This is what many plants look like when you plant them in the heat of the summer in a drought. I was deseperately trying to fill in bare spots with plants to prepare for a big party I was planning that would take place out in the SJC gardens. All the leaves died within the first month on this acanthus, but new ones have already started to grow.
I know I wasn't the only one with sick looking dahlias, I heard many other gardeners complaining this year. Since they hate soggy soil you would think they would do better with limited water. This may be the result of a virus or disease, but that is what happens to stressed plants - they are more likely to fall to either of those maladies as well as insects, than when they are well watered (for their needs) and strong.
I don't know what kind of tree this is on our neighbor's property behind us that looks like it is on its last leg, but it was once a full, lovely tree that added dimension to our garden. It is just over the fence in a part of their large property that doesn't get watered at all except from rain. I imagine that it may be reaching its roots out to get some from our garden, but if it is near its end of life span, it may not be getting enough to hold it over.
I am so grateful for our trees that are wonderful at cooling the yards and house with their shade. It is about 20 degrees cooler standing under them than walking out into the hot sun. One is a Brazilian pepper tree that was already here and the others are California pepper trees that we planted about six or seven years ago. Both kinds are very drought tolerant and I see them growing around here in terrible conditions looking like little oases of green in an ocean of brown. I would love to pull over every time I see someone in our neighbor hood installing synthetic lawns and advise them to plant a few drought tolerant trees (there are lots of them) and surround them with a crunchy gravel and a few distinctive but beautiful agaves or native perennials and they will be much happier as will the wildlife!
There is all kinds of color in the gardens these days. Some wonderful and carefully planned. Others random and serendipitous. Like this beautiful red amaryllis bulb that was just kind of stuck in the ground and is now showing off year after year. However this year it is surrounded by a bed of yellow kalanchoe that my garden helper added in to cover the bare ground. Red and Yellow? Not my first choice in garden colors combinations, but it is healthy and happy and a bit out of the way so who am I to critique?
And then going from the biggest boldest bulbs to the tiniest, little blue muscari are coming up where I planted them a few months ago, rather naively, because they are lost in the landscape. I forgot just how tiny they are and one dog paw can crush them instantly. They are hard to work into the big garden beds, but the few I put in the raised planter with a rock garden theme seemed better suited.
I always forget about the beautiful dutch iris that just multiply and bloom every year without much care. They do seem to be aligned with the Easter colors, but I think they will be spent by next weekend. Nevertheless, they are a delightful sight every year!
Although technically they are a tuber and not really a bulb, I must mention the wonderful alstroemeria that are also blooming this time of year. What an easy, forgiving plant that puts out tons of lovely flowers that last forever when cut. I really do need to add more to my gardens!
I met someone who told me they didn't plant spring bulbs because they didn't like the messy foliage they had to put up with after the flowers faded. I must admit, there are a couple weeks when this is what it looks like in a few flower beds that the daffodils live in and I know that there are some fastidious gardeners that are very tidy and braid or bundle the dying foliage up while it is gathering the all important nutrients for next year's blooms, but I never get around to that. Besides, there is so much else going on in the garden to look at this time of year you can hardly notice a little chaos here and there!
The orange trees that were all but withering away due to a lack of water when a broken sprinkler was not detected for a long time at the back of the property in SJC have once again come back to their previous glory (well almost) and with a heaping help of fertilizer and lots of rain and consistent watering in between the rain are blooming and filling the air with the lovely scent of ummmm... orange blossoms! How wonderful!
The sweet little 'Anna' apple trees are blooming like crazy as usual.
The camellias and azaleas are winding down their seasons, but still have a few lovely blooms to share the stage with the spring flowers that are just starting to flower.
The honeysuckle vines are in full bloom, climbing up the giant bird of paradise, so very fragrant and pretty, attracting the hummingbirds like crazy! Now really, who can worry about some fading bulb foliage when there is so much else going on in the garden?
The first dahlias of the year are opening and it isn't even the first day of summer yet. Not sure how many will be left this year. I don't dig them up and I don't add knew ones every year so it is just a surprise as to what shows up.
Every year my husband and I go away for a couple weeks to a health resort to allow my dear significant other to focus on his well-being. We typically go in the winter and I usually look forward to the warm weather and change of scenery, but this year as we left on the first full day of spring I was kind of disappointed to be leaving behind the gardens when all the excitement was just starting. We returned to spring in full bloom and lots of things going on so I thought I would just share some of the random happenings in SJC, starting with this beautiful amaryllis bulb that was kind of just stuck in the ground a couple years ago. You know that one corner of the garden where you put all kinds of odds and ends and just see if they make it? Well, this one did and is blooming proudly. It is precariously close to where the dogs cut through the path so I am tempted to cut it and bring it in, but I kind of like seeing it in the garden bed.
The Anna apples are all ready growing like crazy. I should thin them, but my granddaughters love to pick the fruit every time they come over and they will get thinned by them soon. They were very disappointed this winter when there wasn't much on the fruit trees so I am glad there is at least something for them this time!
I almost missed the first show of roses and I am feeling really guilty because even though I made many trips to the nurseries in the last few months, rose fertilizer never made it home with me so they are not as lush as they could be. I need to make it up to them this week!
The California natives are all still blooming away and will probably be for another month or so. It has taken a few years for these rock rose (cistus) in the Moonlight Garden to get to a good size and covered with blooms, but they are lovely now and actually showing off during this dry weather, which is how they actually like it! I should probably put in some more out in the front street side garden where keeping plants looking good is a challange.
I found the first clematis of the season starting to open.
There were a number of orchids in bloom that had been sunk in the ground in their pots in a planter off to the side yard. Many types grow so easily for us in our mild climate that we take them for granted.
There was actually a large group of dutch iris that was still blooming much to my surprise and delight. I always forget about them, but they just do their own thing. An impulse buy from Costco I believe.
The aloe in the urn by the front door is joining in the show and sending out a bloom for the first time.
The snapdragons that were planted last fall are almost waist high and look more like a field of wild flowers than winter annuals. They must have loved the organic fertilizer that was used when they were planted and the bunnies must not be in the mood for snapdragons for dinner!
I think the overlap of the natives blooming, the winter blooming shrubs, vines and annuals, the spring blooms and the start of the summer annuals make this such a wonderful time in the garden for us here in Southern California. It is almost too much to take in all at once!
Although most of the roses have already been cut way back and stripped of all their leaves for the winter, some that are blooming away in this mild weather have been spared a week or so until the end of the job is at hand. The blooms are not the big full ones that will come back in a few months, but they are appreciated nevertheless. I must say though, the foliage is flawless this time of year!
There are no daffodils coming up yet, but the narcissus are almost done blooming, much to my dismay. I rarely get out in the gardens during the holidays and I usually miss the few that I have here in SJC and if I don't get over to Laguna soon I'll miss those too. I thought I did plant some more last year but maybe they were late season bloomers. I need to keep better records!
I am off to the nursery this morning to get some organic rose food to make sure the roses are well fed before the mulch goes down. I'm not sure how long this lovely weather will last (the weather forecast does call for rain on Thursday) and if there wasn't football on all weekend this would have been where we would have spent the warm afternoons even though things are pretty bare!
I wish I could show you all the progress I have been making on my fall garden projects, but I'm afraid I haven't made many advances. I've been busy doing other stuff.
I did go out to photograph some of the fall colors in the gardens, but once again I got distracted by something else.
There are lots of blooms that look more like spring, or maybe summer, blooming right now!
I planted a number of dahlias (that I thought were purple, not pink) later in the season this year and they have just started blooming all over the perennial garden in SJC. I don't know where they were during the less-than-colorful summer season out there, but I hope they get an track next summer! They are beautiful!
For the past month the front door garden in SJC has been a lovely show of reblooming iris, 'Frequent Violet'. They are long and prolific bloomers!
Not exactly fall-like garden shots, but I'll take what I can get!
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| D. iridioides |
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| D. bicolor |
There are a lot of reasons not to like dietes, also known as African iris or fortnight lilies. They are very common plants in Southern California and can be found in most strip mall planters. They spread like crazy and can take out less aggressive neighboring plants in a few seasons. Their foliage is rather dull, stiff and spiky, nothing to rave about. The flowers, although pretty, only last a day so they don't work well in cut flower arrangements. They look horrible when they get thick and die out in the center, in need of dividing with a sharp spade. But I still kind of love them. They are very trouble free and drought tolerant, no need to fuss over them. They have charming little flowers that kind of hover above the foliage, earning them the nickname of butterfly iris and they are fire resistant. I think their charms outweigh their vices.
I think every gardener has a spot in their yards where they just toss in a hodgepodge of this and that (hopefully your whole garden is not a hodgepodge of this and that!) and I am no exception. In a back corner I toss all those indoor-outdoor plants that look too sad for indoors, spent bulbs, and every other thing that just doesn't fit in anywhere else. Much to my delight when I was walking through the garden this week I came across what was once a Christmas amaryllis bulb in full glory, happy as can be - blooming at the end of April! What a nice surprise!
The hundreds of daffodils that I planted in the Moonlight Garden are finally starting to show some blooms, but it is not the show I was hoping for. Short stems, chewed blooms, nodding heads and sporadic flowers are leaving me a bit disappointed. I'm going to mark it up to the first year of bloom, cut them all for a nice holiday bouquet, and hope for better results next year!
Although
the weather is lovely this week, I must admit I have been preoccupied
with everything else rather than getting out in the gardens. We were in
Laguna a couple weeks ago (without my camera) and the garden there is
filled with hundreds, if not thousands of naturalized daffodils. I have
been a bit worried about the lack of blooms on my spring bulbs that were
planted last fall in my SJC garden. I have found that they are pretty
hard bulbs to screw up, they will adapt to being planted too deep or
shallow, or even upside down. I did not put them in the ground myself,
my trusty garden helper, Julian did the planting, but with my specific
instructions. As it turns out there are some big, strong, yellow
daffodils starting to bloom in the back yard. My guess is they are "King
Alfred." They are huge and oddly enough, turned away from the house and
paths, toward my neighbors' yards that are newly exposed due to the
dying oleanders where the late day sunshine comes in. I hope my
neighbors are enjoying them until I get out there with my clippers to
make bouquets for the house! There are a number from previous years that
are a mixed bag and blooming nicely, although some of them are now in
the shade from the growing trees and probably should be moved this year
to keep them blooming. We put hundreds of all-white ones in the
Moonlight Garden and they are slowly starting to come up and there will
be blooms in a few more days, but they are rather short. Maybe they did
go in upside down!
These pretty little narcissus that my friend shared with me a couple years ago are blooming. I almost missed them because for some reason I put them in a terrible, out-of-the-way spot! Sometimes I just don't know what I was thinking! I plan on waiting until they are almost dormant and then transplanting them to a prominent spot by my front door where I will enjoy them next year. I need all the beauty I can get this time of year in the garden!
Although I planted tons of bulbs this fall, they are all late spring bloomers. I wish I had planted more winter bulbs like these narcissus that are blooming now and snowdrops that are blooming in the Laguna garden. I really could use the cheer in the garden at this time of year! I think I will order them early in the year so I don't forget and then they will just show up in the fall, like my bulbs did this year.
It is time to plant spring bulbs and I am finally getting around to it! I had ordered 600 daffodil bulbs from Van Engelen Inc. last spring, when I was thinking about it, and they arrived a couple weeks ago, just in time for planting. I got 400 all white ones for the Moonlight Garden and 200 pink ones to compliment the classic yellow ones in the perennial garden. I went to the nursery yesterday and bought large bags of cotton seed meal, bonemeal and blood meal to mix together to add to the holes when planting the bulbs. I have bought a variety of bulb planting tools over the years, but I find that the easiest way is to use a D handle spade and dig a hole about eight inches deep (the rule of thumb is to plant bulbs three times their height, deep), and six inches wide, sprinkle in a generous amount of fertilizer and then place three bulbs in the hole and cover. I typically plant winter annuals over the top to cover the dirt while waiting for the bulbs to emerge. Daffodils do not need chilling and naturalize easily, multiplying each year in our climate. I have hundreds, maybe thousands in the Laguna garden that were planted many years ago and they never disappoint each spring. This gives me lots to look forward to next year!
Obsessed gardeners have crazy things growing in their gardens. Summer bulbs that defy logic tucked in here and there to add an element of surprise to a walk around the garden. For the life of me I can't remember the names of these bulbs (kind readers have taken the time to identify them for me as pineapple lily and hymenocallis) or where they came from. Most likely a freebee with another purchase of bulbs at a garden show. They always make me smile because they grow so easy and proud every summer, as if they are the stars of the show, instead of random give-aways!
