Wide Shots - July 2022

Every July, I wonder why I set up my quarterly wide shots schedule to include one of my least favorite months in the garden.  A March, June, September and December schedule would have been much more civilized.  By July, my garden is dry as dust and the heat is rising steadily.  Plants that still looked good in June are starting to look sad and I know I can expect things to get worse in August and September.  At least September has the redeeming feature of signalling the beginning of fall  - and the local garden centers are getting in supplies of new plants.  The best thing I can say about July is that it's the month my dahlias usually start to bloom.

I took most of my photos early yesterday morning when our famous "June gloom" was still in place.  The marine layer that helps keep our afternoon temperatures down has been patchy of late, generally burning off before 10am.  It's unusual for it to extend into July but occasionally it happens - it even has a name: "No Sky July."

I'll start my wide shots post as I usually do, with the back garden.

View from the back door looking out over the Port of Los Angeles.  I've never been especially happy with the red-orange daylilies (Hemerocallis 'Sammy Russell') that came with the garden but, having introduced a lot of red and orange foliage over the years, I have to admit that the daylilies offer a nice color echo.

View from the back patio looking north.  I've left the bird feeders in place but empty since winter ended.  I've had far fewer issues with squirrels but I feel a tinge of guilt every time a bird lands on the feeder and leaves disappointed.

View from the north end of the back garden looking back toward the main patio.  The succulent bed in the foreground is filling out nicely, although I think I need to replace all the snow-in-summer (Cerastium tomentosum) I added as a groundcover with succulents as the former hasn't performed at all well.

View from the back patio looking south.  The rabbits are still here so there are lots of wire cloches and other protective barriers in place to keep them from eating everything in sight.

View from the south end of the back garden looking in the direction of the main patio.  The offset of the Yucca 'Bright Star' I cut to the ground late last year is growing, albeit slowly.

View of the back garden from the small patio on the south side of the house

Rounding the house in a clockwise direction, brings us to the south side garden.

View of the south side garden looking west.  This view looks largely the same from one season to the next, although the Agaves are steadily growing bigger.  I dread the day that my 'Blue Glow' Agaves start to bloom.

This view of the same area looking east shows the remaining influence of the morning marine layer

I'm showing this area at the rear of the south side bed mainly because it rarely shows up in my photos.  Salvia clevelandii 'Winnifred Gilman' still has flowers but they're on the decline.  The dirt path behind the border allows the gardeners to trim the hedges, which aside from blowing debris out of pathways, is pretty much their only job.

The front garden is up next.

View looking at our front door

The Magnolia grandiflora is dropping piles of leaves and flower petals in response to the higher temperatures

This path behind the hedge facing the street leads from the driveway to the lath (shade) house on the lower level area of the front garden

View from the area just outside the lath house looking east in the direction of the harbor.  The succulents I planted on the slope in November 2020 are growing, albeit more slowly than I'd like.

Back on the front garden's main level, this is a view from the south end looking north in the general direction of the garage.  The Acacia cognata 'Cousin Itt' in the foreground is crowding the flagstone path but I haven't had the heart to cut it back as much as I should.

View of the same area looking south from the area surrounding the Magnolia tree

This is the area surrounding the Magnolia.  I now have 5 half-barrels here.  I've tried to plant various groundcovers in the soil beneath the tree but the tree's roots provide too much competition.

View from the driveway area next to the house looking southwest.  The Leptospermum 'Copper Glow' are living up to their name right now.

View of the garden area on the other side of the driveway, next to the garage

The succulent bed alongside the garage in the northwest corner of our property.  The pinhole leak in our irrigation system I wrote about recently is in an area at the rear of this bed near the peppermint willow tree (Agonis flexuosa) on the left.

On the other side of the garage is my cutting garden.  The first dahlias are getting close to blooming but they're not quite there yet.

I pulled 2 huge clumps of Orlaya grandiflora out of the center raised planter earlier this week as it was rapidly going to seed.  The Delphinium 'Cobalt Dreams' in that same bed is preparing to bloom again, as is Dahlia 'Enchantress'.  At present, it looks as though Dahlia 'Southern Belle' in the raised planter in the foreground will be the first dahlia with "proper" blooms given that aphids have damaged the blooms on another dahlia that was originally in the lead.

On the other side of the gate shown in the preceding photo are my north side dry garden and the path to our back slope.

Nothing much is blooming in this area at the moment other than a scattering of flowers on the guava tree but the persimmon trees are already producing fruit

I haven't been down to the bottom of the stairway on the back slope since my last ugly encounter with fire ants over 3 weeks ago.   I need to suit up in protective gear and get down there to water as the whole area is clearing suffering.

This is a view of the back side of the north side garden as I neared the top of the cement block stairway

 The only area left to cover is the street-side succulent bed.

View from the street looking south

View looking at the area straight on.  The larger succulents are holding their own but some of the smaller ones would probably appreciate a bit more water but, given our recent leak, I've been stingy about offering any area extra water.

Maybe we'll get a nice tropical storm or two this summer and October will be greener than July.  That's unlikely but hope springs eternal.

All material © 2012-2022by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party