Tales of Woe and One of Graditude

 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!

When Plants Get Stressed

 Different plants respond differently to stress (much like people). Many plants, like this brilliant 'Santa Barbara' bougainvillea, think it's best to send out as many flowers as possible to help spread seeds before it may expire. Although it is considered a tropical plant, and I think of tropical plants as ones coming from lush, rain forest-y places, many are extremely drought tolerant. This is probably why the most beautiful and prolific bougainvilleas are usually found in the most desolate places like abandoned buildings or deserted parking lots and yet we can't get them to bloom in our own backyards.

 Every year I have the queen palm trees at our SJC home trimmed in the fall when they put out their flowers and annoying seeds. They cover the ground with scrappy little flower petals then cherry-sized seeds that make a big mess when you have 100 of them. This year I have already had to bring my tree trimmers out once in the summer because they were uncharacteristically blooming and seeding all over the place in July, I'm assuming due to the lack of water. We removed the seed pods, flowers and any dying branches. As you can see here it is almost time to do it again.

 Although it is impossible to remove established acanthus, they do not like the drought at all. I have lost a whole bed of them in Laguna and the ones I have placed here and there in the shade in SJC are not fairing well. As you can see, this one has lost all it's leaves but is desperately trying to establish its legacy by expending every last bit of energy in putting out this lone flower stalk. I'm sure it will survive and I hate to say it, but I have never seen them sprout from seed in my gardens yet.

 The good news is that a bit of stress can force a stubborn non-bloomer to finally bloom like this little banana tree! I have grown bananas in Laguna for many years and planted a couple trees as soon as we moved into SJC, but they never bloomed. This week I was delighted to see the first flower on my little 'Ice Cream' plant. Hopefully by the time the holidays come I can show the grandkids how bananas grow.

Not all plants respond to stress with prolific blooms. My roses have been almost non-existent this year. They seem to pull in and reserve all their strength to withstand the cut back in water and when they do bloom they are small, sad flowers. I have fertilized same as usual, but they prefer to wait it out until more water is available. I have noticed that the vacant lot down the street where a gentleman grows dozens and dozens of rose bushes for his hobby of showing roses in contests is as prolific as usual. He does use synthetic fertilizers which stimulate the blooms no matter what is going on with Mother Nature. Of course along with that he has to use lots of sprays and lots of water, but he does have glorious flowers!

Getting Back To Business

 It's been a busy summer and I know I've been negligent in posting to my blog, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy in the gardens. This summer we had a wedding in the family, a big birthday bash in the garden in SJC, started to design our new home in Laguna in addition to Grandparent's Week and lots of birthdays and visits from family and friends. I can hardly believe that summer is almost over although the signs are showing outside in spite of the 90 degree temperatures. 

 We have been asked to cut back our water consumption 26% to help alleviate stress from the drought. I put in new sprinkler boxes in Laguna to help regulate the water better, and our last bill showed that we cut our water use down 67%. Needless to say, the garden doesn't look good and we have lost a lot of plants that preferred the wetter conditions, but that may have been inevitable. 

 In SJC we switched out sprinkler heads to more efficient ones but did not adjust the watering times and everything suffered due to not enough water at all. Then one of our drip systems got shut off accidentally and wasn't noticed until it was too late for many plants. Our water bill at this house is down more than 50% too. I am happy to be so water efficient, but I didn't intend to hit the community goals for everyone all by myself! 

 Many of the older established plant hung in there and are bouncing back with a little added water. They are predicting a lot of rain from the El Nino coming this winter. I hope we get the rain without too much damage. We could sure use it!

 I was forced to do what I tell other people not to do in their gardens. I planted a lot of plants in the middle of summer to enhance the gardens for a big garden party I had for my DH's birthday. I bent over backward with a lot of hand watering to keep those new additions to the garden alive while they got established and was able to hold on to most of them while we got the sprinkler issues worked out. Take note: do not fool around with your automatic sprinkler system in the summer!

Although I'm sharing some pictures that look good that I took this beautiful summer morning before the day heats up, I'll try to share (it kills me) the not-so-pretty scenes too over the next few weeks and the lessons I learned!

A Corner of Color

With the water regulations in play, most of the flowering perennials that would be in bloom now are laying low. It hasn't been terribly warm yet, so there are still some corners of the garden in the shade that hint at what the garden used to be during years when there was adequate rainfall. I'm surprised to see the baby tears since most of the other tiny groundcovers have disappeared, but this little corner near the front door sits in the shade and must get a good dose from the sprinkler nearby a couple times a week. Other plants a few feet away are shrinking and shriveling. Sometimes I am fooled by what hangs in there and which plants cannot handle the stress.

Blooming

Iochroma

 I have to admit that my garden is looking pretty pathetic right now. Even though most of the plants are rather drought tolerant and I don't think it is necessarily the water restrictions that are causing the havoc as much as the erratic summer weather combined with my lack of attention. It is cool and overcast for a few days, then hot and humid for a while, then dry and windy.

Asiatic lily

 I have very few things in bloom when this should be the peak season for things like roses and lilies. Most of my lilies have disappeared over the years and I still have the new bulbs waiting to be planted. 

Disneyland Rose

 The roses have been cut back hard due to looking very shabby from sawfly larve, an ongoing problem. I need to make a trip to the nursery for some organic treatments and keep up the spraying. There are a few blooms here and there.

Duranta

I am getting concerned because I have a big event coming up here at the house and only about six weeks to get everything in shape. But this week we have our four oldest grandchildren coming for their special week with us so everything is just going to have to hang in there a little longer - I have more important things to do right now!

An Old Friend Takes a Tumble

 Way down at the bottom of the Laguna garden is a grove of eucalyptus trees, two of which are silver dollar eucalyptus, one of my favorite trees. This is a picture taken eight years ago and you can see the one in the center of the photo has a definite "lean" to it. it has been this way since we moved in and it gives it a lot of character and makes for a good tree to climb and sit on. Hawks, peregrines, and many other birds frequent these branches. These trees have held up many hammocks over the years, still hold up odd little bird houses that were occupied again this spring, and ten years ago I had a stage build between them where a blues band played in the afternoon while the audience sat on the grassy knoll for my DH's birthday party.

It had been a few years since I had the tree trimmers over to do any maintenance on them and when I went down to check the trees out before I had them come to do the trimming, the large silver dollar eucalyptus had grown and reached way up, covering most of the hillside! I was shocked at how large it was. It rained that weekend and unfortunately by the time the tree trimmers came later that week the large tree had fallen over, pulling up some of the roots out of the ground. If only I had been a few weeks earlier getting my act together!

 It really broke my heart because I love this tree so much, so we decided to trim it back and just kind of leave it and see what happens. It really can't go anywhere and it isn't hurting anything, having landed on the open space on the hillside. So if it lives it will make an interesting tree sculpture and a good place for kids to climb next summer. If it doesn't make it, we'll have firewood for many winters to come, but I will really miss it.

And so will the birds I suspect.

Pruning

I think next to getting people to really understand the importance of the role the soil plays in gardening, pruning is the most difficult skill for a gardener to master. There really is no pruning 101 in my opinion, because each case is a little bit different depending on the plant, the position of the plant, the climate, and even the taste of the gardener. Of course different types of plants have different pruning requirements. If you prune a shrub that blooms in the spring heavily in the late winter, you will remove all the dormant buds and you won't get any flowers that year. On the other hand, if you don't prune some plants at all, you may not stimulate them to bloom much at all the following year. A good gardener knows which plants respond best to a severe cut back right before they start to grow in the new year to maintain their shape, while others are best handled with a little bit taken off here and a little bit taken off there to encourage a pleasing profile. Unfortunately, there are too many gardening maintenance people in the business that have not learned the art of pruning and it shows in sad looking landscapes throughout our neighborhoods. I often cringe at what my garden helper has done in the name of "cleaning up" the garden by severe cut backs when a gentle removal of a few branches would have been fine. Most of the time, less is more in my opinion. But these days I am just too busy too do all the maintenance by myself and so I really need to spend more time with him showing him what my expectations are for my garden since I have now figured out that he is not going to spend hours pouring over gardening books and magazines in his spare time like I do learning techniques and how to handle every kind of plant to make sure it is carefully pruned and managed to optimize its beauty in the garden. That is going to be a goal this year.

Persistence Pays Off

I do love an arch in the garden and I have lots of them. I add them all over to create height and add a vertical element as well as acting as a way to separate spaces. Most of them are wire ones that I purchase from catalogs or a nursery.  This also allows me to utilize a whole new group of plants that would otherwise be left to an occasional fence or wall - vines. This arch in the Moonlight Garden has had at least four different kinds of vines growing on it that I can think of off the top of my head. When I put it in about seven years ago I planted the very prolific and popular at the time 'Avalanche' clematis. Of course the more I thought about it the more I regretted the chance to put one of my favorite fragrant vines in,  Madagascar jasmine, so I added that too. Neither vine flourished the way I hoped they would. So I decided to just go for it and add a white passion flower vine and at least have butterflies all over. I probably added a star jasmine too. One thing about vines that should always be a warning is that they can be very aggressive. By nature they are meant to grow from the floor of the forest, and scale up tall trees to get the sunlight at the very top. All of the vines I planted on this arch had no intention of scaling much of anything and most barely made it over the arch but the most frustrating thing was they just weren't interested in blooming. Here and there would be a bloom but nothing like I was used to in my other gardens. It may have been too shady. I have a hard time realizing that this area doesn't get as much sun as it seems due to the tall queen palms. The hard ground isn't very fertile either because of years of chemicals used on the lawn that was here previously. Then finally I broke down a bought a white Mandevilla vine. I am not crazy about Mandevillas for some reason. A little too showy and tropical for me, so I have no idea why I bought two and put one on each side of the arch last spring, just desperate I guess. But just to keep me humble I suspect, those Mandevillas are just as happy as can be and are blooming for months now! Go figure!

Fall Has Finally Arrived

Chrysanthemums

 I have to admit that when I left for a trip two weeks ago during yet another heat wave here in Southern California I was wondering if I would ever find the passion for working in my gardens that I have always had, again. Talking to other gardeners confirmed I wasn't the only one.

'Evelyn' Rose

A walk through the gardens at that time showed that what the heat hadn't ravaged, the insects had damaged. The heat loving natives pretty much just shut down in the summer and wait for cooler weather. The succulents, although alive, look a bit boring in the hot sun without any complimenting plants. Drought conditions make watering a guilt-ridden activity and so everything just gets enough to survive but not enough to thrive. Nothing new had been added in a while and as plants died off as they do, bare spots were left bare. Summer annuals never went in because it was just too hot and they used too much water so nooks and crannies that usually were filled with charm and sweet smelling annuals were naked all summer. Pots were left empty that usually housed annuals.
 

'Yuletide' Carmelia

 Most of the summer was spent in the house with the air conditioner on and the doors and windows shut, something I can't ever remember doing. Our Laguna House without any air conditioning sat empty waiting for a cool-down before we would even consider spending a night there.

Japanese Anemones

 But as is always the case, eventually fall arrives and with the shorter days come the cooler temperatures and upon arriving back home after two weeks away I was so happy to walk through the garden this morning and see signs of what the cooler months ahead had in store.  The azaleas are already starting to bloom and the 'Yuletide' camellias that I planted in the Gravel Garden last year (and immediately regretted, why would I ever plant a red flower?) even looked cheerful and made me happy.

Camellia Sasanqua

 Roses and iris that struggled all summer perked up and looked nice and healthy. Chrysanthemums were flopping over with heavy blooms, a fine problem to have! Graceful Japanese anemones had obviously been blooming for a while and had grown immensely since last year.

'Frequent Violet' Iris

The sunlight is so lovely the way it comes across the sky and through the trees and lights the garden in October. The temperatures are just perfect for working in the garden and taking care of all those issues that cropped up over the long hot summer that it is hard to believe that there was ever any doubt in my mind that there would be any place else I would rather be than in my garden this time of year. It's good to be back!

A Success Story

Although there are some pretty pathetic looking scenarios this fall in the garden, there are also some happy ones. This is my little lemon tree that I wrote about last spring. It was suffering from a long list of bugs and diseases and looked very sad. I think I only got one lemon from this tree since last April. But after cutting back the damaged foliage, I fertilized it with an organic fertilizer, gave it long, deep soaks all summer and hosed it down every once in a while and now it is rewarding me with tons of sweet, sweet blooms that fill the air with their lovely fragrance, on top of an already abundant young crop of lemons with not a bug or yellow leaf in sight. No pesticides or insecticides were necessary, just some nutrients, a lot of sunshine, some thoughtful watering and maybe a little love!

Weather Woes

 Our weather continues to be unusually hot and humid. Days where the temperatures hit the 90's are not unusual for October for us, but they are usually accompanied by dry Santa Ana winds, not high clouds and humidity and they don't go on for weeks at a time. We are becoming addicted to air conditioning  and rarely head out to the yards because there are no enticing breezes at all to lure us to visit.

 



I must admit I've been feeling terrible about how the fall months are slipping by, usually the best months to get things done in the gardens, without much being accomplished, until I talk to other gardeners and they share the same sentiment. I'm not the only one with bare ground where there once were lush beds. Other than the professionally kept up affluent grounds that are planted only in heat and drought loving plants, almost everyone is feeling the pain of the drought and high temperatures.  The ocean fishing has been exceptionally good this year, which usually means there will be a wet winter. Let's hope that holds true. I am at least thankful for the shade trees in the back yard. It at least looks cool. The Mexican sage that I planted last year doesn't seem too bothered by the weather, but it is a stand alone oasis of color in an otherwise sad looking garden bed. I must admit I have been seriously considering tearing all the flower beds out and replacing everything with a tall fescue that would not need mowing. Kind of just make the back yard a wild field of abandon. But.. maybe I should wait and see how I feel next spring.

Wrapping Up Summer

 If you read my blog for inspiring pictures, you had better stop now and wait for another post! After a busy summer with grandkids and a few weeks on vacation I've returned ready to take inventory and start thinking about what needs to be done in the SJC garden this fall. The list is long as usual. You can see by this picture that the cheap obelisks I had picked up at a big box store years ago have been falling apart for some time now and my garden helper has patiently been trying to save them for the clematis to cling to as best he can. I have already ordered metal ones and they should arrive any day now. It looks like this one may have collapsed and uprooted this poor plant that is still trying to bloom in spite on being treated so poorly.

 The established oleanders that created the privacy screen around the house continue to succumb to oleander leaf scorch. We didn't remove any this year but it looks like there are going to be some spots that will have to be addressed. One area is really going to be a problem because it is an area where the neighbor's house is close to the fence and we are going to become very visible to each other quickly as they die out. Luckily they have been trying to manage the dying screen on their side too so hopefully we can work out a quick solution. I have seen plumbago suggested as a fast growing alternative and I think I might try it next as a colorful option.

 The new privacy screen we planted last year is thriving nicely and continues to fill in. You can kind of see the foliage behind the fence that is in a part of our other neighbor's yard that relies on rain for irrigation is dying out after years of drought. There used to be layers and layers of trees and lots of birds and wildlife back there. The demise is sad.

 The backyard beds are kind of a mess, and kind of okay. (By-the-way, I took these pictures this morning after the sprinklers had been on which explains why everything looks so wet) I had planted a bunch of drought tolerant, tall perennials that would look good in the summer, last year, but they are still kind of sad. I blame it on the thin soil in this area. I had removed the old lawn that had been treated with synthetic chemicals and pesticides leaving the soil thin and dead. I had underestimated the amount of time it would take to bring the soil back to health by top dressing only and that was a mistake. I really wish I had done the old fashioned double digging in this area (okay, let me be honest - I wish I had instructed someone else to double dig, I don't do much double digging myself anymore!). However the plants like the pepper trees that thrive on poor soil have grown like crazy.

 Even the succulents look like they are tired of this hot, dry summer. Many people don't realize that although cactus are succulents and can go long periods without water, all succulents are not cactus and do need regular water. These plants will get a good, long, deep soak this weekend that they probably haven't been getting since I have been gone.

 My other citrus trees are not producing much of a crop this year, but my grapefruit tree is going crazy with a huge crop. I am sure it is because I personally baby it by turning the hose on it when I walk by to go out to the pool on the weekends and leave it on a slow drizzle for hours. It gets the same amount of fertilizer as all the other trees but I think it gets a lot more water.

 The fall colors are starting to show on the grape vine tunnel and the Boston ivy. In our area even though the nights may be cooling down in September and October, some of our warmest temperatures of the year may still be ahead so summer isn't really over yet.

 The Moonlight Garden has some highlight and some low-lights. After planting about four different kinds of vines on the arbor going to the pool, the white mandevilla vine has finally proved to be successful. Also, my Duranta 'alba' is finally blooming. I think it had been a victim of wrong season pruning. On the other hand I have no idea what is going on around the big urn. Almost everything is either gone altogether or munched to the ground by rabbits. It could have been a broken sprinkler that in this heat can cause an area to die quickly. I need to go back and look at pictures from last spring to see what was there that we lost.

 And then by the looks of the lawn, the dogs didn't get their tomato juice every day. And it is looking very healthy and good which means the gardener turned up the frequency of the sprinklers while I was out of town so that it would green up in spite of the draught (it was driving him crazy). The mushrooms are a dead give-away.

While we were vacationing in Maui, it was encouraging to see the island that has also been plagued by drought in the past few year turning a lovely shade of green again when we flew in to land. Since they are often influenced by some of the same Pacific weather currents we are hopefully this means we will be getting some rain this year too. 

But back to my garden now and all the challenges that keep it interesting!