of the gorgeous Leucadendron 'Ebony' was dying and that September's heat would be the death blow. 

Sad to be right.  

Several weeks of heat followed by sudden mild overcast weather means suddenly not-bleached-out, beautiful flowers:

Lovely to be back out there.  

 And now, Harry:

Harry joined our pack a few weeks ago.  

He's half Samoyed and half Golden Retriever, with one or two percents of American Akita, American Spitz, and Great Pyrenees mixed in, if the doggie DNA test is  correct.  He's from a Samoyed Rescue organization, and certainly looks Samoyed/Retriever.   He's one year old.  Natasha thinks he's a silly kid, but very amusing.  He's helped us ease through the crushing loss of Boris, though he isn't a replacement for Boris.  He's 100% Harry.    

 He walks very well on leash, but being still a puppy, is even better at ripping things apart:  a box of Kleenex, a roll of paper towels, one of my favorite gardening books,  my new eyeglasses, three boxes of graham crackers, (ate all the crackers, though only half the  boxes they came in), a box of low-sodium crackers (ate the whole box of crackers, including the box), all the kitchen towels (twice!), and we're watching to see what happens next.  No, he's not allowed in the garden.  Yet.  

B&N were puppies once, too. 

Former favorite garden book, sacrificed on the altar of  puppyhood: