Beautiful Begonias

While looking over my past blog entries the other day (isn't blogging a wonderful way to record the garden?) I noticed that I only had one begonia post. This surprised me because I love begonias of all kinds and have many of them throughout the garden, but especially in containers near our front doors.
I went through a phase a few years ago where I collected tuberous, angel wing and rex begonias and labeled them all with their unique names.
I even considered joining the Begonia Society, but never got around to it. Here are a few of the ones I still have and enjoy.
I think one of my favorite things about them is that they do so well in containers and I also love to collect containers.

Begonias show off the container without overpowering it.

"Special" Rocks

I saw this idea a number of years ago and always had it in the back of my mind, until the time was right. Our oldest grandson is able to recognize his own name so I was happy to get the chance to add rocks with the grandkids' names on them to the garden. We plan to move them around to create a game for the kids to find their "rock" when they come to visit.

Mulch!

The green waste facilities for our area is nearby and we take advantage of their services a few times a year in the form of mulch deliveries. This is the third and last batch for this season in SJC. Although we have a large compost pile, because there are so many new beds with immature plants that will eventually fill in and need less mulch, we still need to purchase amendments to keep up with the demand. Obviously, we love mulch!

Tucking in a Few Pretties

Although there are lots of big jobs that need to be done in the gardens, I couldn't resist the cool-weather annuals at the nursery last week and succumbed to a flat of these blue violas. They will do well in this area that starts to lose light as the sun sinks lower on the horizon and creates shade on this side of the house.
The Laguna Beach Garden Club is coming to tour the SJC garden in a couple weeks and a little added seasonal color will definitely show well among the mainly green plants near the front door.
A few shots of seaweed extract will give them a bit of a boost along with the lovely warm weather we've been experiencing here this week. The little violas will be well established by the time the holidays roll around and the family starts showing up from all over the country.

Pups

In the farthest corner of the street side garden in SJC is the blue agave bed. There we planted a number of 'pups' from a large agave that I removed from the garden in Laguna because I was worried about the very sharp points with the children running through the garden. They will eventually be huge with leaves up to four or five feet long.
As you can see from the top picture the pups are now sending out pups of their own! Kind of sweet! Although it looks a little bare now, in another year or so they will have filled in nicely and will make quite a sculptural statement. It is in a part of the yard that I don't see without going to specifically look at it, so it doesn't really bother me. Oddly enough just to the left of this bed is the neighbors garden with boxwood hedges and roses.

Bulbs Have Arrived

This is two of the three boxes of bulbs that arrived last week in time for planting in the new garden beds. Because we can only naturalize bulbs that do not require a chill, I was somewhat limited to my selections. White daffodils, narcissus, alliums, and grape hyacinths for the Moonlight Garden are what are sleeping in these boxes.

Green Mums

I have to admit I have never gone out and bought chrysanthemums to plant in my garden. Never-the-less there are now probably a half-a-dozen or so shrubs blooming profusely throughout the gardens. The reason for this is that I pick up little four-inch pots of them (okay, sometimes six-inch pots) and fill in containers that change with the seasons around the front door. When they loose their flowers or Christmas poinsettias nudge them out they end up tossed into the gardens where there is a hole somewhere, forgotten about until they start peeking out at around this time of year.

I was especially happy to see this chartreuse one starting to bloom in the front garden where the plants are mainly purple, burgundy and fittingly enough, chartreuse!

Jumped The Gun

Our summer was so mild that I was lulled into planting some lettuce about a month ago, way too early. The mild summer has turned into a very warm fall and as you can see here, my lettuce is already bolting! I plan to 'harvest' most of it and hope that it will regrow and behave for the rest of the season!

Shades of Purple

Although there are many beautiful typical fall colors in the gardens, one of my favorite signs of the changing seasons is one of the not-so-typical color of the velvety-purple blooms of Mexican sage (salvia leucantha). It does bloom throughout the year sporadically, but now is when it really come into its own for the fall and winter months while so many other plants are taking a rest. These are in my street-side garden in San Juan Capistrano.

Before and After

This is a shot of part of our backyard in San Juan Capistrano as it looked when we moved in year before last. It was all lawn and palm trees.


This is what it looks like today. If you look closely you can see the palm trees that are in the center of the top photo peeking through the two pepper trees in the lower photo. This is what we call 'Flying Rabbit Island' and is my answer to creating our own view. When we moved here from Laguna we found that we really missed our ocean view. Staring at the swimming pool is just not the same. So I added this little island in the middle of the back lawn to give us something to look at when we were sitting in our rockers on the little patio off the living room. Although it is not exactly the most colorful time of year in this part of the yard, it still is interesting and one of our favorite spaces.