2024 Garden Projects

My January wide shots helped me plan this year's top garden projects.  One, the renovation of the succulent bed adjacent to the garage in the front garden, has been top-of-mind for several months but viewing my garden as a whole last week helped me focus on other spaces as well.  I'm only going to list the bigger ticket items here but, trust me, there are a lot of little projects on my list too.

Other than getting rid of the gopher, the only thing that's elevated itself to an eyesore in the back garden is this:

I trimmed this mass of Helichrysum 'Icicles' last year and it looked great but it's a mess now.  I'd like to replace it with more of the same plants but I haven't seen it in garden centers in recent years so I may have to find alternatives, which could in turn lead to an overall of the whole area.

Although the south-side garden always looks pretty good, there are several areas that need to be addressed, a couple of which I've already tackled.

I gave the 3 Agonis flexuosa 'Nana' in this bed a severe pruning last year and hoped to avoid it this year; however, they experienced insect damage in late summer and the best way to tackle that is to cut it back and spray with Neem oil.  I finished doing that late last week.  I may plant annuals at the base of the shrubs to cover the bare soil while they flesh out.

Agave 'Blue Flame' grows fast, gets big, and produces lots of pups.  The one on the left squeezed between the larger 'Blue Flame' and a 'Blue Glow' needs to go.  As you can see in the photo on the right, it's also encroaching on an Agave mediopicta 'Alba'.  Removing it without damaging the plants around it or getting poked will be a challenge.

Other 'Blue Flame' Agaves in the same bed are also crowded.  The 2 smaller ones rubbing up against the Dasylirion longissima need to be pulled to give the other Agave mediopicta 'Alba' on the right more space to grow and me room to weed around the Dasylirion.

I planted 3 small Pilosocereus pachycladus a few years ago.  They don't look happy, perhaps because they're shaded by the larger succulents surrounding them.  As maneuvering around them is already an issue, I'm going to pull them out.  Maybe they'll find a spot in my front garden's succulent bed, or maybe the succulent garden at the entry of our neighborhood.

I finally finished replanting the Graptoveria 'Fred Ives' succulents I beheaded last week.  I ended up spreading them over a wider area due to a gopher problem described below.

I discovered obvious gopher damage when I found that one large clump of Arthropodium cirratum (aka Renga lily, upper left) had collapsed.  (The photo on the upper right shows a healthy specimen.)  Many of the roots had been nibbled away and the gopher hole sealed the verdict.  I kept a handful of the bulbs I thought might survive transplanting,

Rather than replant them in the same spot in the hope that I've succeeded in evicting the gopher from that area, I planted the Renga lilies in the front garden.  I'd previously had more of them in this area but many were trampled during last October's tree trimming exercise and I'd pulled them up.  Hopefully, the transplants will survive their mistreatment by the gophers.

I finished one project in the front garden early in the new year but others remain.

We pulled out a woody, overgrown Coleonema 'Sunset Gold' in this area late last year.  After pulling weeds and pruning 3 large 'Starfire' Cupheas, I planted the Protea 'Claire' I bought as a Christmas present to myself.

This Coleonema 'Sunset Gold' looks out of place, and the gardener's insistence on shearing it into a rectangle makes it worse.  I don't know what I'll put in its place but I'm leaning toward a low-profile groundcover.

These 2 Leptospermum 'Copper Glow' shrubs make the list because pruning them is always a major workout.  I need to get to it soon too if I want to avoid cutting away summer's flowers.

This is the succulent bed slated for renovation.  I'm planning to dig up and pot all the succulents I want to keep for possible replanting once the design comes together.  I may remove the Abelia grandiflora on the far left too.  It's another plant that routinely gets sheared into an unnatural shape.

In the lower level front garden, the overgrown Aeoniums could use beheading and replanting but that's a relatively low-priority project

The cutting garden turns over on a seasonal basis so there's almost always something to do there; however, there's a unique problem I can't ignore much longer.

In contrast to the situation on the lower level front garden, cutting back the Aeoniums in the cutting garden can't be put off much longer.  There's no longer much space to walk between them and the raised planters.

Off-the-cuff, I'd thought there was little that needed work in the north-side garden but, upon examination, there are several things I should address.

Last year, my husband added a row of cement bricks to widen one section of this path.  The bricks end abruptly where I'd planted Aeonium 'Kiwi' as edging years before.  I looks odd to me and I'm inclined to take out the Aeoniums and add more bricks until the break in materials is less obvious.

I used Aeonium 'Kiwi' as edging on the other side of the gravel path too and it's crowding a variety of agaves planted behind it.  I'm planning to pull these Aeoniums out. 

The ivy that covers the upper section of the back slope has crawled up under the hedge into the north-side garden and has spread into the bed beyond.  The ivy is virtually impossible to remove, at least without hiring a crew capable of scaling the steep slope.  The best I can do is to cut it back to the edge of hedge and try to stay on it in the future.

Pruning the Leucadendron 'Chief' (the tall plant behind the dark Leucadendron 'Ebony') is another big job.  I'd guess the plant is 11-12 feet tall and at least as wide at present, despite annual pruning.

I pruned this Senna bicapsularis yesterday morning without taking a "before" shot.  This is a host plant for the cloudless sulpher butterflies but managing its height is a problem, as is my decision years ago to grow it in the narrow space between a fence and the stairway leading down the back slope.

My husband jumped in yesterday to take care of two projects on the back slope but two others remain open.

The Agave attenuata I planted as pups at the bottom of the slope have multiplied like crazy.  This large rosette was blocking the bottom of the concrete block stairway, creating a safety hazard.

My husband did me the favor of cutting it off, clearing the stair (for now) and revealing an aloe I didn't remember planting there.  I cleaned out the dead leaves on the agaves but I still need to find another home for the aloe.

This is the remnant of the Echium webbii I cut back after it finished blooming last spring because it blocked the path along the hedge.  I'd meant to take it out entirely and never got around to it.

The photo on the left shows the area after my husband dug up the Echium's skeleton.  I cleaned up the area around it afterwards and found an Agave funkiana I'd planted there a couple of years ago.

The ivy along the property line always needs cutting back.  The exact position of the boundary line isn't clear but my guess is that it's roughly in the middle of that mass.  The area behind my row of Drimia maritima is very uneven, which complicates matters.  For the moment, I'm satisfied with the job the gardeners did hacking the ivy back a couple of feet.

This peach tree was planted by the former owner a few feet up on the ivy covered slope near the property line.  The tree has never borne fruit and ivy is climbing up its stems.  Rather than doing anything with it myself, I'm currently planning to have it removed by professionals during next fall's tree trimming exercise.

Even discounting the smaller projects I haven't highlighted here, I know there will be others that emerge over the course of the year.  Believe it or not, listing what needs to be done doesn't overwhelm me  - it actually helps me focus.

All material © 2012-2024 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party