Not sure what this little guys is - maybe a hoverfly? He is kind of cute!
My favorites, abutilon, is starting to bloom as the days get shorter and the nights get cooler.
Don't remember planting this, but I am enjoying this pretty display of allums nerver-the-less!
We have never has squirrels here in SJC - until I bought this sweet little squirrel ornament. Suddenly I have started to see them here and there in the gardens! Weird!
I've been focusing on adding more plants that attract butterflies. Luckily there was a Master Gardener class focusing on just that which I attended a couple months ago that introduced me to some new plants that will do the trick that I don't grow - yet.
There was an abundance of cleome at the nurseries this summer and I bought a number of them. They add nice summer color and the butterflies love them.
I have fennel that has self seeded throughout the gardens.
I have never grown gomphrena before, but after planting it I have a new appreciation for it. It went totally wilted when the new sprinkler weren't working, but bounced right back bigger than ever.
Of course there are the standard butterfly attractions like milkweed and passion flowers. It all must be working because there are more butterflies around than ever this year in the garden - much to my delight! Of course along with butterflies comes caterpillars and some damage to the garden while they eat their way to cocoons, so it is important to eliminate sprays, even organic ones, if you want to make them comfortable sharing your garden.
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!
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!
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!
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| Veronica and Cleome |
In a definite case of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do, I have been busy planting this week. If I had seen someone at the nursery with as many plants as I had on my carts, I would have labeled them a novice. Nobody plants in the middle of summer. But I have a good excuse, or a couple of them. I really want to attract more butterflies to the gardens and since there are so many of them fluttering around looking for their favorite flowers, I figured now is a good time to add some of them to the garden before I forget.
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| Rose of Sharon |
I also have an upcoming event taking place in my gardens. We entertain a lot, but not usually in the summer or out in the gardens. It just so happens that all our parties seem to take place in the winter when the gardens are rather quiet and people gravitate to the inside of the house. Plus there is such a great selection at the nurseries this time of year! I am usually not visiting them much in the summer, but they are just packed with all kinds of great plants that I don't always see other times of the year.
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| Cleome |
So although I'm happy to be able to utilize the gardens for a wonderful summer party, this is just not a good year for taking advantage of the flower beds. I have lost a number of perennials, either due to them just being at the end of their life cycle (not all perennials live forever) or because we have had an issue with the new low volume sprinkler heads not putting out enough water to keep anything blooming, or in some cases, alive. Of course the ongoing drought is not helping either. So I have been trying to choose wisely and water efficiently to give these new lovelies a good start, even if it is the middle of summer.
Into the later half of July and we still have overcast mornings, some much needed but unexpected rain, and it is finally starting to get hot enough to turn the tomatoes ripe. I even picked my first fig this morning and will savor it in a couple days with some cheese and honey.
The tomatoes finally got staked by my son who stopped by a couple weekends ago and made a run to the nursery for me.
I have tried to make it as inconvenient as possible for the dogs to get to them and enjoy them before we do.
The red among all the foliage is a welcome sight! Along with the different basil that also appreciate the sunny days there is a carpese salad in the near future.
These oranges have been sweet and tasty for a while, which usually doesn't happen until the heat kicks in to give them some flavor. Must be an excellent variety (that I can't remember) for the coast. It is always a good idea to shop the local nurseries that know what varieties do best in our fickle climate.
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.
Female Sago Palm
Male Sago Palm
Any questions?
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
I use aeoniums as ground cover in a number of spots for the simple reason that they are so easy to propagate. Just take a rosette and stick it in the ground and you have a new plant.They do best in bright areas or filtered sun. But they are not fool proof in that they do need some regular water. They are not cactus! The picture above is a spot that they are quite happy in, a neglected corner with just the right amount of sun and water.
This picture is a spot they are not too happy with, along the curb in the front yard. My garden helper put them in on his own when the creeping thyme wasn't doing so well. Naturally they can't be walked on so maybe not a great choice next to where people park and get out of their cars. But the main problem is not enough water in this spot. There are sprinklers here, but the soil is so thin and sloped that it just won't seep into the ground and these guys are thirsty (but they are still creating offspring I notice). They ball up and turn red when not happy. I am planning on replacing them with dymondia in the fall or next spring. Not my favorite groundcover as far as looks go, but I guess you can't beat it for being tough and drought tolerant. Almost anything will be an improvement over this!
I do love my Shasta daisies (Leucanthemum x superbum) that grow in the Moonlight Garden. They have been in the same spots for many years and never fail to produce lots of tall, cheerful blooms all summer.
My only frustration is that I have planted them in a few other spots, trying to spread their glory, but they have never taken off and in fact disappear. I suspect they must be very tasty to rabbits that don't venture this close to the house.
They are practially pest free unless you have slugs and snails from what I understand (I don't have to deal with those pests, I am guessing the local rodents take care of them, but I did get rid of them with Sluggo (organic snail bait) when I first moved in and they have never returned.) Another nice thing about these big daisies is that they make the perfect landing spot for all kinds of friendly bees, bugs, and butterflies. One more thing - they make great cut flowers. If only I would get around to making bouquets for the house!
It seems like the groundcovers that are not succulent in nature have a really hard time doing well with limited water. I'm guessing it is because they usually have very shallow roots. Convolvulus sabatius (Ground Morning Glory) is an exception. It is really more like a very short shrub, growing about three feet wide, along the ground, and I'm assuming it has deeper roots because of this. You buy it in one gallon containers and it doesn't naturally root, reseed or send out runners (unlike crazy vine morning glories) so maybe it isn't really considered a ground cover, more like a ground hugger! I do love the color and the easy growing nature of this charming plant, blooms all year round and drought tolerant too! You couldn't ask for more!
A shady nook in the garden that rarely is seen by most viistors still has a few English primrose blooms left thanks to the cool, overcast weather we have been having. The hellebores were done blooming months ago. These primrose were in a basket I used for some dining room arrangements in March and were just kind of stuck in the ground when they stopped blooming, but I guess they had more buds to show!
Another plant that seems unaffected by the drought are the agapanthus. They actually do better under stress, and bloom more! On our SJC property when we bought it were dozens of agapanthus that were tucked in everywhere. They obviously had been divided from what I'm guessing were large clumps somewhere and the characteristic leaves were throughout many of the flowerbeds at the feet of the palm trees and other established plants. Although they are considered a rather pedestrian plant in our area, I was delighted. I love agapanthus! But unfortunately they were too immature to bloom. We are just starting to get blooms now, eight years later. Pretty white and blue flowers are starting to show up here and there. I know they prefer crowded roots to bloom, but maybe the shortage of water has been enough of a stress to cause them to send up flowers too.
