This is the time of year I'm most unhappy with my garden. Despite the unexpected rain we received earlier this summer, most everything in the garden is turning crispy, if not dying outright. What's left of the lawn literally crunches underfoot. Still coloring within the lines laid out by our new water restrictions, I haven't done much of the supplemental watering I usually do at this time of year and that's now having an impact. I've been metering out my stored rainwater, perhaps at too stingy a rate, but I'm worried about running out before the winter rains return and I'm reserving some of it to ensure that the most valuable and vulnerable of my plants make it through the toughest part of the summer.
However, there's one large group of plants that's holding its own: the succulents. I thought this would be a good time for a closer examination of the succulents in the hottest, driest areas of my garden. I showed a wide shot of my street-side succulent bed in a recent post but, as context, here's another view:
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| The bed really does slope downward as shown here - none of the streets around here are flat |
Here's a closer view of the bed in segments:
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| The area shown on the left sits just beyond the abrupt end of our Xylosma hedge; the next photo shows the area roughly in the middle of the bed, partially shaded by one of the remaining Auranticarpa rhombifolia shrubs that formerly made up a separate hedge; and the last photo shows an area near to our neighbor's driveway |
There are a LOT of agaves in that bed. In fact, agaves provide focal points in all of the segments I featured above.
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| Three Agave 'Blue Glow', still relatively small, surround a Chondropetalum tectorum (the only one of the 3 I planted 2 years ago to survive) with a couple of immature A. desmettiana, planted as pups, in the background |
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| Two of the larger Agave desmettiana planted in the bed - the one on the left was photographed from the street and the one on the right from the dirt path behind the bed |
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| Two views of Agave 'Impressa', surrounded by a few Dudleya (currently dormant) and Graptoveria 'Fred Ives' cuttings among other things |
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| Two views of my 2 Agave 'Blue Flame', now co-located, and surrounded by a variety of other succulents, including Cistanthe grandiflora and Graptopetalum paraguayense |
Behind the street-side bed is a stacked stone wall. After losing a couple of
Ceanothus shrubs in that area earlier this year, I filled in with
Aeonium cuttings, which are always available in ample supply. Even though the
Aeoniums go dormant at this time of year, they've created the beginnings of a nice green space in that area.
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| Most of what I've planted above the wall is Aeonium arboreum (I think) but there are Aeonium 'Kiwi' cuttings too, as well as a few Oscularia deltoides |
For the most part, I've put a stop to new plant purchases until temperatures cool. Succulents are the key exception. I used some of my recent purchases, as well as cuttings from elsewhere in my garden, to plant a low berm in the area I call the glen, just behind the street-side bed.
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| All but 7 of the plants in the sparsely-planted area bordered by the stone rubble are cuttings from elsewhere in the garden |
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| In addition to 3 Echeveria agavoides, my new purchases here include Agave 'Mateo', a variegated offspring of A. bracteosa (shown at left) and 3 Sedum kamtschaticum 'Variegatum' (shown in the middle and right photos) |
I also used cuttings to fill a hanging planter I got from Potted at a mail-order discount because it was labeled as imperfect. (It looked good to me!)
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| The hanging planter needs a larger specimen in the middle - I'm planning to replace the 3 cuttings of Crassula capitella 'Campfire' with a larger version of the same plant and will add some gravel as a filler |
Some of the succulent pots in this and other areas of the garden could really use a trip to rehab so you can expect to see more succulents in future posts. I have to have some outlet for my itchy fingers - I can only spend so much time in my garden spreading mulch and doling out emergency water.
How do you spend the hottest days of summer in your garden?
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© 2012-2015 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
