Late Winter Blooms

 It is hard to believe that spring is just a few days away. This winter has flown by with so many family happenings as well as personal events that took over much of my focus and time. 

 The big El Nino we were counting on to bring us relief from the long drought has been rather winpy to say the least, but there is still more rain in the forecast and the mountain tops are covered with snow, a good sign.

I haven't spent any time in the gardens up until this week, but they have been soaking up the rain and the record breaking heat in February and there are signs of growth everywhere. I am delighted that the abutilons I searched for all over last year have settled in and are blooming like crazy in all the shady gardens that were so bare. I absolutely love their charming blooms as do the hummingbirds. Their structure is a bit leggy and sparse still, but I am hoping they will fill in this spring. I learned the hard way not to prune them too hard because they are slow growers so I am just leaving them alone to allow them to spread out in their light and airy fashion. Because they prefer the shade, they don't seem too bothered by the lack of rain last year and are good sports almost everywhere I have planted them. I am going to figure out how to cut some branches and bring them in the house too.

Fall Bloomers

'Frequent Violet' Iris

 I have been meaning to write a post about all the plants that have disappeared over the past couple of drought ridden years in my gardens (these are not them!), but it was kind of sad so I decided to focus on a bit of color that is still enjoying the hot weather.

Duranta erecta 'Sapphire Showers'

 I've had to remove a bunch of photos from my computer so it will not punish me, so I have been reminiscing about plants that I had kind of forgotten about.

Hybiscus

 I have also been visiting nurseries this week to start thinking about the fall planting plans. I want to take advantage of this forecast El Nino year with the added rain it is supposed to bring.
 

Queen's Wreath

 It is too hot to do any planting yet, but October is our best month of the year for establishing new trees, shrubs and perennials.

Bird of Paradise

 I am much more disciplined and savvy about sticking to natives and drought tolerant plants after this long hot summer than I am in the spring when I just get carried away!

Rose 'Evelyn'

 It has been a rough year for some of my favorite plants (ahem - roses) and I am rethinking whether or not they are worth the work and anguish they put me through.

Salvia leucantha and Guara

I'm trying to make smart choices and add more of what already is working well. Of course that is the plan. We'll see how it plays out when I actually go to buy the plants!

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!

The Overlooked Daylily

 Daylilies are another flowering plant that seems rather unfazed by the reduced water. Although I guess the blooms may be sparser than usual, they do seem to just do their own thing day-in, day-out without much care from me, or Mother Nature.

 I have them sprinkled throughout the gardens, here and there. Some in full sun, others in a bit of dappled shade, but lots of light.

 I have them in all colors, shapes and sizes.

 Some do better than others. I typically buy them from Oakes Daylilies, a catalog/website that I frequent. Although not all of the hybrids I have purchased work well in our climate, many that are beautiful do, and they rarely show up in the local nurseries. I guess they are really more of a landscaper's choice since they don't require much care and have a big impact when grouped.

 I know they are not everyone's' favorite flower because they only last and day and don't make great cut flowers, unless you are willing to groom your arrangements daily.

But there is something to be said for carefree, flowering plants that don't need much watering, any pruning, spraying, dividing, or fertilizing and yet bloom consistently for years. I do kind of love them!

Garden Tours and Durantas

So last weekend was the Master Gardener garden tour and I wish I had some great photos to share but I was too busy running around visiting with people to take pictures! It was a nice cool day for visiting gardens and we had lots of guests. It is always nice to have other gardeners that actually know what they are looking at visit the gardens. When someone gets excited over my tall oakleaf hydrangea or rice flower bush it is so rewarding that all the hours preparing seem worth it. One of the shrubs looking especially nice that day was this duranta in the garden by the front door. I had to tell my garden helper to stop pruning it (he prefers neat and tidy) because it is rather large and sprawls all over the place in a somewhat wild manner, but the beautiful arching branches of purple blooms against the bright green foliage make it worth the visual space it occupies.

The Butterfly Bush

There are butterflies everywhere and I have to give credit to the aptly named butterfly bush or buddleia. I have a few of them around the gardens but there is one that is always host to at least one butterfly whenever you look at it, this lovely purple one. Unfortunately it is situated in a bed that faces west and the plant shows its best side to the neighbors horse stalls and we get a look at the rangy back side of the plant, but I'll put up with that because the butterflies love it! It is fragrant and about five feet tall. I do cut the flowers and they are lovely, long lasting additions to bouquets. did I mention it is drought tolerant? I can't think of any reason not to grow this lovely bush that comes in so many different colors, although I have found that the purple ones do the best.

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!

Beseiged by Blight

All is not rosy in the SJC garden, but then is it ever in any garden? Many of the Pittosporum tenuifolium are besieged with what appears to be bacterial blight. Not a deadly disease, but definitely not a pretty one. I guess I should just be thankful this is the first time I have ever had a problem with it, probably because I am not a over zealous pruner, but last winter my garden helper was, and everything growing got cut into tidy little squares and circles, much to my distress. Pruning at the wrong time of year can lead to blight like this and although the new growth will definitely cover it all up in a short period of time it has been looking ugly for months. Pruning should be done in the spring once the damp season is over to avoid blight. I do not fertilize the pittosporums so they should not need much pruning, but as it is with many plants in Southern California, the long growing season means they often get much bigger than stated on the tags and do need some cutting back. For instance this particular hybrid is 'Golf Ball' and although Monrovia claims it will get to be 24" by 24", mine need to be trimmed to keep them at 36" by 36". Thank goodness summer will be the cure all for at least some of the garden's woes.

Privacy Hedge Update

 The hedge along the back fence in SJC that was put in a little over a year ago to replace the oleanders dying of oleander scorch is filling in nicely. This picture was from a couple months ago and there is actually a lot more growth since then due to the hot weather we had been having. We keep them topped for now to encourage side growth.

 Although these are all considered drought tolerant plants when once they are established, since they still have only been in the ground a little over a year and are in a heavy growing mode they require regular water to keep them from getting stressed. We have invested too much time and money to lose them now due to neglect so we keep a close eye on them during this drought.  A truckload of mulch is being delivered this week to help keep the soil cool and moist.
 

 Although there were old sprinkler heads that had been converted to a drip system for the older plants, we are giving these young shrubs long deep soaks a couple times a month to make sure their roots go deep. There are still a few oleanders that are hanging on around the far side of the fence, but they are all slowly showing signs of dying off to the disease that has taken hundreds of the shrubs in this neighborhood alone. Soon we will have to deal with their replacements too, but the choices may be different due to the location in the yard and how they fit in with the other landscaping. The neighbors on the other side of these fences haven't done anything to enhance the privacy, but our other neighbors on the other side have already planted some bougainvillaea to take the place of the oleanders.

We had also planted some quick growing vines along this fence to give us some privacy a little bit sooner than the hedge will be complete and they are filling in nicely too. I am anticipating almost complete coverage by the end of this summer.

A Gravel Garden Update

 I was recently asked for an update on the Gravel Garden by a reader, so here it is. As is the case with any low maintenance area, not much changes back here, at least not quickly. 

 You can see though, that the screening shrubs between our property and the neighbors are continuing to thin. This is in part due to the demise of the oleanders in the area due to oleander scorch disease and just the normal growth of the overhead plants shading out the under plantings. We planted Carolina cherries (Prunus caroliniana) to replace the dying oleander and continue to plant vines and shrubs along the fences to encourage a dense thicket, but the right combination takes time to grow in and fill in the gaps in this shady space. The dry weather has not be helpful. The automatic sprinkler system can only provide so much water to these large specimen plants and even the drought tolerant ones are a bit stressed these days and not as full as they could be under optimum conditions. There is a large old Brazilian Pepper Tree to the right in these pictures that covers most of this area with shade that is looking very stressed and I am planning on giving it and the orange tree in the back a good long soak with a hose-end sprinkle this weekend to give them a little relief.

I've added layers of hedges and although I was overly romantic and optimistic when I first put this garden in a few years ago with planting a row of white hydrangeas and a drip system, but it has not quite unfolded as I had envisioned. Since then I have tried to wean myself off of reading so many blogs from the rainy part of the country where 'Limelight' hydrangeas grow like wildfires do here. I planted some 'Yuletide' camellias last year in this shady area and I am still contemplating some more shrubs to fill in that can tolerate the shade. Because both neighbors' yards that border this area are far removed from their homes, they don't pay much attention to what goes on here on their sides of the fence, so it is pretty much my issue. One neighbor's yard is actually a horse stable and riding area with lots of chickens, which kind of adds an interesting atmosphere to the backdrop of this garden.

Overall, with the challenges we are facing with the drought this year, the Gravel Garden with its low maintenance and low water needs along with lots of cool shade make it one of the easiest parts of the property to manage. It handles as much or as little time and energy as I want to put into it quite gracefully and provides a lovely space to hang out on top of it all!

Cutting Camellias

This year I've started using the winter blooms of my many camellias as cut flowers indoors on a regular basis. I always tell people that camellias are to winter what roses are to summer, but I do know that they do not quite have the scent of roses and the long stems that lend themselves to beautiful indoor bouquets so I am not surprised when I am met with a bit of skepticism over my enthusiasm for these beautiful blooms as cut flowers. Although I do sometimes cut them with stems and they do fine in small vases, my favorite way to display them is floating in flat bowls of water. On my coffee table all winter I have a large glass bowl of water that holds five to seven blooms and they last at least a week and are a lovely change of pace from the usual bouquets that are gathered from the garden. Add a few of the lovely dark green leaves tucked in around the blooms for a full look. One single bloom and a few leaves in a pretty saucer is lovely on a nightstand or in the powder room too. I did plant a couple new varieties this year for the sole purpose of adding to my choices to bring inside. My sister has moved into a home that has some established bushes and she always calls them "those peony-like flowers". Maybe I am missing the mark when I compare compare them to roses!  

On a side note, camellias are shrubs that prefer shady locations and once established and well mulched, can survive with minimum additional watering during droughts. Do clean up spent flowers under them though to prevent fungal diseases. 

Searching for Abutilon

Although I've been busy visiting nurseries trying to pick up some shrubs and perennials for spaces in need of reviving in SJC, I am not finding any abutilon.  They really are one of my favorite shrubs that, although considered a tropical plant, seem to bloom all fall and winter long and most of the spring. They are disease resistant and rarely are bothered by insects. Simple, easy and charming, no wonder the nurseries are sold out!