Some years ago, Alison of Bonney Lassie called on garden bloggers to fess up about the messes in their gardens. She presented her own in posts entitled "Tell the Truth Tuesday." In midsummer, in an especially dry year, I have plenty in my garden to which I'd like to turn a blind eye, the window boxes attached to my lath house among them.
Here's what they looked like last week after I pulled out the dead plants:
 |
| Box #1: In the end, the 'Evening Glow' Coprosmas were the only plants really worth saving |
 |
| Box #2: I cut the Coprosmas back and transplanted them in other areas of the garden. They might survive. |
Tempting as it was to add fluffy flowering plants, with water at a premium in drought-stricken California, I thought I should use something that doesn't need water two or more times a week to survive the heat in a small box. Our last water bill shook me up as the total expense was much higher than I'd expected. My husband dug below the total to determine that, while our usage this period somewhat exceeded that we used over the same period last year, it was on par with what we used in July 2020. That said, the cost of the same amount of water is now nearly twice what it was last year. While I feel slightly better to learn that I hadn't actually gone completely overboard with my water use, it still has me thinking twice about what I plant.
So here are my replanted window boxes:
 |
| The boxes are filled with identical succulent plants |
 |
| They get sun at different times of the day |
Here's what I used:
 |
| Clockwise from the upper left: Echeveria scheideckeri (aka jeweled crown, a hybrid of Pachyphytum bracteosum and Echeveria secunda), Echeveria shaviana (aka Mexican hens), Crassula swaziensis 'Money Maker', and Senecio radicans 'String of Bananas' (now formally classified as part of the genus Curio, which appears to include a number of plants formerly classified as Senecio) |
I'm guessing that more and more succulents are going to creep into my garden in the coming year as our water challenges continue. Last week the federal government issued the first restrictions on use of water from the Colorado River. Arizona farmers will be the first group directly impacted but this will effect Southern California all too soon if drought conditions continue.
All material © 2012-2021 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party