Fugly and Not Fugly, and Trees

 

Certainly not fugly

In this area, Lagerstroemias (Crape Myrtles) went a long way in saving August from being fugly.

          

 What trees do to us.

This August was weeks of very hot weather, day and night.  The water and electricity bills are fugly.  Some plants manged better. 

Gaura 'Whirling Butterflies' had some good moments:

 The Cosmos mostly toasted.  The roses were largely already toasted, so it didn't matter so much.  This corner, with Roses 'Bolero' and 'Easy Spirit', Pentas, and Catharanthus, Agave and Sedum 'Coppertone', managed somehow, if you don't look too closely.  

 A late 'Storm Cloud' Agapanthus flower, most welcome.  No storm clouds here, just hot blue sky.

 We drove Harry to a local park several times, because our usual neighborhood walks were too hot to bear.  The park grows large old (100 years plus) native Oaks and Sycamores.  All-day shade keeps the soil around and underneath them cool and made for comfortable shaded strolls.  What trees do for us.

Harry staring in the park: 

What Harry was staring at:

Not at all fugly.  

 

When it was possible to walk around the neighborhood, which was right after sunrise, some sights provided food for thought.  Another prize-worthy entry in the"What We Do To Trees" saga: 

 

They had a pine, but they wanted a palm? 

 What we do to trees.  

 

A surprisingly dazzling choice (and nurturing of) a low-growing Juniper.

Wow.  Simply, wow.  Fugly, most certainly not:

Not a single weed, not a brown stem to be seen:

Amazing.  The rest of the property is unexceptional. 

 

Before being distracted by Crape Myrtles, this post began as a consideration of a plant I put in last year with great hopes it would be a tough, heat-defying  plant and another excellent food source for hummingbirds:  Dicliptera suberecta.  It began as a tidy, low growing pillow of fuzzy, gray-green foliage.  The flower stems began to emerge in late spring, and the plant began looking like a weed I had neglected to pull.   

Fugly.  

The flowers didn't open properly at first, drying and blackening.  Only one would occasionally look like something a hummingbird might take an interest in. 

Okay, not so bad...

But most of the flower clusters continued to shrivel and blacken.  Then after some weeks, for no apparent reason, they improved.

 (The purple-y flowers are a Teucrium)

So, maybe the fugly is just growing pains.  The plant may grow more attractive to both the gardener and the local hummers, given more time.  Granted.  

 

Another interruption to the Fugly Meditation was a large section of a Pittosporum snapping off.  I'd planted the Pitto to screen out a view of a neighboring home's bathroom window, which it was finally doing.  The section that was doing the screening was, of course, the one that snapped.  

Couldn't get the entire trunk in a panorama format.  Here's more of it:

There was another six feet or so hanging over the neighbor's wrought iron fence, which I hacked off somehow without letting any of it fall into the neighbor's yard.  

 

Here's where the big trunk snapped off:

Still need to chop up the rest of it, and the whole Pitto needs to come out, as there's obviously something wrong with it, but so much else to attend to lately.  I'm amazed I managed to do this post, however mixed up it is, with all the distractions.  

 

What trees do to us. 

 

Like this Amaryllis 'La Paz' that decided to open in September??!!?  

Not fugly at all: 

 And it rained today!  Over a quarter of an inch!