And What About My Own Garden?

Because of the three rescue Doberman puppies (if you have missed the two posts about them and would like to take a look, please click here and here) that we took in on April 24th, my garden was greatly neglected from that day on. But even though I love my garden dogs come before plants in our house, so I have made my peace with that.

The one puppy from the litter that we adopted, still keeps me very busy, since at that young age they need a lot of time and attention, but slowly I am starting to work in the garden, again. It feels like I have to care for each plant individually and nurture it back to health and beauty. That we are in the middle of the summer, which is very hot here, is also not exactly helping.

But each time I am out in the garden doing a little something I feel happiness welling up in my heart. It is so wonderful to be able to get my hands dirty, again! Here are some photos from my garden taken in July.

The plant that is my absolute favorite this summer, besides the roses of course, is 'Verbena bonariensis'. I tried to shoot a close-up of the delicate flowers in the photo above.

Even though I see this plant all the time on blogs now, the first time I consciously noticed it, was at HORTVS, Peter Jankes' garden in Germany that I visited last year. I immediately fell in love and when I was back in California, I tried to source it here.

And I was lucky! I found three plants for a reasonable price at Home Depot. I planted them in front yard, but one died immediately, the second barely escaped death and the third one also struggled to survive. Almost a year later though, one has become a wonderful big plant and the second survivor has grown into a very decent specimen as well.

In the photo above you see 'Verbena bonariensis' right behind the Pygmy Date Palm in the middle of the picture. It is about six feet tall, a very light and airy plant. It blooms for a very long time, attracts plenty of bees and other pollinators.

It doesn't take up much space itself, but adds needed height to my very small front yard. It mixes nicely with other plants and weaves through them, without casting too much shade or taking up too much room. Once it is established it has proven itself to be a wonderful addition to my garden and I intend to get more plants of it. The difficulty for me has been to get it going. But the moment the plant had accomplished that, it has been a pure delight. I simply love, love, love this plant!

'Verbena Bonariensis' has been a real challenge to photograph for me and my images don't do it justice, but trust me it is a very beautiful plant!

Another plant that surprised me positively this summer is stachys monieri 'Hummelo'. The leaves have a wonderful, fresh, light green color, that is so well received by the soul in the heat and drought that we have here during the summer months. I have three plants and non of them has bloomed, yet though. I wonder if this will still come?

My roses are all in desperate need of fertilizer. Roses are heavy feeders and without regular food they are just not able to bloom well in my garden. I started my second serving of fertilizer with 'Bewitched', which obviously doesn't look that great right now, but has given me already the most beautiful cut flowers. I featured two blooms that I brought indoors recently in a post, if you are curious what they looked like, just click on the link.

I enthusiastically bought the dahlia 'Thomas Edison', I believe in early spring, but never got around to plant it. Recently when I searched the garage for it to throw it away, because I thought the tubers were dead, I was very surprised that they had sprouted at least three green tips, which looked pretty much alive.

Even though July is totally the wrong time to plant a dahlia, I thought that they deserve a chance to survive and decided to pot them up. When I unpacked the tubers they looked like this.

I potted them up in five gallon containers and just watered them lightly in. I had read that you should be very easy on the water until the dahlias have started to actively grow, because otherwise the tubers will rot.

'Thomas Edison' looks like a very beautiful dahlia. Is someone of you growing this particular dahlia? Is it as pretty as the photo indicates? And, do you think I have any chance to see some flowers this year even though I potted it up so late?

My reliable salvia 'Mystics Spires Blue' dazzles me like each year with its wonderful blue color. Bees appreciate it very much, too.

Even though a lot of other plants have shut down, because of the summer heat, most of my roses are continuing to bloom and add lots of color to the garden. One more reason why I love them so much! Here you see an unfolding bloom of 'The Prince', a David Austin rose with an incredible strong and pleasant fragrance.

This is what the bloom looked like when fully open.

'The Prince' had a nice flush in July. In the background of the rose you see the former mentioned second specimen of 'Verbena bonariensis'.

I love this shot of 'The Prince'!

But unfortunately I am not the only one who likes this rose. This huge grasshopper munches on its rose petals. Aaargh...

It was really a humongous insect and even though it has a right to live too, I am not a fan!

I hope that I will find the time to blog more regularly in the future. I really do miss it! Unfortunately I also don't get around as much to read all my favorite blogs and leave comments. Please bare with me, things will get better as the puppy grows...

See you in the garden!

Christina

Early Spring In The Front Yard

The front yard, particularly the walkway to the front door, is already looking really nice! Of course, there are always things that can be improved, but in the moment I am pretty happy with this part of the garden. Let me take you for a quick garden tour and show you around!

I am especially pleased with this little corner bed, which is closest to our front door. From the left to the right: Daylily 'Gentle Shepherd', salvia 'Mystic Spires Blue', rosa 'The Prince', Martha Washington geranium 'Regal Elegance Purple Majesty', Martha Washington geranium seedling, white cyclamen, variety unknown. Most of the front yard was fertilized and mulched at the end of the winter and that really made a difference in the vigor of the plants this year. Let's have a closer look at what is growing in this bed.

White flowering daylily 'Gentle Shepherd' is said to be slow to bulk up, and that is true for mine, but at least it is growing happily and has made one new fan. I can't wait to see it blooming for the first time this year. Do you notice the small plant to the left of the daylily?

Here is a close up of it. That is a paperwhite narcissus! I didn't get them in the ground before February, which is way to late to plant them according to the book, but I could either let the bulbs die or put them in the ground then and I decided to give it a try. There are about fifteen bulbs of paperwhites in the front yard. I am curious to see how many will come up and maybe even bloom.

Rosa 'The Prince' looks as good as never before. I am really hoping for a great spring flush.

I still love my hand painted Portuguese jar, but it is covered a little bit more than I would like by the Martha Washington geranium 'Regal Elegance Purple Majesty'. Maybe I should prop the jar up a bit, so that it is more visible. The geranium is doing great and I expect to see many blooms this year. It has a truly wonderful dark purple color.

Judging by the leaves this is another Martha Washington geranium (it is growing to the right side of the one in the photo above), but I haven't planted it. I guess it is a seedling or the Martha Washington geranium 'Regal Elegance Purple Majesty' has found another way to propagate itself. I am anxiously waiting to see what the bloom color will be.

My white cyclamen is blooming generously. It grows for years in this container and blooms reliably each year. A happy no fuss plant. You can't ask for more.

Opposite to the bed shown in the first photo of this post I have two other Martha Washington geraniums growing in blue containers. The name of the variety is 'Regal Elegance Rose Bicolor' and it is also a very lovely one.

I wasn't aware of it before I took the photos, but this one has set buds already. It only will take days for them to open and I am looking so much forward to seeing them, again.

This is an incredible narrow and therefore difficult to plant bed called "The Hell Strip" to the left side when you leave the house. It is doing well so far, too.

In the very front corner of the photo above I have planted stachys monieri 'Hummelo'. The snails are going after it like crazy and didn't give the plant a chance to grow new leaves. So I put out Sluggo (the little white kernels), an organic snail deterrent, to keep them in check.

I have a second salvia 'Mystics Spires Blue' growing in the "Hell Strip Bed" opposite the salvia 'Mystics Spires Blue' in the corner bed featured in the first photo of this post. This one receives more sun and warmth and the plant is much more developed than the other one. Both salvias grow through obelisks to prevent them from flopping over later in the season.

This is a kind of miniature pelargonium, which I cut back only in February. Sorry, but I can't remember the name. Hope it will come back properly. It also lives in the "Hell Strip Bed".

The middle of the bed that runs along the walkway to the house is planted with two roses 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' to the very right and left. I had added two verbena bonariensis between the roses and the Pygmy Date Palm last year in autumn, but one died almost instantly, the other was struggling for the longest time, but seems to have grown in now.

Here you can see the verbena bonariensis more closely. I tried to find a replacement for the one which died, but so far no luck at the local nurseries. 

You walk up to this island bed as you leave the house and walk towards the street. A pretty Pygmy Date Palm lives here. At the feet of the palm is blue flowering penstemon planted. It is struggling because of the root competition with the palm,...

...but since I have fertilized and mulched the bed, I hope I can get one more year out of the penstemon, but eventually it has to be replaced. 

Right before you leave the house you pass by this scene. To the left there is rosa 'Pretty Jessica' planted and to the right rosa 'Marie Pavie'. The latter is full of buds, even though you can't see it well on the photo, and is about to bloom very soon. The white flowering pelargonium in the container on the column looks pretty ugly with its brown leaves.

Close-up of the white pelargonium. I never could get it to look better than on this photo and I don't know the reason why it constantly is making these brown leaves. After two years of trying I am seriously thinking to get rid of it and replace it with another Martha Washington geranium 'Regal Elegance Rose Bicolor', that I still have on hand.

Looking at the middle part of the bed running along the walkway to the house from another direction. I like the height that the obelisk adds to the bed.

View from the street towards the front door. The front yard is mainly green at this time of the year, but I like it this way.

Besides the cyclamen and the white geranium, the dianthus 'Floral Lace White' is the only other plant blooming right now. I thought dianthus would be an annual, but they came through the winter like a charm and were flowering more or less prolifically since they were planted last spring. Pretty amazing!

This last shot shows the walkway to the house as you enter it from the street. Do you see the white dianthus that I just discussed blinking through the trunks of the Pygmy Date Palm?

To me it looks like the front yard is off to a very good start into the season. Now I sit back and enjoy watching things filling in more and wait for the roses and other plants to start blooming. Life is good!

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to

Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden
Rose Garden Malevik

Garden Tour: Roses and other Happenings...

Work has gotten the better of me, again and for that reason the blog had to be somewhat abandoned. But here I am today with a new Periscope video for you.

It is another tour through my garden and I am looking predominately at roses that were still in bloom when the video was taken about three weeks ago, but also checked on other plants that were recently planted. At the time when I shot the Periscope video, my gardener was trying to open up a clogged drain in our front yard to get our property ready for a hopefully generous El Nino (Winter rains), so you see a little bit of that, too.

Hope you enjoy having a look!

As always, thanks for watching! I would love, if you could take the time and leave a comment!

See you in the garden!

Christina


Thanks for hosting Hakan

Facing the Climate Change Reality - New, Mostly Drought Tolerant Plant Purchases

With temperatures having been consistently over 90 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) again this weekend and similar temperatures being forecasted for the whole upcoming week, I wonder if Southern California is hit by yet another heatwave or if this is the new normal. It almost doesn't matter if the first or the latter is true, gardeners are forced to look for more drought and heat tolerant plants whether they like it or not, in case they still want to have a garden in the future.

So I bow to nature and try to find new drought and heat tolerant plants for my garden that I can love. I have to admit there are many drought tolerant plants that I don't like. But in the last weeks I was making a serious attempt to find drought tolerant plants that still go well with my idea of a dream garden. And as always when you truly search, you are very likely to find something.

I recorded another Periscope broadcast today where I show my new drought tolerant plant purchases. Are you curious what plants I got? Here they are: Verbena bonariensis, Stachys monieri 'Hummelo', Liriope muscari 'Super Blue', Bearded Irises 'Best Bet', 'Rio Vista' and 'Clarance'. Please, take a look at the video to see them in person.

Thanks for watching the video! Would you like to share what drought tolerant plants work well for you in your garden? If so, please leave a comment. It can never hurt to get more ideas...

See you in the garden!

Christina