Sometimes it is About the Little Things...

...in life and in the garden as well. Even though big tasks like pruning, fertilizing, and mulching all the roses and the unavoidable general autumn garden clean up are hovering over me, I decided to have some fun first and also get some instant gratification by doing some small things that do have a big visual impact.

This bed for example really could need a little something, don't you think? There is a lot of shade in the autumn and winter and it certainly looks gloomy at this time of the year. So I decided to plant a few small annuals to lighten up the space there. That is easier said then done in this area though, since it is packed with palm roots.

My gardener needed one and a half hour to dig six holes of a diameter one foot x one foot and one foot deep, and I assure you he wasn't killing time.




I was so happy when he was done and I finally could plant the six primula obconica 'Libre White' that I had bought recently just because I thought they were so pretty, but hadn't had a clue where to put them. They look so fresh and cheerful with their fresh green leaves.

I think the primulas are just perfect for this areas. Big difference before and after, don't you agree?

The bed to the left side of the front door also screamed bonjour tristesse and I wanted to do something about it. I thought that it needed a pop of color and how is that easier to achieve in autumn than by placing a container. 

I suddenly remembered that I had one more nicely shaped blue container in the garage and to my own surprise I found it immediately. But I hadn't had the right plant to go with it. So off I went to the nursery (not that I ever mind)...

...and found this beautiful cyclamen. Don't ask me about the name of the variety. It wasn't labeled. It really bugs me that not only big box stores don't label the plants properly, but nurseries do that as well nowadays.

Anyway, I popped it into my blue container and it turned out to be the perfect match.

I was even more pleased when I positioned the container in the bed. It has the right size, the right proportions, and it really added some needed interest to this bed. 

When I was at the nursery these two containers caught my attention. I loved the form...

... and they came with little cute feet. So I just couldn't say no to them. 

I had the two perfect plants just waiting in my pot ghetto for the new blue containers. A zonal geranium, sorry the plant wasn't labeled as well, and a bacopa 'Scopia Gulliver White'.

I plopped the newly bought and planted containers right by the walkway to the front door and really liked the result. The blue glaze of the containers is fitting perfectly with the two blue spheres that I have there for quite a while now.

Here is one close-up of the bacopa 'Scopia Gulliver White'. The blooms seem to be decidedly bigger compared to regular bacopas. I hope in time it will trail more over the edge of the container and have a bigger impact.

I promised to show you the containers that I planted a little while ago and positioned close to our front door in a previous post. Here they are! I really like the color that they add to this otherwise plain area. I had some doubts if the geranium would bloom through the autumn and winter here, but so far so good. It has made new flower stalks.

Lastly here is one more blue container with another zonal geranium that I placed on the pillar of our decorative wall. I think it makes this area so much more lively.

For me the little changes that I made are so worth it. It wasn't all that much work, but in my eyes they truly transformed certain areas in my garden.

What are little changes that you made, which led to big improvements in your garden? I am curious to know and maybe learn something new that I can make use of in my own small space.

Wishing all of you who celebrate it a happy Christmas season!

See you in the garden!

Christina

Pottering Around

This month I finally found some time to garden in my beloved little green patch. Right now in parts it is not so beloved, to be quite honest with you, because due to time constrains I have severely neglected the garden in many areas and it shows. But what better thing to do than start to get going and do something about it? The weather was mostly splendid for November, in fact it was unusually warm, which certainly helped with the motivation.

Before: The camellia bed needed some serious fall clean-up. The strelitzia nicolai to the right and left were overgrown,  the hydrangeas needed deadheading and the whole bed some weeding and a fresh layer of mulch.




I wasn't too happy with this everblooming hydrangea called 'Penny Mac'. It bloomed just once like any other hydrangea. The flower color was a very ordinary pink, instead of the blue that I was after.




This lacecap hydrangea was an unnamed one that I got from Home Depot. Also nothing to write home about in terms of the flower color.




So off to Home Depot I went and got some nice compost. These eight bags of course were just the start.

After: I cut the Strelitzias back substancially, weeded the bed, deadheaded the hydrangeas and while I was on it decided to cut them back a bit and de-leave them as well. Around the hydrangeas I put soil sulfur and aluminum sulfat in the hope to get blue flowers next year. Since the white flowering camellias, the variety is 'Nuccio's Gem', and the gardenia looked a little malnourished I fertilized them just a tat. The bed appears a little bit boring to me, but it is very hard to keep such a small bed interesting at all times of the year. I am thinking about hanging something on the fence to give it some bling.

Both hydrangeas are showing already new leave buds. 

Aren't they supposed to go dormant and rest for a while? Gardening in Southern California is often a strange thing.




To my disappointment the 'Nuccio's Gem' camellias have not been growing very much since they were planted into the ground about a year ago. I also think that they have set less buds in comparison to when they were still growing in containers. But at least the buds that are there look promising. I am curious when they will start to open this year. Usually they bloomed pretty late in my garden, but this year the buds are showing already white tips.




This is 'Georgetown Tea', like the name says, a Tea Rose, which wasn't flowering very much anymore probably mainly due to the lack of nutrients in the soil. The palms that are surrounding it require that I feed the rose much more than usual, because of the strong root competition. Since Tea Roses are supposed to flower through the winter in Southern California I fertilize this rose year round. All other roses in the ground I stop fertilizing by the end of October.

For a quick fix I watered 'Georgetown Tea' with diluted fish fertilizer. Since fish fertilizer can get quite pricy I use Sea Grow Fish Fertilizer from the Grow More company, which I get for a good price at the annual fertilizer sale of the San Diego Rose Society.

After that I put twelve cups of organic rose fertilizer and some alfalfa meal down before this whole area was mulched with compost, too. Actually my husband was so nice and did the mulching here for me. It always is amazing to me how much compost one needs to spread to achieve a decent layer that covers the soil. It is hard on the back to handle the big compost bags and spread the compost around. On the photo above you can see the rose roughly two weeks after the treatment with the fish fertilizer. The difference isn't dramatic, but it blooms a little more. 

I find the blooms of 'Georgetown Tea' quite charming, but I am not so keen on how the bush looks. I really would love to see more leaves!

This flower of 'Georgetown Tea' is a good example of the drooping way Tea Roses hold their blooms.




These containers clearly have seen better days! They once were gracing the front door and were planted with heuchera 'Key Lime Pie', which were lovely for two to three years, but then perished and now obviously needed to be changed out.




I opted to replant them with geranium Martha Washington 'Regal Elegance Rose Bicolor', which also don't look that great in the moment, but the plants were bought a long time ago and were waiting in my pot ghetto to be transplanted into their permanent home. I assume they will recover and look better soon and will hopefully bloom in spring. The containers will go back to the sides of the front door. The geraniums are already bigger than the heucheras ever were and I think they will be more in proportion with the entry of our house.

This sad looking fellow was once a lovely blue flowering lobelia gracing a pillar in the front yard, which didn't make it through the summer heat. 

During one of my latest visits to Home Depot I spotted a nice batch of white flowering zonal geraniums (of course, they didn't bother to name the variety properly) for just $ 4.48 per plant. Usually I am not into zonal geraniums, but this one won me suddenly over with its nice white blooms and the healthy soft dark green leaves. I am not sure if it will continue to flower through the winter here, but it certainly would be nice.

The blue container also belongs to the front yard. It was holding the rose to the left, a miniature named 'Vi's Violet', which was just not doing well in the summer heat in the location where I had positioned the container. So I transplanted it into the terracotta container and it will now live in the backyard, which has some cooler areas. To substitute for it I placed another geranium Martha Washington 'Regal Elegance Rose Bicolor'. The blue container will go back to the location where the rose wasn't doing well and I hope the geranium will tolerate the heat better. I intend to show you some photos of how all the newly planted containers featured in this post will do in the front yard, soon.

My pot ghetto is still way bigger than it should be and I am making a serious attempt to reduce it by planting plants or giving them away. There is nothing wrong with these two agapanthus 'Midnight Blue', but I have decided not to plant them in my own garden. They have an unusual dark blue flower, which is very attractive, but I don't have any space left in the front yard and in the back yard I don't want to plant for strong contrast anymore but rather go for a muted, light color palette. So these went to a friend's garden, who is doing a garden makeover and needs plenty of new plants. 




As it sometimes happens, this rose has lost its label, but I am relatively sure that it is 'Chandos Beauty', a Hybrid Tea rose, which was quite hyped about. It hasn't done too much for me so far, but it seems to be a very healthy plant. So I thought I would transplant it into a bigger container and hopefully see it bloom soon, so that I can identify it for sure.

It went into a twenty inch diameter terracotta container and will now hopefully beautify our terrace in the backyard.




There is always more to do in a garden. When I was in one of my favorite nurseries lately I couldn't pass up these beauties. They are primula obconcia 'Libre White' and I was told that they would bloom in December/January in our climate. That would be great since this is a time in my garden where it is looking pretty bleak and any flower is welcome.

By the way, this is my one hundredth post and I just crossed one hundred thousand pageviews. Thank you all for visiting my blog!

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

See you in the garden!

Christina