It's February 1st, which means it's time to post wide shots of my garden, as I've done since September 2013 when Heather at
Xericstyle kicked off this monthly exercise.
My front garden is filling in, although blank spaces remain here and there. This is due to a lack of design inspiration in some cases and an inability to secure plants on my wish list in other cases. I expect that most of the vacancies will fill up quickly once spring arrives and new plants flood the nurseries.
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| As I've pruned the shrub roses and Cuphea in the front borders, you can now see the newly planted area beyond from the street |
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| The climbing rose to the far left of the front entry is the only one left to prune |
Rounding the house clockwise from the front yard leads us to the vegetable garden, where I did finally plant up one of the 3 raised planters.
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| The sugar snap peas I planted from seed came up but were quickly nibbled to nubs by something, along with the lettuce I planted from 6-packs - only the Cilantro and sweet peas were left alone |
The main draw in the vegetable garden are the citrus trees anyway. Although the squirrels and raccoons have been picking oranges from the lower branches, there are still plenty left up higher.
The
Grevilleas,
Leptospermums,
Leucadendron, and
Osteospermums are all blooming in the dry garden, as is one out-of-sync daylily.
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| Grevillea lavandulacea 'Penola' is blanketed in flowers and Hemerocallis 'For Pete's Sake' thinks spring has arrived |
The path through the dry garden takes you down to our back slope. My husband and I spent a LOT of time there in January after the tree service was done grinding the stumps of the
Yucca elephantipes that stood at the border between our property and that of the neighbor below us. Our efforts aren't readily apparent in my photos and it remains to be seen how successful our attempt at remediation will be.
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| View from the top of the stairs down the slope, looking into the neighbor's property |
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| Our neighbors agreed to my proposal to create a new screen between our properties using 3 Pittosporum tenuifolium but getting these planted proved difficult for reasons it would take an entire post to explain. Although I added topsoil and compost, I remain concerned about how these 3 plants will fare sitting in an area filled with decomposing Yucca debris. |
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| The view looking back up the slope's stairway |
The beds created to the north of the back patio are filling in nicely.
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| View walking from the dry garden on the northwest side of the house toward the main backyard patio |
However, there are gaps throughout the back garden. The return of the daylilies will fill some of these but I think I also need to swap out some of my perennials for shrubs to provide more structure.
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| View looking toward the harbor, partially obscured by fog |
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| View looking back toward the northwest |
While taking this series of photos, I realized that there was more light coming from the southeast than normal. Scanning the horizon, I discovered that the neighbor 2 mailboxes down had given his trees a severe haircut (the first in the 4 years we've lived in this house), leaving us a view of the street instead of trees.
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| I preferred the former view of the trees to watching pre-teens skateboard down our road |
The overall appearance of the southeast side garden hasn't changed much.
After working on the back slope, my husband and I had little time or energy to give to the "glen" facing the street but seedlings are popping up along the slope to that area so nature is doing some work for me.
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| There's more light in this area since the trees next door and 2 doors over were trimmed |
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| I removed a half-dead Ceanothus from the slope and pruned the roses, opening this view up a bit |
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| From left to right: Rosa chinensis 'Mutabilis,' inherited with the house; my new succulent cutting bed; Limonium transplants with volunteer seedlings of what I believe are probably Osteospermum |
Lastly, here are this month's photos of the street-side succulent bed that lies just outside the glen.
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| The Pittosporum on the left is targeted for removal but the fate of the others is still undecided |
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© 2012-2015 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
