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Sunday, August 23, 2015

The month of gardening dangerously

What's that expression..."God watches over children and fools"? I need to add "gardeners" at the end of that.

I find myself gardening impulsively this month. I think the heat has caused a frantic desperation.

Two weekends ago I decided that the Lafter roses had to go RIGHTTHISMINUTE, and that I needed to replace them with grasses. I had a Pennisetum 'Prince' in the backyard that was growing but not thriving due to lack of full sun, so I moved it to the front. Yes, in mid-August. Then I decided the Canna 'Wyoming' should be in front of the 'Prince' grass, so I transplanted those too. (Still mid-August, if you're keeping score at home.) And finally I'd had enough of looking at the stems of the Salvia 'Amistad' every time I drove up to the house, so I moved those to the side of the house behind the 'Prince' grass.

Canna 'Wyoming' and 'Prince' Pennisetum in front of 'Azure' Bush Germander

Salvia 'Amistad' relocated against the side of the house, at least for now

I'm pleased to report they are all surviving on their own now with (mostly) standard watering (soaker hose 1x/week) but it was touch-and-go for a while. I was out there with a hose, hand-watering and sweet-talking them every night for about a week.

I also ordered another 'First Knight' Pennisetum from Dutchgardens.com, and a Pennisetum 'Princess Caroline' from Santa Rosa Gardens. Both are in the ground and receiving some supplemental (every 3 days) hand-watering until I feel like they're ready to transition to the standard schedule. So far so good!

Tiny 'First Knight' Pennisetum

You can see a hint of my other semi-impulsive project from this weekend behind that shot: I removed the mulch and replaced it with rock! 16 bags of Pea Pebbles, 4 bags of Pond Stones, and 5 bags of decorative stones (on sale because the bags were ripped, woohoo!)

I'm calling it semi-impulsive because I'd been contemplating it for a while, but yesterday at around 1pm I decided it was time. (Yep, just as it was getting stupid-hot outside. What I lack in sense I make up for in commitment.)

I am totally in love with it, too. Which is why you're going to see a thousand pictures from different angles.



This little path serves two purposes:

  1. I frequently cut across to the lawn from here
  2. This is where water drains when it rains, so the mulch was washed away anyway

(The color is weird, but not as weird as before I tried to fix it with Picasa)

Bonus shot of my new 'Princess Caroline' Pennisetum, with tiny Salvia 'Berggarten' behind

On a more somber note, I almost lost my Yucca in the back. I had noticed the smaller one had more and more leaves that were just turning tan (i.e. dead), but I wasn't sure why. Then I went out Wednesday morning after the sprinklers had run, and found the ground by them SUPER saturated. Not good.


I started digging, pulled them out and put them in buckets, turned on the sprinkler again, and saw this:

So I called the sprinkler dudes. They had worked on that spot earlier in the year (after I broke a PVC pipe with my shovel), and I feared it was re-broken. Thankfully not by me.

They fixed it yesterday, so today's project is replanting those Yuccas and then crossing my fingers that this is the last time. Poor things.

2 comments:

  1. You've been gardening like a madwoman! Lucky you discovered the broken sprinkler pipe before you lost your yucca. It's probably because you've been working so hard in the garden that you even noticed it, right?

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    Replies
    1. Ha, it's true! Clearly my obsessive nature comes in handy once in a while! ;-)

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