July 30
No More Rocks
Lucy will use them to create a dry rock river bed by the Nava Ade entrance sign.
It took all of us schlepping several buckets back and forth to remove them all to Mary's truck for hauling away.
Now all that is left are the sandstone bricks that I had dug up, and Lucy wants to come back and take many of those too, for her own yard, to use as baffles against her fence to deter critters.
It's nice to be rid of the pile of white rocks.
I saved a few and I'll save some of the sandstone bricks too. They are useful under pots and to add bulk to containers. A few won't be hard to store here.
I'm glad this stash of rocks and bricks is going to good uses.
July 26
No End
I'm so tired of watering.
It's every day with this.
July 24
Still Hot and Dry
Despite 90 degree afternoons and hot dry wind, I moved some things.
Mornings continue to be cool and lovely, so in a fit of ambition in the morning I dug up the monardellas that were languishing under the privet and put them in a bowl to see if they do anything there.
There were, of course, few roots, just tiny things, embedded in rock hard cloddy cement-dirt -- despite amending the soil and watering all the time.
It looks awful now in the heat and wind, quite limp.
Transplanting in full flower is not good, and the roots were, of course, just a few strands in clumpy hard dirt, despite having an emitter right at the base.
I also moved one white Crystal Peak obedient plant from the outer edge of the birdbath circle to a spot closer to the base of the birdbath. I like it better there.
The birdbath garden is nice, the orange agastache is delicate but a nice little bit, hidden, though, and the obedient plants are pretty.
But the aristata blanketflowers disappoint. The coreopsis mounds are colorful and tidy.
July 23
Mexican Hats
I dithered on what to do with the Mexican Hat plants.
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| In past years |
They just laid down and failed this year. I had such a beautiful stand of them at first, but I think it's too wet too often where they are now. Or too dry.
When I dug them up to transplant somewhere I found the dirt was cloddy and dry and there were no roots to transplant.
So they are gone.
Our realtor had such a beautiful big clump of them at her house, and in pictures I see them full and bushy. And mine originally were so pretty -- I do love the rich color of the "hats" and they smelled sweet.
They want sun and dry conditions, but occasional deep water. They were in a spot where irrigation probably gave them too much frequent water in spring, and then I did not want to overwater, so I gave them little extra hose water this summer.
The flowers are delightful but the foliage can look sparse or weedy and they can get leggy.
I wanted to put them in where the fernbush I planted is -- it isn't doing well, and I'd like a looser prairie looking plant there anyway, not a woody shrub.
But there was nothing to transplant.
July 22
What Goes On
Cool and lovely in the mornings, hot and I stay inside in the afternoons. No rain. plants are stressed.
What goes on in the birdbath garden:
> The Sweet Summer Love vine bloomed nicely but only briefly and it has gone by now. The purple flowers were tiny, but nice enough and there were a lot at the top. But they only lasted a week -- supposed to bloom all summer. It's the first year flowering, we'll wait to see if other years are better.
> The Rose of Sharon is blooming, but buds are blasted and shattered. Ants all over them. I do not see any aphids, I think they are after the nectar, not aphid honeydew (it's been so dry and we had ants inside the house too). I hose them off and spray with an ant spray. It's helping, but I have to keep doing it, and the flowers are small and stunted.
> The Alba Luxurians vine is flowering, but just tiny, itty bitty little flowers, a few. It's the first year, more to come in future years.
> Plants around the birdbath are not as graceful as last year. The aristata blanketflowers that came back are doing nothing -- one won't bloom, the other has opened but is small. The coreopsis were great but are going by now. The Crystal Peak obedient plants are also going by, but the newest are tall and gangly, may settle in better in future years. It's all nice enough around the birdbath, though.
> Angelonias are doing nothing, I'll take them out.
What goes on in the kitchen courtyard:
> The chamomile plant, so cute with its little daisies, has declined and gotten smaller.
Maybe re-plant in the common area field along he driveway. Perhaps where the fernbush is now, that isn't doing well. In their place I think I'll put some of the white coneflowers that I want to edit out of the potting bench curve.
> The blueberry in the cement pot is full and big now, looks good. Not a single flower this year, though, so no fruits.
> Under the kitchen windows the Karl Forester grasses are tall and elegant -- fertilizer helped this year. All three have lovely blooms and seed heads forming. The rosemary is full and green after my earlier pruning too.
What goes on in the potting bench curve:
> Hakonechloas look great, the middle one is full and lush, and the two potted ones nearby look better.
> The white coneflowers are actually very pretty in part dappled shade. I'll leave a few when I edit out the others. They're nice.
> The cuphea in the ground by the garage wall looks awful, not thriving. (The one in the turquoise pot on the patio by the glider looks great, such a clean elegant look. But few flowers, and it wilts badly in the afternoon sun, then recovers.)
Along the fence line the Millennium onions are great. The Blonde Ambition grasses are flowering with their eyelash seedheads and they catch the light.
What goes on in the dining room window garden:
> Everything looks open and skimpy now, where it had been lush and full until the heat and dry hit in July.
> The mock orange is doing well, and the little serviceberry sapling is okay.
> The Japanese maple foliage is thin looking, but seems healthy. No scorch, no browning.
> I have to keep pulling anemone runners, it is spreading a lot. Will need to keep it under control. Foliage was lush, now open and floppy but it seems fine.
What goes on with my planted trees:
> The crabapple looks fabulous. The ironwood is spectacular.
> The redbud is glossy, full, and healthy, but I cannot get a leader going, it stays flat topped and short. Winterkill keep eliminating any height.
> One Gambel oak in the field is browned and curling. The other two are fine. Each gets the same amount of water.
July 19
A Bad Stretch
The mornings are still cool and nice but the days quickly heat up to 90, sometimes up to 96 in the late afternoons. With our brutal sun, that's hot for Santa Fe. I water and water every day, and we run the a/c and stay inside.
Everything is alive, since I water every day and run the irrigation four mornings a week. But plants are shriveled -- leaves re getting smaller and smaller and I see a lot of ground underneath what had been full foliage once covering the earth. Now plants are open and thin. But alive.
* * I wonder why I garden. * * After getting through winter babying things along to see them grow in summer, I am now back to babying everything along just to keep it alive. There's little enjoyment, it's just relentless work, then waiting out the long cold winter, and waiting out the miserable summer, all for a few short intervals in between of nice patio weather and the promise of plant growth.
Why am I doing any of this?
July 14
Cool Mornings
It's been relentlessly hot and sunny, with no rain for two weeks now and afternoons are spent indoors with the a/c on. We are not in the heat dome causing record breaking temps in Texas and Arizona, but the days get into the 90s.
My plants look stressed -- no matter how much I water (and I water a lot, plus run the irrigation), they look thready or wilted at times.
But then there are mornings. It cools off at night, and between 7 and 9:30 a.m. it is simply delightful to sit on the deck. It's in the mid 60's then until the sun gets higher and temperatures rise by mid morning. My prairie garden in pots below the sundial looks good.
All the plants perk up a bit, although they are not lush and full as they were in our cooler, damper spring.
But the strip under the kitchen window looks great. The pruned rosemary came right back in a nice rounded form, green and full. The grasses are great this year. And the dwarf Russian sage has finally shown what it can do.
I get so discouraged in the hot afternoons, trying to keep things watered enough and being shut inside. But cool mornings . . . oh my.
July 13
Three Zones
I've been putting off setting up sprinklers to water my containers when we go away. I knew it would be a fiddly project, and it's been so hot. But this morning was cloudy and damp, and I tackled it.
There will be 3 zones -- two hoses came with the set to be attached to all three spray heads to water a huge area.
Zone 1 - I had an extra hose, so I set one up at the front of the house with just one spray head. It can sit in the green trough, and spray toward pots gathered in the somewhat shady corner. I'll put the timer at the faucet connection.
Schedule on the timer: M, W, F, and Sat. at 4:30 in the morning for 1/2 an hour.
Containers (9) to put clustered there:
Petunia in the pot inside the urnGomphrena potTwo long troughs of Kent's Beauty oreganosTwo small pots with Splendens heucherasThree red containers of fescues
The spray heads are adjustable and I can get it to cover a wide arch all around the birdbath -- maybe even refresh some water in the birdbath when we are away.
I need to put the spray head way over by the brown pot in order to aim it at the birdbath plants.
I'll run this one for 55 minutes starting at 4 a.m. and I'll run it every day except Sunday.
This garden, out in full sun, needs a lot of daily water, even though there are soaker lines surrounding the birdbath. They don't cover much of the area, though, and plants wilt daly.
I'll hook this hose up to the long hose, taking off the coil and spray nozzle and just putting a timer on that end of the hose.
I don't want to fuss with the faucet connections.
This one is tricky. The area is narrow and even though the spray coverage is adjustable, it still makes a wide arc.
I have to put the hose and spray head propped in a crack in the fence, up high, and tilt it to spray downwards.
I'll move the chairs out of the way, but use the table for some smaller pots.
Schedule:
M, W, F, and Sat. at 4:30 in the morning for 1/2 an hour.
Containers (14) to put clustered there:
Pot of cuphea
Pot of scaevola
Rosyjane gaura
Blonde Ambition grass
6 small pots of red salvias
Bush clematis
Salvia in blue vase
2 nicotianas
Plus the foxglove and the campanula -- neither one is doing anything and I'll take them out.
I'll put the timer at the hose faucet connection.
The timers are all set, with fresh batteries, Now I need to test them and run a cycle one morning.
It's ridiculous that I have 23 containers to water (25 counting the foxglove and campanula that I'm removing)! There are still areas of the garden that don't have emitters -- the black hollyhocks I just planted, for one. And the white bowl and cement pot with the blueberry in it will have to use wine bottle plant nannies.
This reminds me of all the foofaraw I went through with my short lived but complex Shrubblers system in 2020 and 2021 before we had in ground irrigation installed. Sheeesh.
July 11
Switching Up the Reds
I think the red Texas betony is elegant. It looks like a nicer version of a red flowered salvia. I love seeing it from inside the dining room windows and at a distance under the Japanese maple.
I want more -- but the only one of several plants I got that has survived is one additional Texas betony in the potting bench curve. It's a younger plant and although it likes shade, it might be in too much shade there. It's a bit leggy and open.
I'm going to edit down this garden from a flowery spot to a more woodland look under the aspens, with mostly foliage and some quiet low geraniums. So I want to move this to where it will be more eye catching.
The scarlet monardellas under the Chinese privet are not doing anything. I water them a lot, and one or two are near emitters for irrigation, and they have a bit of shade there, but they do nothing. I'm going to dig them up, put them in a pot on the patio coffee table and transplant the Texas betony there, right at an emitter.
It's a bigger plant, red and bold and yet elegant, and won't be so lost in the foliage of other things as it is now.
Another red flowered plant switch: I want to re-pot the Strawberry Fields gomphrena into the pot by the birdbath. It's an orange red and will go great with the little low pineleaf penstemons as they fill out below it. They are orange red too.
There are so many Red Texas yuccas all over the front yard, flowering in a pinker red, and the Strawberry Fields gomphrena just don't go with those at all. It gets lost at the corner of he front portal
Plus it's more structural and bolder than the purple scaevola and will stand out more. The blue purple of the scaevola doesn't show up at all, and the plant needs daily soaking or it wilts.
Can I make all these red switches in high summer?
- Dig up monardellas and put them in a terra cotta bowl on the patio.
- Transplant a Texas betony from the potting bench curve to the spot under the privet.
- Re-pot the Strawberry Fields gomphrena into the smaller container that will fit the birdbath pot.
- Re-pot the purple scaevola into the bigger container that fits the front portal pot.
If I can do all this switching in the cool of our 68 degree early mornings, it might work? Afternoons have been brutal, though, sunny and hot.
July 9
I Did It
To get me out of my hot weather slump, I decided to pull the trigger and order a tree from Sooner Plant Farm. I did it.
It won't be delivered until fall.
The Blonde Ambition grasses are doing well, and blooming now with their eyelash seed heads. There is one in the brown urn and one nearby below in the gravel spot in the flagstones. They'll look interesting in winter against the vine.
I'll move the lower one to just behind, in the spot next to the little iron fairy garden decor, in the line along the vine covered fence.
Then, in the spot in the flagstones, I'll plant the new ironwood. and hope it grows into the tall, narrow, elegant form that the one by the guest room window is.
It is so evident in this hot summer weather that we need more shade, more greenery, and something tall in the middle of the yard. But there is so little room.
The crabapple will fill out and spread, and this tall narrow Vanessa ironwood will punctuate the long fence line with some shady green. I hope.
July 8
A Slump
The lovely air and sunshine and my sense of pleasure at an emerging fuller garden have hit a slump.
It's the hot weather -- nothing extreme, but we are now in a hot dry spell, with endless days of sunshine, some wind, afternoon temps in the high 80s or low 90s, and a flagging, struggling look to everything. I water every day, the irrigation runs 4 mornings a week, but nothing looks fresh any more.
The fernbush is starting to bloom, much later than in previous years and it's nice but subtle. And the pretty red Texas betony lambsear under the Japanese maple is a favorite as it blooms now.
The blackfoot daisies were doing well until I discovered dieback right where an emitter was positioned. These do not like water. I moved the emitter away a bit.
Hollyhocks are blooming, but in pale shades of cream and butter and light pink. I was hoping for more dramatic colors and taller plants. But they're okay.
The kitchen courtyard is full, but nothing is very robust. The Mexican Hats laid down in the mulch and did nothing. Coneflowers struggle, with most petals being eaten by earwigs.
I won't go on with the list. The garden is fine, more than fine, but not robust, and I am so tired of daily watering. I haven't even started up my mini-sprinkler system on timers to see if it can keep my pots alive when we go away.
I'm losing interest.
Patio sitting is still nice in the mornings and when the sun goes down, but I spend a lot of days indoors with the air conditioning on.
It's just a slump.
July 3
Holiday Weekend
It's lovely - dry, sunny, some rolling clouds in the afternoon advertising, perhaps, the development of monsoon season.
Here's some red, white and blue. Nice::
The Summer Love clematis is blooming for the first time, all at the top, and the way the vine has grown it's an odd shape, but the flowers are really striking. Many more flowers to come, there are lots of buds:
The privets have finally stoped blooming, and the smell is gone:
The kitchen courtyard looks good, but the veronicas didn't bloom very long, they are starting to fade already. The red rose is finally going by, but it was covered in tiny roses:
Happy 4th of July!
July 1
Too Much Yellow
I took out the yellow prairie coneflowers in the driveway strip -- too crowded with the Coronation Gold yarrow which is exactly the same color. And I think some are mixing with the red Mexican Hats on the other side of the fence -- giving me some orange mixed flowers.
The strip has filled in, with the veronicas draping over the metal edging nicely now, and the yarrow getting big.
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| Coreopsis looking great this year |
Hairy goldenaster is blooming yellow nearby, the Spanish broom at the corner of the front portal is bright yellow for the first time . . . and there are no other colors around.
It's a hot, very narrow strip of poor soil -- but it does have irrigation. I ended up putting a Mexican Hat (the red one) at one emitter and I moved one of the small Arizona Sun blanketflowers to the other emitter.
Just something other than the yarrow.
(I like the coreopsis at the birdbath, but the Arizona Sun blanketflower looks similar but coarser -- don't really like the compact low look. I like a taller or more elegant look around the birdbath, and I found a blanketflower aristata at Plants of the Southwest, so I put that in where the Arizona Sun had been.)
In other news, the crabapple has put on fantastic new growth this year but I noticed at the very tips where the tender new leaves are emerging, there are aphids.
I sprayed with the hose and cut off the newest infected leaves branch tips.