Aphids on the Rose of Sharon in September -- really bad. Very infested. Buds are completely covered, leaves are shriveled and curled. I sprayed with a jet of water (that went awry and sprayed the neighbor's windows, ack.) That helped, then more aphids appeared and I did it again. All the blossoms are off now. In 2019 I'll have a soil drench applied professionally.
I've been debating what to put in the few containers I have, and have finally settled on simple annual geraniums -- Pelargoniums. Crisp foliage, nice fullness, nonstop bright flowers, no difficulties in our hot dry air . . . . just go with what's simple and works! I'll do this next year and avoid all the experimenting and fussing with different plants.
'Wee One' dwarf lavender seemed to be struggling. I dug it up July 22, and found there was a bit of a paper collar around the tiny rootball that wasn't disintegrating at all. I took that off. Despite daily soakings, this little lavender, with its 3 inches of roots, was dry and powdery. How can that be? I soak this every day. . . . Put it in the tall terra cotta pot.
✓ July 22 I cut back the Mexican Hat flower stalks. They were getting tall and floppy and had gone by. We'll see if there is any re-bloom. The plants take so much water to stay full and upright looking, I'm surprised.
✓ Moved the trough container of nasturtiums to shade July 22 and planted a few more seeds in the second trough. Took out the little ones by the driveway, Although nasturtiums want full sun and dry, lean conditions, they struggle in heat and the paltry yellow leaves are apparently the sign of heat stress. It's too hot and sunny for them in 90 degree sun at 7,000 feet!
Moved the six blue fescues to the shady garden under the dining room windows. Took out the 'Gro-Low' sumacs succumbing to wilt -- got new at Newman's & put them where the fescues were along the edge of the garage wall. They'll still have to deal with shade most of the day, but will get some direct sun too.
✓ Done July 11 - moved the grasses. They look nice in a curvy line in the shade garden.
'Perky Sue' plants are tiny and struggling. Take them out. Replace with the choca mocha cosmos (annual) for now.
✓ Mid July: that didn't work. Ended up putting the Agastache neomexicana (rose pink flowered) in that spot and it's doing well.
Got a Red Cascade rose at Plants of the Southwest and I put it on one of the tuteurs by the kitchen door (where the pine leaf penstemon was -- I moved that out to the front walk to pair with the one already there). Now the tuteur with 'Kintzley's Ghost' looks odd nearby. Take it out and let the vine scramble up the fence on its own?
'Shenandoah' panicums had to come out. No growth, struggling. I potted them up and will see if they can live in another spot (where?). I put in tall orange marigolds, yellow yarrow 'Moonshine' and a 'Neon' sedum in that hot dry strip. Also transplanted the orange nasturtiums there to spill over the metal edging.
✓ Done
'Gro-Low' sumacs seems to have verticillium wilt. Must come out.
✓ Mid July: sadly, done. Two were tossed, the one not yet showing symptoms is in a pot.
Reminders
Really need to divide the irises and add some soil to exposed rhizomes.
Observed in 2018:
👀 Observation on the shady dining room window garden:
Late May, all of June and most of July are completely shady here, with the sun so far north that it is completely blocked by the cottonwood all day. In late spring this is a full shade garden.
In late July the sun moves back south a little and out from behind the cottonwood part of the day. By August this is a dappled shade garden, with more high sunlight at times during the day.
👍 Successes the first year:
- Lambsear was a great success this first summer, full and filled in.
- The 'Chocolate Chip' ajuga too, although I water it a lot. It's spreading and full already.
- All the vines and climbers - red Cascade rose, Jackmanii clematis, Kintzley's Ghost honeysuckle, Major Wheeler red honeysuckle, and the Peggy Martin Rose -- are looking good, but doing the sleep, creep, leap routine, waiting to get going in two more years.
- Penstemons - the little red pineleaf ones and the 'Dark Towers' ones -- are settled in and filling out a bit.
- Gauras were great, and the tallest things in the emerging gardens this first season. Bloomed all summer in the potting bench curve garden!
👎 Not so successful the first year:
- 'May Night' salvia isn't growing. Its alive and green, but always wilted and it put out little growth all season.
- 'Poncha Pass' buckwheat is tiny, tiny. Alive and green, but no growth this first season.
- Epimediums and nasturtiums did not do well at all. Leaves are too papery thin.
- 'Oklahoma' redbud struggled. It lives, and I water constantly, but it wilted in the heat and any new leaves it put out yellowed and dropped. All season it looked like it was barely hanging on, not growing.
👀 Observations by month:
November - cold, cold and cold this year. Not like last November. Some snow, some ice, an overnight temp of 11 degrees one night, and all other overnight lows are consistently well below freezing, in the 20s. I finally got Big Red the Rain Barrel emptied, although it was a frozen block of ice encased in red plastic for the first part of the month. Days have been too chilly to even go out and clean up the limited bits of standing perennials I have.
October - what a gray, horrid October 2018 is!! Last year, our first in our new home, was warm and sunny and so beautiful. All of October in 2018 has been cold. Finger numbing, foliage browning cold, with one overnight low of 28 degrees at mid month, and lows in the 30s other nights. Days are overcast. Some rain. Not even pleasant for a walk. Ugh.
Late September - hummingbirds are gone now, none visit the feeder, although I saw one hover at a plant on the 24th. Nights are cold, mornings refreshingly chilly and afternoons still hot.
Grasses growing wild in the common area next to the driveway look good this time of year. There are still so many bare dirt spots in this area that I would like to fill, keeping it simple and only using grasses.
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| September 23, 2018 |
After struggling all year in various spots and containers where it crisped, dried up, refused to grow and never bloomed, the Choca Mocha cosmos is flowering in the shady dining room window garden. This is because I am a day away from pulling it out to plant the fall anemone there. So it decided to bloom just as it has to go.
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| September 24, 2018, just as I need to take it out and plant this area with the Robustissima anemone. |
Mid September - the Virginia Creeper is showing signs of reddening and turning.
Everything looks so nice in early September!
Most plants have filled in -- how they struggled and stayed small all of June and into July, but finally, with cooler temps and more humid air, they grew and all look perkier now. I can finally see what the garden will look like in years to come.
A half inch of rain while we were gone over Labor Day weekend made everything look refreshed. On top of that I had set up elaborate drip hoses and timers that delivered several hundred gallons, all while it rained!
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| July 21, 2018 Cape Plumbago |
Nasturtiums struggle. here No growth, yellow leaves. I had such lovely ones in the gravel garden in CT. Here I have them in pots, but only in full shade do the leaves look ok. They can't take any sun. No flowering.
Apparently, although they want full sun, they can't take hot sun, and need shade here just to survive. The seeds I planted in May are finally blooming, with almost non-existent foliage, in September!
Cape plumbago in a big round pot by the patio set looks great, though. It wants dry soil, but I find I have to water the pot almost every day.,
Watering to get plants established--I can't get the hang of it. When the plants were tiny in May and June (and the air was so dry and hot) I watered every single day and they barely survived, did not grow. In late July most started to fill in. I tried to cut back in July -- it's too much and I want plants to dry out a bit and settle in.
But if I go a day and a half or two days without a deep soaking, some things (the ajugas, choca mocha cosmos, the Peggy Martin rose, definitely the redbud) get very wilted, all limp. A soaking perks them up. Clematis and honeysuckle vines need watering all the time.
'Wee One' dwarf lavender seemed to be struggling and I dug it up. Despite daily soakings, this little lavender, with its 3 inches of roots, was dry and powdery. How can that be? I soak this every day. . . .
The same issue everywhere. When I took out the St. Johnswort in August, which always looked sad and limp, the dirt was dry. That was a plant I soaked all the time. Of course the cottonwood and aspen tree roots take all the water. I'll have the same issue getting the clumps of 'Swallowtail' columbines that I put there watered enough.
Early July I finally pulled up the Shenandoah panicums by the driveway that were stalled, not putting ANY growth on at all. Despite a ton of water every single day, the roots were bone dry and dusty. Very extensive root systems, but so dry. That was a surprise. I took them out and potted them up, and they looked much better. I then planted them in shade in the potting bench curve (and one behind the sumacs along the garage wall in pretty deep shade).
> Rain --Monsoons arrived in early July and every day brings black clouds and rain over the Sangre de Cristos to the east (and south of us too). On July 5 we got half an inch, and then on July 15 a full, driving inch of rain. Terrible floods from a rare two inch rain event on July 23.
August continued with off and on rains, not much precipitation, but lots of black clouds most afternoons and evenings. Nice mornings. Humidity around 40% many days, comfortable.
> Heat --July is more comfortable than June. August is even better. Afternoons are in the 80s, not so brutal. A little humidity. New plants that struggled and just didn't grow in June tentatively put on some growth in July and August and look happier.
Caryopteris is blooming on mature plants around the neighborhood by July 8 - earlier than what I'm used to. My Rose of Sharon started blooming in early July!
Choca Mocha cosmos -- an annual I love -- seems to really suffer in full sun. It's been moved multiple times, including to a pot in the shade to recover, where it did better. After it finally bulked up a bit in the pot I planted it in mostly sun by the patio, and it immediately wilted again. I think this wants shade here!
'Kintzley's Ghost' honeysuckle did nothing, not a bit of growth since planted in May, with tattered leaves from winds. When I water heavily, the water just disappears. I've been "overwatering", soaking it each day. In July, with a little more humidity and temps in the 80s rather than mid 90s, it seems to be perking up.
> Shade v. sun (moves!) -- the dining room window garden is way shadier than I thought!! Full shade all day in June when the sun is furthest north and smack behind the cottonwood all morning, then the house shades it in afternoon. By August the sun is back to the side of the cottonwood, and there is at least dappled sun / shade most of the day. Rethink plant selection for this garden.
The Rhus aromatica sumacs came out (bacterial wilt more than too much shade maybe). The St. Johsnwort struggles, and I took it out in August, replaced it with golden columbines. Agastache and Caryopteris were moved to sunnier places. I moved the Dark Towers penstemons to more sun.
Groundcover plumbagos (ceratostigmas) are good here in the shade and are spreading with lots of watering. I moved the blue fescues behind them, and these mounding grasses are doing much better in the shade than in the full afternoon sun (but deep morning shade) by the garage wall where they had been.
> Chlorosis -- it's affecting the 'Vanessa' parrotia and the witch hazel in the pot -- also smaller things like the red honeysuckle sempervirens and the Peggy Martin rose. I think it's overwatering. It was so hot and so totally dry in June, that I was watering every single day to keep things from wilting or browning and curling. Too much water and 90+ degree heat and the leaves turned really yellow between veins.
> Heat -- June is the hottest month! Afternoons consistently in the mid 90s and with the intense sun and with wind, new plants struggle. Especially the Oklahoma redbud, which hates the heat. I water it deeply almost every day.
July is better. August is really nice, with hot afternoons but little need for a/c and nice cool nights. September is lovely.
(With 10% humidity, transpiration loss is severe. Some plants can't handle it. The epimediums refused to live, the nasturtiums struggle. Anything with paper thin leaves does not do well in such dry air even with a lot of watering.)
By the first week in May the Virginia Creeper and the New Mexico privet are greened up and looking good. Finally.
At the end of April the Spanish broom starts blooming, and it continues into mid May. The scent is strong! Sometimes nice, sometimes kind of unpleasant.