Friday, November 13, 2020

This week's progress report

I continue to keep myself busy with work in my garden, avoiding the daily news feed.  I haven't focused on any one project in particular but rather tackled one small job after another.  The first involved sowing seeds and planting Anemone corms in the cutting garden, as well as planting Dutch Iris and daffodil bulbs in the back garden but I've no photos to share.  However, while planting bulbs, I noticed that the creeping thyme was over-running the flagstone path in the back garden so I trimmed that back.
I cleared an area of the garden on the south side of the house for the tree daisy (Olearia albida), a New Zealand native I hope, in time, will do an acceptable job screening out views of the street and a neighbor's home.  That required cutting back succulents, digging out lots and lots of stone fragments, and supplementing the rock-hard soil.  Whenever I embark on any task involving extensive digging in my garden, I'm reminded of the fact that our neighborhood was built on what was a rock quarry back in the 1940s.

The tree daisy, purchased by mail order from Annie's about a month ago, is already a little over a foot tall and I hope it'll continue to beef up.  It's supposed to reach 11 feet in height and 6 feet in width.

I took down the sunshades that line the interior of the lath (shade) house during the hot summer months.  This is another time-consuming exercise.  Every plant has to be removed from the shelves before each piece of screening can be removed.

I used the opportunity to neaten up each plant before returning it to its place.  All the shelves were swept clean of the cherry laurel berries the rats stockpile behind the plants in the dead of night.

I evicted a poorly-performing fuchsia and stole its pot for a recently purchased Begonia gehrtii 'Comet', with its wonderful puckered leaves

Yesterday, I decided it was time to remove one of the 'Blue Flame' Agaves that was encroaching on its neighbors.  In this case, I took "before" shots to illustrate the problem.

The mother plant produced pups and careened over on its side as it increased in size

Among other things, it was overwhelming one of the Agave americana mediopicta 'Alba'

 Here are the after shots:

After pulling out some of the mother plant's dead leaves, I was able to saw through the trunk that connected it to the pups

Hopefully the smaller variegated Agave will now be able to right itself.  The 'Blue Flame' Agave I removed was so heavy I had to get my husband's help just to chuck it in the green bin.  If you've never grown an agave, you'd be surprised at just how heavy these plants can be.

I've continued to work on the sloped area adjacent to the lath house.  I finally got the remaining stone in place to stabilize the slope for planting.  I dug out still more of the bulbous asparagus fern roots that riddle this area (and many others in my garden) and supplemented the hard-packed sandy soil.  I'm still debating what to plant there and it may take me some time to finalize my choices.

At present, I've selected two Lomandra 'Platinum Beauty' to join another already there (just outside the photo's frame on the right).  Most of the other plants will be succulents but I'd like to throw in a few softer notes as well.

That's a wrap on my project updates.  Sunday is Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day so I'll be back then with my monthly bloom report (assuming that whatever has happened to Blogger's edit function is fixed by then).  There's a lot less out there than there was a month ago but, in my climate, there's always something.


All material © 2012-2020 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

18 comments:

  1. Busy is good! It is a healthy distraction. I'd be puttering, too, if we weren't getting several drizzly days in a row... no complaints there, though, we need the moisture.
    Looking at your first photo, I was struck with the memory of your removing your lawn years ago and laying the stone pathway with thyme. Everything has grown so much since then. Every once in a while I'll go through old photos and I'm surprised how different things looked even a few years ago. Ever evolving!

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    1. Sometimes I like the older editions of areas of my garden better than the current ones, Eliza, but I don't regret removal of the lawn at all. We've received just 1/5th of an inch of rain since the start of our so-called rainy season on October 1st so drizzly weather sounds heavenly to me!

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  2. You've accomplished a lot, Kris! Puttering is good - it helps clean up all those little things that niggle away at us but usually take a back seat to bigger, more visible projects. I'm dedicating today to finishing up things and bringing more order out of the chaos that exists right now in my carport, back porch, etc.

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    1. Best wishes with your clean-up, Barbara! It does indeed feel good to tick projects off the list. I just got another bulb delivery so I've added to my own list.

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  3. I like this time of year, of heighten activity, as we button up our gardens for the winter. You got an awful lot done! I must say though, cleaning the "...berries the rats stockpile behind the plants in the dead of night" is suitable for a Halloween post.

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    1. The good news is that I've never actually seen the rats that choose to use my shade house as their storehouse and dining area - they disappear to parts unknown during the daylight hours (hopefully on our neighbor's property directly adjacent). I've considered placing traps but dealing with dead rats would indeed be horror story material in my view.

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  4. Whenever I read your blog, I feel you accomplish tons in your garden! I particularly appreciated. seeing the before and after with the ‘Blue Flame’ agave removal. I think you have a Dasylirion in that area that looks healthy. I repotted mine in August, because it was getting brown tips and yellowing leaves, and it does seem to be improving. If I can establish another area for shade plants, I will start looking into Begonias with interesting foliage, like your ‘Comet’! Do you soak your anemone corms before planting? I wish you a wonderful weekend, and look forward to Sunday’s post.

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    1. Thanks Kay. Yes, I soak the anemone corms for about 3 hours before planting them; however, I don't pre-sprout them in flat, soil-filled trays as Floret Farm does. I tried the latter once and found it more trouble than it was worth for me.

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  5. I am rather jealous that you're able to continue to work in the garden. My world is feeling rather small after a two weeks of rain and cold temperatures driving me indoors. I did get to spend one afternoon out cleaning up leaves, the garden looked great! Until the next day when big winds brought down even more leaves and conifer needles...

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    1. Wind is a constant challenge to clean-up here too, Loree. We don't have many deciduous trees ourselves but the neighbors across the street "share" their leaves with us!

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  6. You are on a roll Kris. Your path looks neat and tidy now. I can't seem to find a place where thyme will grow like that for me. I feel like a sloth after reading about all you have accomplished this week. I have mostly been mulching leaves and filling the compost pile.

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    1. I SHOULD be collecting and crushing leaves for the compost pile, Lisa! As I don't have many deciduous trees, there isn't a lot of leaf litter but still...

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  7. That first photo shows such a beautiful scene. The morning light...the path...dreamy!

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    1. The thyme and flagstone path is SO much better than the grass that formerly filled that area, as well as a lot of the surrounding area - all of that would be brown after the long, dry summer.

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  8. Lovely to have another peek inside your lath house Kris. One of the two gardening magazines that I have delivered by post has an in depth article on begonias this month. I'm really looking forward to settling down for a good read of it.

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    1. I've always been fond of the begonias in general and Rex begonias in particular. I was able to grow them out in the open in my former garden. That's not possible here but at least they've done relatively well in my lath house.

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  9. Agave 'Blue Flame' can be a bit too vigorous in the reproduction department. I have a whole clump in the backyard.

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    1. Years ago, while attending a succulent show in the San Fernando Valley, I saw how big a clump 'Blue Flame' can create but it was already too late for me to adjust my spacing at that point. The three clumps I have (or had, as two of the mother plants have now been removed) had nowhere near the space they needed.

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