An Exquisite Pause
After rain and cold two days ago, Saturday hit a balance between hot and cold, damp and dry, overcast and sunny. It was a little of both in an incredible moment of quiet pause. I took a walk after weeks of inactivity -- the weather had been too hot, then too cold, my root canal, scheduled appointments, smoke in the air, etc. etc. -- but Saturday all was on hold and I got out.
It was 72 degrees, I felt fit, I walked, there was no breeze. The neighborhood was stilly quiet, almost languorous, but with tiny signs and sounds of domestic activity from afar. I was alone. No dog walkers, no bikes. Almost no traffic except the silver glint of passing cars on Cerrillos far in the distance. It was an amazing feeling of utter calm, sparkling cleanliness, comfort and ease, with a vague background tension of change coming.
For the moment, for one afternoon, it was eerily peaceful, the perfect temperature and outdoor atmosphere, beckoning a walker home to comfort and bathing everything in a glow of perfection. Weird. Beautiful.
September 10
A Cold Rain
After hot hot summer afternoons, it abruptly turned wintry cold on Sept. 8 and snowed enough to stick. Wild weather, ushered in by pretty severe winds the day before. It never got out of the 30s all day on the 9th and today is just as cold and gray. The heat roars all day in this chill. Annuals survive, like the orange zinnias, but the red geraniums look battered. All the Rose of Sharon blooms are shattered.
🌧 Rain overnight brought over half an inch -- almost 3/4 in the rain gauge. A soaker.
Labor Day
A quiet weekend
I bought a New England aster. There is color now from the red rose and the fall anemone and the Rose of Sharon. The dining room window has some rebloom and the kitchen courtyard still has orange zinnias. But little in back now -- just fading blackeyed Susans and a still-bitty red agastache. I wanted color after I put the boxwoods in so I got a Purple Dome aster. Not sure about this. Lavender purple . . . ummm.
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| Purple Dome is a dwarf aster |
But I dithered on where to put it, finally settled on the empty spot in front of the new boxwood. Pretty deep shade there. The Raydon's Favorite aster by the garage does well in shade, but does get afternoon sun. This one, a dwarf mounder, will take shade, but it might be too much.
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| Still waiting for the Hakonechloa to grow and fill this space. |
And I am not at all sure about the screaming magenta lavender purple or whatever this color is --- I'm not actually doing a page for this plant in the database, not sure I'll keep it. Let's see if I like it when it blooms . . .
I think I'd prefer some white coneflowers standing just above and behind the fountain of grass once it fills in, and with the deep green boxwoods as a backdrop. Three staggered heights, all together.
September 5
Late summer flowering
The Robustissima anemone is blooming, a darker shade than the shell pink I remembered, but it's nice to see this tiny plant flowering, and the leaves look great. It's slowly bulking up. And next to it there are re-blooms on the red Splendens heuchera and the white Icicle veronicas. Nice.
The Red Cascade rose is putting out flowers again now. The Rose of Sharon has never had so many flowers all over it. It's still an awkward shape, but it is flowering prolifically.
The second boxwood got planted yesterday and the grouping of all three looks fine. Can't believe I dug the deep holes and got the big boxwoods in, but I did. Still need to re-set the Shrubbler system now.
September 3
New Plants
I took out most of the container plants before we left for CA to make watering easier and because it was the end of the season anyway. I planned to leave them empty. But when we got back I decided to plant some of them back up, and these just make me happy:
And I finally found tangerine orange pansies for the bowl by the garage door, which I wanted in spring. The orange is a sweet look that I always like.
And I found a couple Immortality white irises to add to the two I have at the bottom of the fence.
Also . . . bought two more Green Tower boxwoods at Agua Fria to make a grouping in the back corner by the potting bench. The original one has done really well. But all they had were 15 gallon containers. Yikes. I got two -- very expensive, about $300 -- and am planting them myself. Had to move the Shrubblers all out of the way and dig very large holes. And each container weights about 60 pounds!
One is in, the other will be planted tomorrow. If I don't die of aches and pains overnight from today's work . . .
August 26
We're back
Great trip - very long drive, but traffic was ok. Tom's house is so nice. The back yard terraces have been cleaned out, new privet plantings line the sides and they did solar uplighting to highlight the manzanita trunks at night, very nice. New blue chairs at the top -- it all looks good and refreshed.
The front landscaping is professionally done and maintained and it looks great.
When we got back home all was well. My irrigation system worked. Most things look fine, although it was hot hot and dry dry the whole time we were away. Joan came and the pots and new things in front are well watered. The cuphea is gone by, it is losing leaves. I may have been over-watering before we left, and she watered it well too, now it has declined badly. All else is good.
The Rose of Sharon burst into bloom while we were gone. Flowers all over.
That branchy part up top on the right needs to be pruned off to give this a rounder, more compact look I think.
The Honeycomb butterfly bush also bloomed while we were away. For some reason the plant is only 8 inches high, not growing upright at all. A tiny thing, with healthy green leaves and a few pretty flower spikes. But the size and shape -- really? A small ground cover?
August 20
Six Days Gone
We leave today and I am anxious. Shrubblers and timers are set up for watering, Joan will come to water pots (I got rid of almost all but still have the big pots in back) and she'll water the new stuff in the front triangle and out by the driveway.
There are some plants that the Shrubblers don't really reach, and even the plants they reach only get a dribble in a few inches near the roots, but all will have to survive until we get back six days from now. Not a drop of rain in the forecast, not a drop of rain since July 25, a month ago. Hot temperatures for August. I'm just trying at this point to keep things alive.
Just as we go, the First Choice caryopteris is in bloom, and as the light amethyst buds open they really are a darker, richer purple than other blue mist shrubs.
Finally this little plant is putting on a bit of size, and I do like its flowers.
August 15
Preparing to go
Everything all summer has been in preparation for our one week trip to California. We leave Thursday, and will be gone for six days. All of my Shrubbler installations have been in anticipation of needing to water while we're away.
Today I unpotted all the containers. Some were just starting to look okay, none were really stars this year. The red geraniums were in a dormant stage with some buds forming to rebloom. The marigolds in the green trough are blooming and are nice but not the dense orange clumps I wanted. The nasturtiums, pffft. The white petunias were pretty and bloomed all summer, but never filled the pots. A lantana I just bought did nothing much. All are gone now.
The only stars are the Kent's Beauty oregano in the terra cotta trough, which I'll save and put in the tall urn in front when we get back, and the redtwig dogwood with blackeyed Susan vine -- that's nice. Also the cuphea in the fiberglass white pot.
Joan volunteered to water and seems eager to do it, so I can have her hand water the big pots in back and I'll have her hand water the new things in the triangle garden in front -- maybe also the Mojave sage and fernbush sprigs out front too. I'll leave a watering can for her to do that.
And yet . . .
They look their best right now, and are one of the few things in color tucked in spots around the gardens.
But I won't see them while we are gone, and it's end of summer by the time we get back, and they are not container plants I want to winter over.
But I hate to get rid of them nowat their peak and after all my struggles to get them to look like this!
August 13
Looking Good
You know what looks very good right now -- the Swallowtail Columbine foliage. It's lush and healthy and green. I can't get over it.
With a little pot of fulgida blackeyed Susans tucked in there, and the red blooms of the Texas betony, which goes on and on, it looks nice.
The Black Barlow columbine foliage in back doesn't look good at all, and one of the three plants has been lost.
The hollyhocks did not bloom this summer, but the foliage looks great. No rust. Flowers next year?
My Shrubbler system seems to be working; I run it every other day and things in this garden in particular look healthy for the first time. Even the Splendens heucheras, which tend to wilt badly without enough water.
And the blue fescue grasses, which I have been supplementing with the hose, look better, not so tawny brown, and bluer.
And two little bloomers for the first time - the Lacey Blue dwarf Russian sage under the kitchen window, and the First Choice caryopteris in front are both flowering.
I wonder how big the Russian sage will eventually get -- it's a dwarf size. And the caryopteris is supposed to be more upright (and a deeper colored bloom). A few more seasons will tell, but they are both on their way.
August 7
A Little Clean Up
I spent just an hour or so this morning cleaning up leaves from the front triangle and taking away some bigger red volcanic rocks so the sedums and monardella can spread. Added some bagged garden soil, especially around the crowns of the sedums. Put down the rest of the bag of smaller volcanic rock mixed in with the larger. Hoping the smaller stones will still provide mulch cover but not inhibit spreading as much as the big chunky rocks.
I work so slowly -- even this little project took a lot of schlepping bags and getting buckets for the rocks and for the leaves and a lot of getting up and down. My gardening is done in such small, slow tasks now.
August 2
Ordered Some Stuff for Fall
From High Country Gardens for September planting:
The red lambsear (Texas betony) goes at the back of the potting bench curve. Long bloomer, can take shade. Nice red.
Blue Veronica adds to the ones in the driveway strip. Hardy plumbago will go in a new spot that I will prep with soil on the other side of the rock swale near the front portal . . . and the plumbagos I have now that are languishing in too-dry conditions near the grasses will go there for better performance too.
The blue salvia -- not sure. Maybe in the small vase shaped terra cotta container that has Wee One lavender in it now -- the lavender seems to be kaput. This salvia is a dwarf, only 10 inches high and a foot wide so it could fit in this pot? Blooms are supposed to be vibrant purple.
And more tulips along the garage wall. Bright colors. Tequila sunrise.
Also seeds: Gaillardia aristata, an unassuming pretty blanketflower I want more of.
August 1
Summer Refresh
It's clear to me now that I have been under-watering in the past and that accounts for a lot of my failures and struggles. This year, between hand watering and the Shrubblers, I am keeping everything so very wet every day. Stuff looks great. The redbud, for the first time, does not have thin, wilted leaves or yellowing.
Flowering has been decent on most perennials. Japanese forest grass and Blue Ice amsonias are not big yet, but looking fuller. The transplanted geums are green -- small, but doing well. Everything just looks better. But what effort!
It's also clear that June is simply the worst. No rain, no humidity, and typically I have just planted or moved new things the month before and they simply shrivel until August comes. The pattern back east was for hot weather (the dog days of summer) to arrive in August and lawns would brown and plants would suffer then.
Here August is the month that refreshes -- mornings are so cool and brisk, afternoons get hot in the sun but are pleasant. Compared to the desert harshness of June, August is lovely and plants start to look good again. I need to keep this pattern in mind when I despair each summer early on.
July 31
Deutzia
It had been struggling at the back of the potting bench and I took it out, ready to claim failure and toss it. It was just a stick. But I saved it, and then eventually put it here.
And somehow here it is thriving. It gathers a little ray of sun in the mornings and it's a surprise pop of green seen from inside the rest of the day. It's just so visible. It draws the eye from inside the house.
I think of deutzia as a filler plant after flowering, it's just greenery, but this little thing, with its light green foliage, pops against the red rocks.
I can't wait to see it covered in frilly white flowers in spring. Remember how the deutzias looked in spring in my old garden?
July 29
And More Rain
Another third of an inch fell over the past couple days and now today the sun is out. Everything looks fresh and there are even mushrooms popping up all over.
The strugglers look better -- the kniphofia that wilted and browned so badly after transplant looks better (sending up an orange spike too) and the wispy Mandarin orange kudos agastaches look good now too.
Just as I finished the timer installation on the Shrubblers, I now have them off because it has rained! The rain barrel is full.
Just as I finished the timer installation on the Shrubblers, I now have them off because it has rained! The rain barrel is full.
July 25
Monsoon
Rain has arrived. Lots of cloudy skies, cooler temps and yesterday a good steady rain as a thunderstorm came through. We got less than a half inch but more than a quarter. A third of an inch!
Immediately after the storm passed the sun burst out and it was glorious to see everything wet and refreshed in the sunshine. Overnight a little more rain fell and brought the total up a bit, still under half an inch, though. The forecast is for more.
July 24
Color in the Summer Garden
The dining room window garden has some color going on, seen from inside. The combination is really nice.
'Leilani' butter yellow coneflower, red 'Splendens' heuchera, a bit of 'Icicle' white speedwell and electric blue Larkspur.
But it's all a bit sparse -- I need more of each of these somewhat delicate plants to make more impact.
The yellow coneflowers need to make their sturdy presence known in more parts of the garden than this one spot. Need more.
The larkspurs -- I'd like more of their jolt of blue all over.
The white speedwells are delicate plants, not at all clumpy like 'Royal Candles' and only one or two spikes per plant. Very pretty, but I need more of those.
And the red 'Splendens' heuchera here is re-blooming, along with the three others over by the rain barrel. It's got some impact -- maybe could use a few more, though.
The Rose of Sharon started to bloom today with a couple big, pretty flowers. The shrub itself is still kind of a disaster, tucked in behind the Spanish broom, leaning out away from the fence and awkwardly shaped. I don't know how to prune it.
The leaves this year are quite small and sparsely lining the branches with gaps all around. A watering issue?
Rosy Millenium alliums are in full bloom. Black-eyed Susans in their boggy wet pots now are sunny yellow statements in the gardens. Fuzzy blue lambsears look better -- they were yellowing a month ago and I don't know if it's too much water (I was watering deeply but infrequently) or too much dry (not watering enough?) but they look better now.
Tiny Dancer heleniums are bright. Cuphea in the white pot is spectacular. White Pow Wow coneflowers are scattered about the potting bench curve with nice effect. Blanketflowers are re-blooming but I want more of them all over the garden.
Nothing looks fully filled in yet, and I have yet to see the purple clematis on the tower or the orange Owl's Claws or very much of the red Kudos agastache. But I can see the potential for summer color. The fullness and impact will come.
July 23
It's Done
I finished setting up the last timers on the back faucet. Now I'm done with installation, and just have to continue to monitor times and settings.
Sheesh. What a mess. Once again I had to cut the 1/2 inch leader hose and install another faucet fitting to get the kinked hose to match up to the angle of the timer fitting . . .
These two timers are Galcon 9001BT and they are bluetooth connected. So now I have an app on my phone and I can see the time schedules and status of each timer.
Kind of cool, but do I need that? We'll see.
Watering every other day now, and some hand watering in between.
Monsoon season is here, and although we haven't had any real rain from it yet, humidity is up and the skies are often cloudy and that makes all the difference. Plants are not wilting and drooping and suffering so much as they do in hot dry windy blasting June.
A line with an installed faucet here would be much better.
But for now, let's see if all my timers, bluetooth connected or not, and all my overtaxed, spread-out Shrubblers will work.
I only need to keep things alive while I'm away, and water when I'm tired. It just has to work for those purposes.
July 21
A Month Away
In a month we will be in California for 7 or 8 days. I will need to set the Shrubblers on timers when we go. By late August it won't be so searingly dry and hot, but still. My newest plants can't go more than a week.
Concerns to fix in a month:
I can only test every other day, as that is the schedule. So finding problems and then fixing and then waiting to test is taking time. I'm still waiting for timers for the back garden, they should be here by the beginning of August, but will need every other day testing for a while. Running out of time.Right now the east side is hooked up on timers. But when the water first kicks on it blows a cap off and the whole system then is down, with a single emitter spouting water into the driveway. I'm hoping if I leave the hose connected (lying across the kitchen threshold) the whole time, there will be water left in it and it won't have to refill so explosively. Right now I take the hose off and re-attach it and that creates pressure to refill the empty lines. How am I going to reliably test this??When we go I will need to assemble pots in one place, and ask Beverly to water them. And the front triangle new plants? Have her hand water those?
By late August I can get rid of the basil in a pot, the non-blooming nasturtiums can come out and I'll probably eliminate the fulgida black eyed Susan pots (will keep Goldsturm in a pot). I won't need so many pots to water. The big pots in back (the deschampsia, the blue pot on the deck, the Japanese maple, even the plumbago) can go 7 days, they keep moist enough and don't mind drying out in between. I might move the cuphea, though, to a spot where she can water it.
July 18
Nice color
A simple combo of wild hairy goldenaster growing out of the patio stones and pots of red geraniums at the foot of the sundial is colorful. A pop of turquoise in the container on the deck is nice too.
Bright and sunny and colorful -- this pleases me!
July 15
Timers
This Was The Worst. I knew it would be a challenge to get timers set up on the irrigation system and it was.
Then, attaching the hoses to the timer was impossible. Leaks, kinks, impossible-to-tighten connections, more leaks and angles. Very awkward. It took all morning and the day got hot, but by cutting some hose lengths and putting in an L shape connector at the kink spot, and with Jim's help to tighten things, it's working.
After all the fiddling with water on and water off, by the time I got it all hooked up there was no water left in the hose and the pressure as the faucet refilled it popped several emitter caps off. Ack!
To keep the timer from lying face down in the gravel, I had to hoist it up using the hose -- by running the hose up to the top of the fence, pulling the whole contraption upright.
To keep the timer from lying face down in the gravel, I had to hoist it up using the hose -- by running the hose up to the top of the fence, pulling the whole contraption upright.
To run these two separate sections in the kitchen courtyard and the dining room window plus other areas, I need to attach the hose on the other side of the kitchen door, and leave the hose lying across the threshold. That's how it will have to be when we go away. When we're here I can undo the hose and coil it on the fence as before.
Phew. This was a frustrating job. Still have to do the two in back -- and I need another timer. And I have to go back and re-bury the lines I disrupted putting this timer on.
July 14
Up and Running
I finished installing the Shrubbler system -- unless I decide to put a line out to the front triangle. I have maybe one more emitter to add in the small downsized patch of ajugas. But that's it. All is up and running and I pretty much know how long to water each area.
20 minutes for the guest room corner.An hour and a half for the potting bench curve + fence strip + garage wall area.45 minutes for the kitchen courtyardTwo hours for the dining room window + hollyhocks + under the pine + driveway strip, it's a very extended system with little pressure.
The mini bubblers I just got aren't what I needed -- the spray emitters are better, the mini bubblers just drip in a one inch soaked area. I ended up swapping out the sprayer heads from the unused barb emitters and put those on the new stakes instead. The spray only covers about 6 inches -- not the 3 feet they advertise! But it's a more diffuse spray and not a constant drip to one tiny spot.
I ran a couple of the systems for a few hours, did some hand watering . . . and then this afternoon it rained.
Hard and steady for a while.
A full quarter inch, all over everything. The sun came out immediately after, even as the clouds still roiled.
July 12
One Hundred
It's been really hot lately, in the 90s. Yesterday it was 100 degrees on the xfinity display and 6% humidity. And not just for a brief bit, it was that for hours. There's no way to keep plants hydrated in that kind of weather.
I ran each of the Shrubblers last night -- it took from 5:30 p.m. til about 10 p.m. It took that long -- an hour and a half for each of the big gardens, 45 minutes each for the small ones. Then this morning I went out and hand watered the pots, the areas with no Shrubblers and some of the bigger transplants where the Shrubbler dribbles but doesn't really reach the whole plant. That took an hour this morning.
This can't go on. It's unusual for Santa Fe, which has always been known for summer days that don't get over 85. Pleasant and dry. An occasional hot one could occur, but mostly summer was comfortable, not like this spell of high temps.
I cut lavender stems from the big mature plant in the front triangle and put the stems in a little bottle on my desk as I had last year. Love them, so sweet.
The beautiful After Midnight lavender that bloomed and bloomed all last summer is okay but not great in the brown pot by the front porch corner.
It bloomed, but has gone by now and I cut off the dried flower heads.
July 11
Almost Done
I'm almost there with the irrigation and plant moves. All of the 1/2 inch hose line has been laid, just waiting now for staples to pin it down some, and the extra mini bubblers to finish the section under the pine. They're coming next week.
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I spread two bags of red rock mulch -- it's a smaller dimension than the big rocks that were here so I had to scrounge big rocks from other areas to mix in with the small stuff. Looks good though. It finished off the area I dug up to move the ajugas, and I added some under the redbud too.
Mornings are cool and nice, but I can only work from 7:30 to 9:30 (and I work so slowly). It's been getting HOT after that and with high heat and dry for so long now, everything is stressed. The cottonwood is dropping crisped leaves all over everything.
But my watering system works pretty well. I still hand water, but I've been running the system to keep things going well during this hot, hot part of July.
> Fertilized the hollyhocks today. They are not going to bloom -- and they are a variety that is supposed to bloom the first year, but apparently not.
July 9
More Water More Water
I can see now that in the past two years of learning to garden here my failures have been largely due to under watering.
I followed advice to water new transplants every other day at first and then cut back to 2 or 3 times a week after a couple weeks. Yikes. Older plants got water once a week. Everything struggled or died, or they made it -- they lived -- but looked awful, stunted and unattractive. I stepped up the schedule but it still wasn't enough. I am amazed at how much water is needed every single day here. Even for sages and centranthus and thyme and other hot dry lovers -- they want a lot of frequent water in the first two years.
The redbud doesn't want dry soil, and the first two summers I was watering it every few days. It struggled. It's still tiny, but it gets a soaking every day now, maybe a day off here and there but no more than 2 days between waterings on rare occasions. The leaves are no longer so limp and yellow.
This summer I am watering everything deeply (except the mature shrubs) every day. Little seedlings (just transplanted some tiny zinnias) get watered twice a day. The geums and coneflowers and other newly moved things are watered every day, but twice a day if they get any afternoon sun. The transplanted Mexican Hats want a lot of water.
The stupid blackeyed Susans that are in plastic pots now have to be watered every day and kept in boglike soggy soil in the shade or they wilt badly. I could go on, but the point is: I am having more success finally with watering much, much more than I ever did before.
Summer solstice high sun, long days, afternoons in the 90s, and humidity at or below 10% and not a drop of rain for weeks makes for a delightful climate for me. It's really nice, the air is pleasant and we only need to escape into the air conditioning at the height of the afternoon. But it's brutal on the plants, and I'm finally discovering how much water -- how MUCH water -- it takes to carry them through.
It will get better when transplants settle in after a year, and when perennials mature after two or three years, and when plants get big enough to shade their own soil. It will be better in a few years and won't be this way forever. Right?
July 8
Went to Lowe's
I went to Lowe's today to get bags of red volcanic rock mulch to complete the work I did under the pines when I took out the ajugas.
I came home with this inexpensive terra cotta bowl and some orange lantanas.
The pattern is cool -- not seen as you walk by it, but from the patio table slightly lower, you can see it. I like that it is sort of Mexican without being bright talavera or overtly "folk". The terra cotta fits in with my other pots.
A little bit of orange was needed here, not just white petunias. I moved the other bowl of white petunias to the other side by the chair and the two pops of clear white on either side flank the patio.
The plumbago in the brown pot was moved. It isn't great this year -- full and healthy but not overly flowery, and more rangy than I remembered. I needed to prune it more perhaps. In any event, seen in line with the exuberant Kent's Beauty oregano on the table, it was too much of a wild look. So the dainty bright white petunia, smaller and tidier and in a lower bowl, went there.
And where did the brown pot and plumbago go? It's now hiding the waterworks at the corner. Looks a little lost there, but it does the job.
What I'd really like to do is plant a tall, vertical grass at the corner - a panicum like Shenandoah (that I tried in spots before and failed with!) It would look so much more natural.
BUT, I don't want to dig in the awful hardpan that is so close to the house and amend soil and try to get any depth. Not up for that at all (although a rose was planted nearby against the wall when we moved in).
A tall wavy grass would look good there and hide the waterworks even better.
July 7
Oof I am tired. I thought I would be done with moves and edits and additions and changes by July. I thought I'd have the Shrubblers done and could spend the month experimenting with timers and watering schedules.
But I'm still at it. Today I dug up the ajugas. Healthy, big, green and nice enough after a soaking, with big fibrous roots that were deep. I hated to get rid of them.
No home to re-plant them to, although I put a couple in a more densely planted patch at the corner far away from the pine roots, out in the sun and near a Shrubbler water spike that I can put right there.
Easier to water there as a small corner planting, easier to maintain than the widespread big patch under the pine. The bugleweed patch was simply too big, took too much water and was covered in pine needles and leaves. It wasn't thriving and looked awful a lot of the time.
How I hated to get rid of them. And I was dismayed to give up on my vision of this patch as a woodsy naturalistic underplanting beneath the pine in dappled shade. Instead it will revert to an open area of red volcanic rocks, like it was.
I did plop the orphaned Desutzia Nikko in the center. I can get a single Shrubbler spike to it easily enough. In most of the year it's jsut a low, leafy shrub, a filler, but in spring, if it flowers, it will be pretty from inside the front sliders.
I need to get more red rocks -- I saw bags of red rocks at Lowe's a couple years ago. Do they still have them?
July 6, 2020
Summer fixes
I planted the one rock rose that I moved and put it back along the edge of the back walkway where it had been before!
I planted zinnia seedlings in spots in the potting bench curve where I am still waiting for things to fill in. I don't have much luck with tiny things planted in the heavy, harsh conditions in my gardens.
And . . . . . I have decided to get rid of the ajugas under the pine in front. Really. All of them, maybe all but the biggest one at the side in the sun.
It was a hard decision because I love them, and they were beautiful for me in CT -- gorgeous flowers in spring, rich dark foliage all summer, a groundcover for shade. Here they had potential to be an eye catcher from inside through the front slider. They started out great, beautiful plants with potential, but they have declined each year in this spot.
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| Clumps stay small, barely spreading out. Barely bloomed. With water I can keep them green, but some have crisped even so. They constantly catch leaves and pine needles. |
Like blackeyed Susans, they wilt terribly if I don't water them deeply every day; much of the time they look like rags. They barely flowered this spring, barely spread out, and I am putting a lot of effort into simply keeping them alive. They catch leaves and get covered with pine needles, and just don't look good.
The kicker was running the Shrubblers line all the way out to them, and then having to stop while I ordered enough emitters to put a dribble at each plant. It made me think. Thank goodness for the halt in installing the Shrubblers -- it gave me time to reconsider the water and effort I was expending.
And I think these plants are not worth it. Especially now that I am getting more color and form in the "flower" gardens -- under the dining room window and in the potting bench curve and the kitchen courtyard.
Flowers, or even color and plant texture are not needed here, especially declining sad looking ones.
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| Oh, but what could have been! They were so gorgeous in CT |
I'm fine with just putting the red rocks back under the pine and along the portal floor here. Negative space. I don't need flowery or green anything. There's a big green pine and a green juniper and I don't need anything else, it can just be rocks + pine + juniper like it was!
I'll keep the penstemons at the side and still need the water line to get to them.
Beautiful summer mornings
It's lovely in the mornings now -- cool, in the low 60s, shady and quiet on the patio. The air is still, a dog barks in the far distance and the birds chirp. The hummingbirds visit the feeder at the kitchen window.
The Shrubblers along the back run silently, watering that area as I sit sipping my coffee.
Later in the afternoons this spot is too hot and bright and blazingly sunny, but early in the day it is just lovely on the patio in the dry, cool air, in the shade on a summer morning.
Anything I want to do in the garden now has to be done in the cool mornings. By 11:00 it's too hot. It's too hot to run the Shrubblers once the sun heats up the black hoses that are exposed. There's no way to run off the scalding water before sending it to the plants, so all automatic watering has be started before mid morning.
But for those few brief hours in the early morning, it's delightful.
July 1
Behind Schedule
I had wanted to have all the Shrubblers irrigation in by 4th of July weekend, and all the moves / replacements / new plants in the ground and done. But I'm only halfway done with the irrigation -- the back and the guest room alley corner are finished and functioning, but I still have the kitchen courtyard, dining room window garden, driveway strip and ajugas under the pine to do . . .
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| Looks better without the white veronicas crowded in between the heuchera and grasses - more room |
But I got sidetracked with new plants that just came from Sooner (kniphofia, Mandarin agastaches, Weihenstephaners sedums) and all the moving and swapping that entailed. And I had 2 bookgroups and we had people over twice recently and I had appointments and got new hearing aids . . . a lot going on.
And I still have to spend time watering until I can get the irrigation fully operational!
So I'm behind. And I'm pooped.
Today instead of starting the final irrigation installation in the dining room window garden, I made some swaps.
I moved 3 of the white Icicle veronicas away from the red heucheras and grasses where they were crowded -- I put them to the side to fill in until the Robustissima anemone gains some bulk (if it ever does, still so tiny).
I left three that are more in the center next to the Red Mountain lambsear.
I also added one of the Russian stonecrops that I had just taken out of the front triangle, and put it in an empty spot in front of the fescue grasses for some visual weight.
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| The round bun of sedum adds some fresh green in between the grasses and the little plumbagos. Hope it will be okay in this much shade. |
I added a second Russian stonecrop over by the juniper on the way to the rain barrel. This one really is in too much shade. Maybe in shade these sedums will be more open and sprawly, not such tight buns?
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| Took out the tiny struggling Little Lanterns columbines here -- way too dry for them. The sedum may like it better here. |
I like this arrangement better. The veronicas next to the larkspurs and little bitty pops of Leilani golden coneflower work better than crowded behind the grasses. I'll take them out if and when the anemone ever gets big; right now they are too close, but that side of the garden just needed something.
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| They are prettier standing off to the side on their own now. |
A lot of work for minor moves. Every time I dig in this area, even just to plop in a moved Little Lantern columbine or the small white Icicle veronicas, I have to wrestle out roots, roots, and more roots. Ugh.
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| Sure wish the two anemones on the right side would bulk up. |
I guess this works better. The blue fescue grasses really are the focal point and the small, spindly and delicate flowering things around them struggle to be seen. The speedwells and heucheras and larkspurs and the Texas red betony are sweet looking, cottagey and nice enough, but have no visual weight at all next to the grasses. I need bigger and bolder here.
I need the anemone to get big, and the aronia over on the other side to fill out, and the plumbagos to make a spreading carpet in front. Then I can have just a few plants with some presence in this shady garden, and not so many spindly small things.