June 30
Refreshed
June ends with a quarter inch of rain, clear skies, a cool morning breeze and everything is refreshed looking. It had been dry, hot and windy for days, and despite my constant watering and irrigation running four times a week, things looked okay but not great. It's amazing how rain and cooler weather make everything look so much better
The birdbath garden is really filling in, although I need to move some of the edges of thyme around to even off the circle.
White Crystal Peak obedient plants are starting to open. The sunny coreopsis is blooming -- first time I've ever gotten coreopsis to come back for me. I like it better than the stiffer Arizona Sun blanketflower, which is similar.
The scaevola in the brown pot struggles -- when it gets even a little dry it completely lies down and withers. Water refreshes it, but despite it liking hot conditions, it fades quickly if not well watered. I need something more resilient in this pot in full sun.
Ahhh, the air is so cool and delightful this morning, and everything is so refreshed. A nice way to end June.
June 28
An Unusual Year
The excessive rain last summer and the cool spring has made things odd in the garden. The Chinese privets are still blooming, going strong . . . and their smell is unpleasantly strong too. I wish they'd finish.
What hasn't lasted very long are the orange geums -- the plants look better than ever but the flowers went by faster than they did before.
The Red Cascade rose is still flowering beautifully! I'm still waiting for some longer cans to train over towrad to fence, though. Kintzley's Ghost vine is finally sending some tentative stems over the fence top, and it looks full and nice.
The Spanish broom at the corner of the front portal is in full bloom, bigger than I've ever seen it. Others around town bloomed in April and May.
The hollyhocks by the fence are blooming, but all are light salmon pink. I'd like some of the dark reds and some yellows and whites too! A few cream colored ones are opening on the hollyhocks by the rain barrel.
The transplanted Jackmanii purple clematis is now opening some blooms, just a few.
The little transplanted Low Mound aronia that I put under the Japanese maple is showing chlorosis, so I sprinkled some iron around it.
The Japanese maple itself is still open looking, with very fine tiny leaves, nothing like the full, dense tree it was the first year I unpotted it and put it in the garden. But there is no scorch, and the overall size is getting bigger. It's just open and thin looking. But nice.
June 25
Coneflowers
Something eats the petals off the coneflowers just as they open, so I am not really getting any kind of coneflower display.
I have lots in different gardens, but all I see is coarse foliage, a stalk and a seedhead. It happened last year too. I've checked all the possibilities for this kind of damage and it isn't aphids (I'd see them) or rabbits (none this year at all, and the whole plant looks fine, just the petals are eaten). I don't have Japanese beetles. It isn't mites, which distort the flower as it's forming -- these flowers form well but the petals are removed.
It's likely earwigs, although I don't see them. They like wet mulch and I've been watering and irrigating a lot. Not sure there is much I can do. I may remove the coneflowers -- they are scattered about in my gardens and I want to edit things down. But darn.
This year the clematis Venosa violacae looks nicer, with several pretty blooms (I fertilized and watered a lot), but it is still a small, spindly plant.
I finally got a replacement gaura for the brown urn, and I moved the crassula to a spot between two iron-log rocks that are now at the foot of the vine covered fence. It looks better as a stiff little rock garden element, and these two slabs of stone look nice in the empty spot.
June 24
Radio Red
I wasn't happy with the red geraniums in the potted "wildflower meadow" under the sundial.
Newman's had pots of Salvia greggii Radio Red and I picked up three. They are a true red and bright. They'll be perfect.
When I got home on a hot windy afternoon, I put them under the juniper, just to hold them there til I plant. And I like that look. The red with the blue door and orange brown gate is nice, and the loose spiky forms fill the empty spot under the juniper.
I think I'll get three more and put them in nicer pots grouped there.
Radio Red is a zone 7 salvia, so an annual here. Nurseries never carry the same plant twice, so this perfect red meadow sage will be hard to find again next year.
I'll move the red geraniums to the front door trough -- the little burgundy ones I put in there aren't doing well. I like the stiff look and bright color of simple pelargonium geraniums in that trough.
June 23
Summer is Finally Here
I got back from California and summer finally arrived, with night time temps in the high 50s and even low 60s now. Days are sunny (dry) and breezy (dry) and quite hot in the afternoons, in the 80s.
The roses are still blooming prolifically -- both the pink Peggy Martin and the cute miniature Red Cascade.
The Chinese privets are also still blooming and have never looked so full and flowery. They are big fluffy looking things, but the smell is sharp and unpleasant.
The Dark Towers penstemons looked great when I left, but have gone by now.
This year for the first time the Spanish broom (self seeded?) at the corner of the front portal is huge and flowering mightily. It smells sweet.
It has gotten pretty big and wild looking, but it does fill the empty spot where the portal wraps around the side of the house -- I've always struggled with what to do with that empty narrow strip. This fills it nicely.
BUT . . . it is going to get too big -- it already has. I need to chop it down when it's done flowering.
The birdbath circle is coming in well. The creeping thyme is starting to flower. It's all soft colors now -- I wish the Arizona Sun blanketflowers were tall like the aristata variety, to add sunny yellow and reds here.
But it's really nice to see it all filling out.
The blueberry in the white cement pot never flowered, but is filling out.
The Karl Forester grasses under the kitchen window are now getting tawny and they've reached up over the sill -- almost obscuring the view as I look down into the birdbath garden!
June 12
Pretty June
It looks lovely. The air is dry, the sky mostly sunny, with some clouds, and the past two days have been breezy.
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| I fertilized & extra-watered Karl Forester grasses this year and they're so tall. And all three are blooming! |
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| Peggy Martin rose is blooming - brief but nice. I love the open view down the alley to the corner garden. Transplanted clematis look good but aren't blooming. |
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| Red Cascade rose is great - need it to scramble over to the fence! |
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| After all my troubles growing salvias, this well-watered little Midnight Purple is doing great, blooming a long time. |
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| Fragrant sumacs, including the ones by the garage, look so good this year. Full and glossy. |
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| Japanese forest grass positively glows in a slant of afternoon sun between the birch tree trunks. |
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| I fertilized the blueberry and it has lots of fresh foliage filling the pot. But I think I sacrificed any flowering -- no blooms, so no blueberries. |
June 11
What's Going On
The Palmer's penstemons out in the field are looking lovely and have spread around. Hard to photograph among all the grassy weeds, but they stand tall and pretty, along with the branchy green stalks of sweet clover.
Nicotiana alata in the two pots inside the turquoise container are blooming and are wonderfully fragrant at night. There's rom for three pots and next year I'll order 3 plants.
The front yard is sort of coming in, but hard to talk a picture of everything with all the gravel there. The blackfoot daisies are cute and full and blooming and I see some spreading. The tall Dark Towers penstemons are full and thick and flowering -- they need something beneath them to soften the lean and dark abrupt shapes.
The butterfly bush, as always, doesn't look like much, but the foliage is a good healthy green.
The purple clematis violacae is blooming - better than last year but still, after all these years, a spindly thing with only a few blooms. Pretty enough among the lambsears and Jupiter's Beard and the fresh looking foliage of the peony.
I took out all the Weston's Pink heucheras -- I just didn't like the look or the color. Too frothy for the look of this garden and too warm pink next to the rosier pink of the Jupiter's Beard next to it. In the empty spot I put the wood stump and placed the pot of campanula on it.
June 9
Pavo Real
I got this at Camino Real and I think I like it.
It fills the emnpoty corner of the deck, give some something to view from the bedroom sliding doors, and it's coppery enough to go with the deck and the brown urn behind it.
June 8
Major Change
I cut down the aspen sapling that was growing in the side alley and obscuring a view of the pretty corner outside the guest room window.
It was easy to take down with loppers and I like the open view so much better.
Where the aspen had been there were no less than 5 irrigation emitters. What to do with all that great water smack in the middle of this long alley?
I plopped a terra cotta bowl there, and I can plant the potted kniphofia in it. I jimmied the emitters to go over the rim, and the ones that don't reach will water the pot from the outside, keeping the terracotta from getting too dry. Maybe?
It's something at least in that spot. I should have Jeronimo close off those emitters, they are not needed, but meanwhile I hate to waste the water.
June 7
What, More Moves?
Now I'm thinking of moving the Weston Pink heucheras from the back of the potting bench curve to . . . somewhere else.
Eventually I will edit this garden down to a more open, shady woodland look when the redtwig dogwoods grow in. I don't want it so busy. I want to take out things crowding up against the boxwoods and let their stiff structure anchor the corner with just the golden hakonechloa centered between them.
But even now, the pink coralbells are too much. Too dusty pink and overly frothy. I like the rosy pink of the Jupiter's Beard nearby -- it's a more structured plant and a deeper color and bolder look.
The coralbells are ditsy, frilly and an odd pink against the stucco wall.
I'm going to move some to the shady spot behind Raydon's Favorite aster (take out the two transplanted irises, they're doing nothing.) And I'll move some of the white coneflowers out from under the boxwoods too.
Still making moves . . .
June 6
Moving What I Just Moved
Now I'm digging up things I just moved and moving them elsewhere. I need to stop.
1. I had just moved the white gaura from the fence line out to the open gravel spot in the flagstones, but today I dug it up and put it in the kitchen courtyard where it fills an empty little low spot between the Kintzley's Ghost and the butterfly bush.
Already I like it better tucked in there, rising just a bit above all the clumpy veronicas and geums. It provides a delicate bounce to the stiff lower things and brightens a slightly dark spot.
It will get bigger -- the one I had by the rain barrel was tall and needed support. But it was in a very wet spot. It looked great against the green juniper. In this tight spot where the butterfly bush will sprawl out and get bigger, I don't know if the gaura will get to that size.
But I like it tucked in, creating a midlevel between two taller shrubs, but still open and airy.
2. Then I dug up the little transplanted nepeta that was growing over into the hollyhock clump at the fence line. I moved it to where I had just put the kniphofia -- that went into a pot in sick bay. The nepeta is in a more open spot next to the turquoise pot now.
3. Where the nepeta had been I moved the brown urn and Blonde Ambition grass and I like it better against the fence, echoing the brown of the deck nearby, not sitting on the deck. The seedheads will look good bouncing against the green wall.
4. Where the gaura had been I put in a second clump of Blonde Ambition grass. When I had unpotted the grass I divided it. I think I like the idea of repeating the grass, one at a higher level spilling over the brown urn and one near it at ground level in the gravel.
I'll need to see if the grasses each get big and bushy. That open spot in the gravel needs something impactful, and it needs to bring the straight line of plants forward visually.
Now . . . what to put at the corner of the desk?? I don't want another plant.
An armillary? This one from Etsy is two feet high -- so it's big, but it's open and see-through. It's polished brass, 20 pounds, so it won't blow over.
Or . . . I put my old copper roof birdhouse on the stump table and this looks kind of nice. I like using what I have.
Jim thinks it's too rustic, and wants something more "sculpture" so I may keep looking. But I do like the simple look of it, the visual weight and the muted color. I like seeing it from inside and I think it will look nice with snow on it in winter.
5. I took out the last of the fescues near the bridge in the dining room window garden. Now there are just the three red pots tucked in with other plants there, and they are so much bluer and fuller than the brown haystacks in the ground were.
In the spot next to the bridge I put the Lowscape Mound aronia that I had taken out of the birdbath garden and potted up.
June 4
Corner of the Deck
I have always wanted something to look at from inside my bedroom when I look outside. This empty corner of the deck, in direct line of view, needs something especially in winter.
I had Blonde Ambition grasses in a small black pot -- the seedheads looked great bouncing in the late season and through winter.
But it's nothing to look at in spring, just a black pot. And runoff from watering it stained the deck.
I swapped out the black pot for the tall brown plastic urn. The grass is in a pot inside the urn, so runoff will seep down into the soil in the urn, without running all the way down to the deck.
But I don't like it. The corner wants something substantial, non-plant and lower. This tall brown urn on a brown deck is too plain, too formal, not right. It needs to be tucked in among other things, its shape hinted at, its brown tone blending in, not featured.
I had to repot the Blonde Ambition grass to get it inside the urn. It had become root bound -- too many plants in the black pot. It's still crowded. I hope it blooms after I shaved off a lot of roots.
When I put the urn here, I took it away from the nice little tableau under the Major Wheeler honeysuckle. I moved the sick bay table over there and, tucked away at the far end of the yard in shade it looks fine, filling the empty spot under the vine.
June 3
A Cold Start to June
I actually shut off the water faucet for the irrigation system this morning, Saturday. The system runs four days a week, back to back on Saturdays and Sundays. With a quarter inch in the rain gauge and cold nights and cool days, I don't want to over water.
Most everything looks great, but is not bulking up. We need hotter weather.
The flowering tobacco has opened. I can fit three small pots inside the big turquoise container and need to remember to get 3 next year to fill this out more.
I fertilized all the pots of annuals on May 30, so I hope to see things bulk up. But we really do need warmer nights.
I fertilized and really watered the Karl Forester grasses starting in early spring, and look . . .
. . . all three have flowerheads forming this year.
The kitchen courtyard is coming in nicely, but I still can't get away from that clumpy look, even though the taller and midlevel elements are there.
The orange geums have gone by. They were supposed to be out when the Royal Candles deep blue spikes open, and in past years they have bloomed a long time through spring. This year they seemed early and had a short season.
June 1
A Rain Day
It's June now. Planting and designing should now be done, although I made more edits today. No more waiting for things to show up -- what has come in well looks good, what struggles is now evident.
Today was stormy and rainy. We need some warm weather to get the annual scaevola and angelonias to bulk up and to bring other things into flower. We got a quarter inch, the sun came out, it rained more and then the sun came out again and everything looks so wonderful.
Kintzley's Ghost looks great and is flowering, but still wants to flop forward. I keep tying branches to the fence to get it to grow upright.
The blackfoot daisies are flowering out by the driveway, and I see signs of spreading. The chamomile is opening its cute daisy flowers, but the plant is smaller than in past years. Royal Candles veronicas are just starting to open.
The outer ring around the birdbath looks good, although each thing -- the new glossy aronia, the purple sage and the cute yellow pom-pom buckwheat are all tiny little balls, not touching. I'd like a little more spread.
