It's still hot here. The temperature hasn't gotten above the low 90s but the humidity has been running higher than we're used to. Garden activities are once again restricted to early morning and late afternoon. Watering takes the majority of my time during those restricted intervals but I've tackled a couple of projects this week.
The first involved cleaning up an area of the front garden badly damaged by the early July heatwave. I resisted the urge to cut back the damaged foliage of my
Acacia 'Cousin Itt' but I went ahead and pulled out the clover and Santa Barbara daisies (
Erigeron karvinskianus) that were incinerated when the temperature hit 110F and stayed there for hours. I also cut back 2 mint bushes (
Prostanthera ovalifolia 'Variegata') that looked spindly and sad well before the heat struck - they have short lives here and I don't really expect them to come back. I focused on adding topsoil and soil amendments in the hope of creating a good foundation for replanting come fall.
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| Lots of bare space now for planting when the weather cools. The Acacia 'Counsin Itt', Arthropodium cirratum, Pennisetum 'Rubrum', Leucadendron 'Safari Sunset', and probably the Artemisia 'Seafoam' will stay. |
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| I'm not sure about the Phormium 'Tom Thumb' or the Pelargoniums. |
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| The area beyond the Acacia and Arthropodium gets sun most of the day. I'm considering adding another Grevillea 'Superb' (to mirror that on the other side of the path) and either clumps of Lomandra 'Breeze' or Festuca californica. Beyond that, I'm unsure what to do here but then there's lots of time to deliberate before September. |
My second project was seed sowing. Encouraged by a small success in getting a few
Ferraria crispa seeds to germinate, I sowed seeds I'd recently collected from my Pacific Coast Irises (
Iris douglasiana). It remains to be seen whether I'll be successful in getting any of these plants to grow but my fingers are crossed.
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| I know the Ferraria seedling looks scrawny but I was thrilled just to get the seeds I collected to germinate. This is a bulbous plant so it'll be a long while before it produces blooms like those on the right but worth the effort as the plants aren't especially easy to find. |
I continued to work on rehabbing my succulent containers too. I made a second trip to the
succulent nursery I visited last week. I hadn't planned to visit again so soon but one does what one must.
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| A friend joined me on this visit. These are views of the larger succulents and cacti growing in full sun. |
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| The nursery has a large collection of healthy houseplants too |
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| I checked out the bromeliads this time but decided to hold off on buying anything as there's a bromeliad show scheduled this weekend that's likely to offer better deals |
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| The nursery has a surprisingly large collection of Sansevierias. I brought home one of those on the far right. |
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| Like my prior trip, I focused on making selections among the smaller succulent under shade cover, although I also brought home 2 houseplants and a large Aloe in addition to the Sansevieria. My only complaint about this nursery is that most of the plants aren't labeled and the staff isn't always able to provide an ID. |
I selected plants for 2 pots that needed rehab. So far, I've replanted just one, a hover dish planter positioned outside my lath (shade) house. Once again, I mixed cuttings from my own garden with newly purchased plants.
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| The Agave lophantha 'Quadicolor', Portulacaria afra, Rhipsalis (maybe R. burchellii), and noID Echeverias came from the nursery. I filled in mostly with cuttings of Aeonium haworthii 'Kiwi' and 'Kiwi Verde' from my garden. |
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| In retrospect, I think the composition is busy but, as the Agave's likely to pup, I can remove Aeoniums to make room as needed |
The biggest garden project this week was my husband's. He designed and constructed removable shade covers for my lath house. My hope is that they'll prevent the kind of damage the plants there received when the sun went supernova in July. My husband installed the covers this afternoon and I spent hours before dinner cleaning up the space. More on that to come in a future post. For now, best wishes for a great weekend.
All material © 2012-2018 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
