This week's projects

It's been another busy week in my garden.  I addition to collecting rainwater on Monday, I addressed a host of small projects.

Last weekend, I scrambled to get more plants in the ground in advance of of the rain predicted to reach us on Monday.

The plants under the wire cloches shown here include Anchusa azurea 'Alkanet'(1), Penstemon heterophyllus 'Blue Springs' (3), and Helichrysum argyrophyllum (1).  Two Felicia aethiopica 'Tight & Tidy' aren't readily visible in this shot.  Neither are the 5 Arctotis 'Pink Sugar' received with the same mail order delivery.  The cloches are an acknowledgement of recent possum activity.

I also finally got 2 more Phylica pubescens (aka featherhead) planted in this area around the corner from the plants shown in the prior photo

The rainstorm forced me to face up to the fact that the two Leptospermum 'Copper Glow' shrubs in my front garden have gotten too big and required more aggressive pruning.

This photo was taken as part of my wide shots post in early October.  It shows the two shrubs on either side of the path leading to the front door.  When they were laden with rain, they hung over the path, nearly touching one another.

I've only tackled one so far.  It was more of a workout than I'd expected.

This is an "after" shot of the shrub I pruned.  I'd estimate I reduced the size of the plant by about a third.  I'll probably tackle the second shrub next week.

I saved a few stems of the Leptospermum to fill a vase

I also worked on overhauling my cutting garden, starting with removing several dahlias to make room for my cool season floral "crops."  I'll store dahlia tubers 'Break Out' and 'Summer's End' as well 'Akita', 'Enchantress', 'Gitt's Crazy', 'Iceberg', and probably 'Kogane Fabuki' and 'Waltzing Matilda'when I get around to pulling those plants.  I've already dumped 'Cafe au Lait', 'Cafe au Lait Royal', 'Loverboy', and 'Magic Moment', and I expect to jettison '(Not) Penhill Dark Monarch' and 'Mystic Illusion' as well.   'Cafe au Lait' is worth another try but something had clearly infected the plant I bought as a potted specimen and, on the chance that the tuber itself might be infected, I'd rather start fresh.  After clearing space in two of my raised planters, I got busy sowing seeds and planting other bulbs.

I sowed seeds of 4 varieties of sweet peas after soaking the seeds for 24 hours.  I also soaked (hydrated) and planted 60 Anemone coronaria corms and 40 Ranunculus tubers.  I covered everything with empty plastic flats, pinned to the soil to keep the raccoons and possums out until plants germinate.  Replanting will continue as I remove more dahlias.

I worked on a small section of the front garden that was in need of a refresh too.

This is a "before" shot of the area in question, a bed along the pathway that leads down into the area containing my lath house

This is the "after" shot.  I pulled 2 lavenders that had struggled here, as well as the large multi-stemmed Aeonium arboreum that had served as a filler, and relocated the small Phlomis purpurea I'd planted 18 months ago to serve as a focal point.  In their place, I popped in 2 Aloe 'Moonglow' divisions given to me in September by Denise of A Growing Obsession.

Did you even notice the Phlomis purpurea in the "before" photo?  It had survived its placement in that very dry spot atop the moderate slope in my front garden but it failed to thrive.  I pruned it back and replanted it in a still bare area of the back border.  I can only hope it'll do better there.

I left a bucket of Aeonium  arboreum cuttings and 9 massive Amaryllis belladonna bulbs removed from the back border for interested neighbors.  The Amaryllis bulbs had produced lots of offsets.

Following Monday's rain, we got another round of warm weather.  Our daytime temperature peaked at 86F (30C) yesterday.  It's expected to be just slightly cooler today.  It seems summer isn't quite ready to throw in the towel...