Edits
- I dug and moved some of the Millennium alliums forward toward the flagstones, they were spreading back toward the fence and into the vine.
- I dug up one of the Las Vegas hollyhocks (I had 3 crowded together) and moved it to pair with a single one in the middle of the line along the fence.
- I took out two of the struggling fescues in the dining room window garden. They looked terrible. The worst was bone dry, sitting in powder when I dug it up. There was no emitter nearby. The other had an emitter and the soil was moderately damp, but it too looked sad.
- I moved three white Icicle veronicas that were crowding the fall anemone (which has gotten big and constantly sends out runners I have to pull). I put them where the removed fescues were.
- Then I put the three red pots with the thriving blue fescues in the dining room window garden, scattered among the columbines and the the newly moved Icicle veronicas. They were a bright contrast at the foot of the vine covered fence, but too stark there.
- I planted all 5 of the new plumbagos, filling gaps in the spreading groundcover in places. It has been slow and most new shoots are tiny, but there are a lot of plumbagos taking hold now.
May 27
Replace Hope Desert Willow
It's okay. I really dithered -- for a couple years, actually, about the look of this unique plant framed by our living room doors and so close to the patio.
It's a rough, rangy, funny looking tree with tropical flowers and I just wasn't sure. It's a moot point now.
So . . . replace it.
I really want a tall plant to break up the long horizontal fence, covered in dense green vines all summer and in brown dried dead leaves all winter.
It's what you see from the living room, and from the patio and I have struggled forever to get something to front it.
I do have hollyhocks at one end that will grow tall and showy. Red pots with blue fescues now draw the eye down. But.
The spot I dug out for the desert willow wants something. And something vertical. But it's only 4 feet from the fence, and 8 feet from the trunk of what will be a big, wide spreading crabapple soon. We'll walk under the crabapple, it will cover and shade and enclose the space without being on the flagstone area.
See my Plans and Ideas page -- I am considering:
- leaving it open and putting in a rose or small shrub there, or
- planting a Gambel oak.
- I thought about a Tatarian maple, but that's too big.
What about something permanent and non-plant? A kinetic wind sculpture?
It doesn't require planting in a difficult spot, I won't have to wait years for growth, and it would be eye catching all year long from inside the house.
May 26
Blue Flax
← Here, in Lucy's garden you can see the naturalistic looking clumps of flax blooming in May.
They sit in gravel, they don't take much water after establishment and they are reliable spring bloomers.
The light blue is beautiful. The small stature and tidy shape are nice. Apparently it seeds itself all around, giving an easy, natural look to a rather structured little plant.
I thought out by the corner of the front yard, in gravel, mixed in and around the clumpy little blackfoot daisies, something to make the planting look more naturalistic.
Could I get the soil under the gravel out there amended enough to take seeds? They sprout easily but need something to grow in.
And I'd need to water at first.
I do love how naturalistic they looked in these other gardens and I think they would soften the rigid look I have at the corner.
I may try this. Seed growing is a problem for me, and the dirt out there needs so much help -- but how pretty a taller flowering plant would look with the low clumpy daisies!
Seeds?
May 25
Andrea's Garden
I had a tour of my friend Andrea's garden, which is mature, lushly filled and a square shape with some paths that wind around islands, rather than the long narrow strip we have. Her full garden looks out to open common space beyond her back fence, and the borrowed view adds depth.
You don't sit on her patio like you do with our deck and our area under the vigas. Instead, you go out into the garden to a table under the tree. Her stands of iris are huge, a giant rhubarb adds texture and everything has a presence. Lots of roses and peonies and self seeded catmint and other things all over. A whole different feel!
Of corse I compare my new garden with hers . . . and find mine wanting. Except for the privet shrubs and the trees in my yard everything else is new. My crabapple is growing well, but still a tiny thing -- her crabapples are old and gnarly, shady and enclosing.
I need time for all my new things to fill in. I'm getting there in many spots, but the birdbath garden at the center of our back courtyard is almost entirely brand new this year.
Time. Patience. Another decade and I'll be close.
May 24
Geranium, Firethorn and Verbascum
The experiment using small plastic pots of geraniums inside the green trough by the front door didn't work, they were looking stunted in the shallow little containers. I took them out and planted them in potting soil in the trough. I'll just have to set up a sprinkler right there at the faucet and put it on a timer when we go away.
The pyracantha in the side alley is humongous this year, and full of blooms.
But none of last year's mulleins at the edge of the swale have returned. There are seedlings all over, which I pull, since they are in odd spots, and one big plant sitting in the rocks of the swale.
But none where the stand of verbascums was last summer. They are biennial and I guess that means they live only two years.
May 21
A Bloom and a Bud
The Immortality irises transplanted well and came up this spring.
The Iris pallida are opening too in the potting bench curve. Also one flower and one bud, but there are only a few of these.
The pallida flower stalks are too tall and ungainly and the grape purple is not my favorite, but they're nice enough. The Immortality iris is a much more elegant one, and the white is crystalline.
The tiny threadleaf fleabane in the front triangle has finally put on some size and is blooming all over, but it's a small, somewhat insignificant little plant. Nice to see the happy golden yellow flowers, though.
And the tiny Kannah Creek buckwheat is putting out its lemon yellow pom poms. This plant has been moved a couple times, wasn't watered enough at first and remains very small after several years.
I planted another one in the outer circle around the birdbath. If I don't move it, and give it water (it is a dry loving plant, but at the outset it needed more water than I thought), maybe the two will be the same size in a few years? I do want these buckwheats to have a low mounded presence, they are nice plants.
May 20
Cold and Gloomy
The heat still comes on every morning, I wake up to temps in the 40s. The patio chair cushions have been stacked in the living room for days as the forecast is for intermittent rain day after day. Skies are gray.
It did rain yesterday, steadily, and we got a third of an inch. It was a good soaker. Cold, though.
I still have the Garden Crossings plants to get in the ground and although the returning and emerging plants look good, nothing has really popped yet. We've had a day or two of pleasant sun in May, but this past week has been so gloomy and cool.
May 18
Ground Hug Aronia
Wow. The Garden Crossings plants arrived today and the low aronia I ordered is huge, leafy and full. Next to the little emerging plant in the ground (Low Mound aronia) it is so much more impressive.
The Low Mound aronia struggled under the pine in front until I moved it. It's tiny and late to come out. Should I take it out, pot it up and let it put on some growth before re-planting? Meanwhile, I'll put this new aronia in the ground in the same spot -- the outer circle of the birdbath garden.
May 17
Rosemary
I chopped back the rosemary today. I've never seen it so full of blooms all over, absolutely gorgeous. But it had gotten tall and rangy and I researched that rosemary wants a cutback for shape and tidiness before it gets too woody. I cut back about a third.
I did a real hackity-chop job, hope it grows back with some shape and fullness.
Planted all the monardella additions -- both under the pine in front and added where the other little ones are along the base of the fence.
The columbines look great, in full flower now.
Everything has come in nicely. Irrigation is on, but I water deeply every day to soak areas all around the new plantings by the birdbath and to encourage other things to grow out in to the soil.
The kitchen courtyard looks nice, with lots of orange geums now. Not every plant is blooming, some are just small rosettes with no blooms, but enough are flowering to make an impact. The transplanted redtwig dogwood is leafing out well.
The birdbath garden is finally completed, now I'm waiting for things to fill in. The outer circle is pineleaf penstemons, buckwheats, a purple salvia, RosyJane gaura, Engelmann's Daisy, a struggling aronia.
The inner circle is a carpet of creeping thyme, blanketflowers, white obedient plants, and tall blue Texas salvias.
May 12
It's May . . .
. . . and I am constantly snapping off cottonwood sprouts and living in a world of swirling cotton fluff. Ugh. But the weather is cool and sunny and delightful. The gardens look nice, some things coming in very well.
For the first time the central Japanese forest grass is putting on some size and its bright foliage is a beacon in the corner under the aspens. The other two are in shallow pots nearby, and they look good, but smaller in their containers. Lambsears have come in beautifully.
But it was not getting bushy as advertised -- instead long brittle canes were growing and getting wind whipped. One broke off. I can't imagine it getting bushy and mounding and flowering like the pictures show. It was growing but seemed a bit stressed in the full hot sun and wind.
So I moved it to the sick bay table at the potting bench, and will see what it does. I may set the pot in the dining room window garden where there are openings as I wait for the mock orange and other things to fill in near the rain barrel.
May 11
Waterwise sale
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| Salvia farinacea |
I'll use the steel blue angelonais somewhere else.
And at Waterwise I got two tall violet Texas Mealycup sages to add contrast around the birdbath.
Tall and bouncy and spiky and I think they'll contrast nicely with the medium sized bulky Arizona Sun blanketflowers (I got another) and the coreopsis and the couple of taller aristata blanketflowers that may be coming back.
Mealycup sage is supposed to bloom a long time. It may be borderline hardy here over winter.
I also got an Engelmann's Daisy to put where I had originally planted a small caryopteris Beyond Midnight -- but I gave that to Lucy to plant for the common area. Greg's Engelmann's Daisy looked wonderful in his garden, big and full and yellow, the way I always wanted blackeyed Susans to look but they never did!
This is what his looked like:
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| Engelmann's Daisy in Greg's garden |
I also wanted another small gaura for the brown urn on the patio -- I absolutely loved how that looked last year.
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| Wish I could find an open, bouncy, small guara again for here |
But I dunno.
I already have the red geraniums right nearby. The cuphea next to the glider is an elegant plant with orange red flowers and my gardens have more cottagey, open flowers. This doesn't go.
But it wants hot and dry and that's what I have in this location. I need to find something else, though.
I also got more monardellas and another pineleaf penstemon.
May 9
Another Order
You can still order plants to be shipped in mid May. I just got some annuals because I couldn't find anything I wanted at Lowe's or Newman's. So I ordered from Garden Crossings. After I check out the Waterwise sale again this weekend, if I can't find the things I want there as well, I'll try putting in an order to HCG for the things I want. They are still shipping too.
And they bloom a long time.
I ordered a steel blue angelonia, not the deep purple I had wanted. Last year I did have a dark purple sage, but I don't know what kind it was or where I got it!
I don't think it bloomed as long as the angelonias do.
I'd like to try dark purple May Night salvia there, but I'm not sure it would bloom at the same time as the hairy goldenaster in summer.
And I have red geraniums this year, not the scarlet salvias, but the salvias were a little hard to keep going in pots in the sun.
I also ordered an annual scaevola from garden Crossings, not sure where to put it but I had it in CT and it bloomed profusely forever.
I might put it in the brown pot that is now fronting the Immortality irises. I t apparently likes hot and sun. We'll see if that's too hot here.
And I ordered a replacement aronia for the one that is struggling to come back in the birdbath garden. As of today mine only has two tiny leaves showing. I got one called Ground Hug. It looks a lot like the Low Mound one I have. Will it do better?
May 8
Irrigation is On
Green Garden Landscaping came today and turned on the irrigation. I had them extend drip lines where I put in new plants to encircle the birdbath and had them fix a couple emitter caps that came off in the guest room corner garden.
I trimmed the boxwoods today. For the first time they are putting on new growth and of course they were planted too close to the garage wall.
May 7
Small and Getting Smaller
I fertilized most bloomers today with Tiger Bloom 2-8-4. I'll do it again around Memorial Day.
Last year they were really small, and this year again too.
Among the yellow columbines the dark purple Widow's Tears geraniums are blooming. They are also small and unassuming, hard to even see, and a little droopy / saggy.
But up close the tiny flowers are nice.
And one tiny plant of Little Lanterns red columbines finally has produced something to look at. It's very delicate, but blooming well for the first time.
Orange geums are blooming -- some of them. Cute, but smaller and a flatter, less nuanced petal coloring than pictures show.
The deep blue ajugas look good, a vivid blue and spreading a bit.
The two nepetas I transplanted from under the aspen are flowering very nicely, although the plants haven't filled in much yet.
The tulips along the garage wall bloomed again this year, but the show was quite muted. Not too full and flowery, but pretty enough. Tulips decline with age and I think these are getting old.
So some things are coming in well, but the general issue is how small everything is.
And what isn't getting smaller each year is simply new -- so many of my plants are new each year as I try different things and keep changing things around.
The redbud bloomed well enough, but late, and the flowers were muted a bit by emerging leaves at the same time.
The tree itself is not growing at all, but does put out magenta flowers and nice leaves.
I do see progress -- the Vanessa ironwood a big success now -- and my sense of the garden in total is that it is filling in.
But after so many years trying to get things established and trying to create a flowery garden, it just isn't happening.
This climate is tough, spring nights are still consistently cold, and I have to water constantly to keep things going. The plants live, and look healthy enough, but they just don't get big.
I need to keep that in mind as I plant things together -- I don't need to leave room for growth and spreading, the plants will remain as planted, or get a little smaller.
May 6
So Much to Do
So much needs doing in the first week of May.
I planted the little plugs of nepeta, pineleaf penstemon, caryopteris, and buckwheat in the outer circle around the birdbath. What a nightmare. The area is a hard packed dense network of roots -- from where? Big, deep, extensive roots. I took out so many, and they ran for many feet.
I also put the RosyJane gaura there. I'll find another for the urn on the patio.
I potted the campanula poscharskyana in the brown urn which is now down by the Major Wheeler honeysuckle. I wanted it for the front portal urn, but I'll just go with colorful pansies or petunias there.
Below the rr ties the campanula will be in plenty of shade, which I think it wants in this climate. Will it have the mass of deep blue flowers like the photo shows?
Unlikely!
> I moved three moss rocks and repositioned them so that now the entrance to the garden is a break in the rock line, centered on the birdbath. Not easy work! Those rocks are heavy and it takes some oomph to get them positioned right.
May 5
Cinco de Mayo
All my plant orders are in now and I spent a beautiful breezy day getting about half of them in the ground:
Obedient plants around the birdbath (and two at the front edge of the kitchen courtyard),
Blanketflowers moved or planted (I bought an Arizona Sun at Newman's; the two biggest stands of aristata from last year didn't come back),
and the new Alba Luxurians clematis where the Jackmanii had been.I got the four new Totally Tangerine geums planted in the kitchen courtyard.
A few of the ones from last year remain tiny, not blooming and just little rosettes about 2 inches across. Green, but not thriving, even right next to one that is flowering. I moved a Leilani yellow coneflower from the dining room window garden to the left edge of the kitchen courtyard.
I cleared out where the brown urn had been and amended the little strip with lots of compost and put the three black hollyhocks up against the fence there.
I moved the rock strip slightly to accommodate the hollyhocks. It looks okay. The 3 plants are way too close together, but every time I try to put plants in that need space I get tiny little clumps that are nowhere near the advertised size.
The brown plastic urn is now on the lower level below the rr ties by the Major Wheeler honeysuckle and I like it there, without anything in it.
I do like designing new arrangements of plants and objects, and I do like getting things done, but I do not like grubbing around in the dirt planting. Everything is always just out of reach and it's dirty. And I get tired easily.
I'm not one who enjoys the actual dirt part of gardening.
I'm looking forward to a spring when I can plant one or two things, but mostly just prune stuff, clean up and enjoy the emerging plants.
May 4
Blacknight
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| Pots at the fence line instead of hollyhocks |
I got them to mix in with the Las Vegas hollyhocks along the back fence . . . but no.
I decided not to put them there.
Instead I moved the three red pots with the blue fescues to the fence line. The blue grasses brighten up that low level as the vine emerges and the black hollyhocks would, I think, be too dark there against the deep green vine.
I replaced the gaura that did not come back after transplant with a new one from the Waterwise sale -- a white, large gaura that will fill some of the space with tall bouncy stems and blooms.
So where to put the five foot tall black hollyhocks if not along the fence line?
I thought about a lot of different areas:
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| No, too crowded, too shady |
> the lower level of the potting bench curve, where the tall spikes could rise up above the rr ties but the foliage could remain below, hidden, but it's too shady, and it would crowd my workspace there.
> Somewhere in the new birdbath garden where I am creating a circle around the birdbath. But there's no space for such huge tall plants.
They would look great up against the pale stucco walls of the garage or the back of the house, but I don't want to create another dug garden and extend any more irrigation.
I want to plant only where there is a garden already and irrigation in place!
So . . . I think I will put them at the gate entrance.
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| Move the urn and gnome and reduce the rocks -- then 3 black hollyhocks up against the fence. |
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| Change it up with tall dramatic black hollyhocks |
I'll move the Mexican Hats and put them interspersed among the other plants in the kitchen courtyard, no longer a full stand of them -- that isn't working anymore -- but a few cute (and fragrant) red Mexican Hats spread among other things.
The clump of white stones need to be reduced (they always felt unresolved and too much in that corner) and I'll line up the three hollyhocks against the fence.
The urn can move -- I like the shape but the plastic has faded and I never know what to put in it. I'll find another spot for it. And for the gnome.
Yup:
Take out the urn, replant the remaining Mexican Hats among other things, move the gnome, reduce the white rocks and put three dramatic black hollyhocks against the fence.
They may obscure my rain gauge on the coyote fence!
😕
May 2
Cool Morning
The day was overcast and cool and I continued to spread compost and mulch in the common area, but I lost interest.
It's a lot of toting and schlepping and there's still so much to cover. And I don't know that my thin layer topping bare sand (with some three year old blanketflower seeds scattered in) will do much.
I potted up the Strawberry Fields gomphrena and planted a little silver edged horehound in the front triangle where I lost one. It's at the very corner where the dogs mark territory so this one may not survive either.
I planted two little Pink Chintz thyme plugs to fill out around the birdbath. And I put one of the cupheas in the potting bench curve up against the garage wall. It looked good there last year, and filled an empty spot.
It's only May 2 and nights are still cold, but I am wishing things would bulk up a bit. Everything looks so small and clumpy, especially in the kitchen courtyard. Nothing touches each other and the pretty blooming nepeta is stranded by itself in the mulch. I thought it would be bigger and fill that space in front.
Geums are starting to bloom, but they are on small plants -- healthy and green enough, but tiny and separated from everything else by a foot or more. I need more Mexican Hats, I seem to be losing half each winter.
And yet . . . there is an emerging sense of completeness when I sit on the patio and don't look at individual plants, but enjoy the whole scene, particularly in back. The viburnum is huge and flowery, the boxwoods suddenly are fluffing out and getting bigger and the whole look is more settled than it's been before.
May 1
Sand Spots
I spread more mulch and compost on the bare spots in the common area -- this was the second morning I spent doing it, and I get very little done. It's hard work for me. I used up 2 bags of compost and two of bark mulch. I still have more.
I sprinkled some of the blanketflower seeds in some areas and covered with more mulch. But who knows if any will sprout -- I can't really keep it well watered enough.
My efforts don't amount to much, but it does help to cover the bare sand spots in and around the standing weeds a bit. It just looks visually more appealing. The sand is light colored and is more obvious uncovered. With the texture and darker color of the compost and mulch it blends into the semi grassy wild looking area.
The day was cool and I stopped often for water and a rest. Really often. Bit by bit I'll get a few small areas covered up.