Wide Shots - July 2024

July is one of my least favorite months.  It's hot.  It's dry.  The rainwater I collected is gone.  The bulb blooms that delighted me in spring have disappeared, leaving homely foliage to die back oh so slowly.   The dahlia and zinnia blooms I count on to redeem summer are still a month or more away.  Nightly, for weeks before and after the July 4th holiday, irresponsible neighbors also shoot off banned fireworks, oblivious to the danger of causing a wildfire.

Still, I committed to quarterly posts featuring wide shots of my garden, which provide a reference I can use to assess its progress, its faults, and its future needs.  So here we are with the July edition.  After reviewing the photos I snapped throughout the garden, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it doesn't look too bad overall.  However, I admit that I've spent a lot of time on cleanup during the course of the past month, not that there isn't more work to be done.  In addition, although we've had some temperatures in the low-to-mid 90sF, we haven't had any long stretches of severe heat (by which I mean 100F and above).

So here we go, starting as usual in the back garden.

View from our back door looking southeast as the morning marine layer lifted.  With the annual arrival of the 'Sammy Russell' daylilies I inherited with the garden, orange tones are becoming more prominent.

View from the back patio area looking north.  The scene-stealing Agapanthus on the right also came with the garden; however, I added the Aeonium haworthii 'Kiwi' encroaching on the flagstone path.  They're seriously in need of thinning.   

View from the south end of the back garden looking in the direction of the patio.  The succulent bed in the foreground, planted in late November 2021, continues to fill out, albeit more slowly than I'd like.

View from the flagstone path adjacent to the back patio looking south.  Salvia canariensis on the left continues to grab the spotlight and the Helichrysum thianschanicum 'Icicles' is nearly obstructing the path, just as it did last year.  The latter is great for dry areas but it belongs in an area that provides more room.

View of the back garden borders from the southside patio.  The majority of the photos included in this post were taken during the late morning hours when most of the marine layer was gone.  The marine layer has held on into July but it clears between 7am and 9am at our elevation most days.

View from the south end of the flagstone path looking north.  The burgundy-flowered Daucus carota visible on the far right has popped up all over, not just the back garden but also in the front and southside gardens.  It's pretty but it's a bona fide weed.  I've pulled about a dozen but I should probably have been even more ruthless.

Pivoting left, we look into the garden on the south side of the house.

View of the southside garden looking west.  The Salvia clevelandii 'Winnifred Gilman' in the background on the left is in full flower.  The Cotinus coggygria near the arbor, cut nearly to the ground in late winter, has gained stature.

View from the southside patio looking further south.  And there's yet another Daucus carota  on the right!

View from the dirt path behind the back border looking northwest toward the house. The Leucospermum 'High Gold' in the center of the photo was stripped of all its remaining flowers in mid-June by squirrels who've developed a taste for them.

View from the front garden looking east.  I mulched the bed on the left in June.  I spread 10 bags (20 cubic feet) of mulch throughout the garden but I probably need another 10 bags to finish the job properly.

Pivoting to the right leads us down a path into to lower level of the front garden occupied by my lath house.

The path turns right just beyond the peppermint willow tree in the distance, less than 2 feet from the property line

View from the path looking down (westward) at the lath house

View from the property line looking northeast.  There's far less color variation in the succulents than I'd like to see.  For one thing, it's too heavy on Aeoniums.  I added 3 Lomandra 'Platinum Beauty' to provide textural contrast but they're swamping some succulents.  I think I need a new plan.

View looking back at the path with a peek at the ocean in the distance

Returning up the path we used to reach the lath house, brings us back to the main level of the front garden.

View from the south end of the front garden looking north.  Grevillea 'Superb' on the right is in full flower, as it is year-round.  I recently pruned the 'Cousin Itt' Acacias on both sides of the flagstone path to open it up (even if it doesn't look like that in this photo).

View from the area surrounding the Magnolia tree looking south.  Unfortunately, the Centaurea 'Silver Feather' and Leucanthemum x superbum (Shasta daisies) to its right were caught in the glare of sunlight I couldn't manage to avoid. 

View from the front garden looking southwest.  The potted plants on the bench and the plants in the barrels appreciate the Magnolia's shade.  Meanwhile, the Magnolia has been dropping leaves by the bucket full ever since the temperatures rose but then I've discovered that's normal summer behavior here.

View of the front of the house from the driveway.  I never got around to pruning the 2 'Copper Glow' Leptospermums last fall but I've been rewarded for holding off with more flowers than I've ever seen on these tree-sized shrubs.  I still haven't done anything about that rectangular 'Sunset Gold' Coloenema in the foreground on the left.  

View of the south side of the front garden from the driveway.  The scruffy Lavandula multifida in the foreground on the left will be pruned soon regardless of the heat.  

View of the garden beds on the other side of the driveway.  It's a little patchy, although Polygala myrtifolia (aka sweet pea shrub) is doing its best to fill every empty spot.

I renovated the succulent bed in this area between March and April.  Although I used larger plants than in the past, it's still going to need time to fill out.

View from the trash path that separates the succulent bed and the larger bed on the right looking east toward the house.  The Lomandras in the foreground partially hide a small Japanese maple that didn't make it through last summer.  I need to remove it.

View of the north side of the of the front garden adjacent to the house.  The Hong Kong orchid tree (Bauhinia x blakeana) on the right is mostly bare as is common during the hot, dry months of the year.  It recovers when temperatures cool and humidity rises in the fall.  The Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder' to the left of the chimney has regained the height it lost when I pruned it in early spring.

As we round the corner of the house on the far left, we come to the cutting garden.

All the Dahlias that sprouted in their temporary pots in May have found more room to grow in the raised planters I cleared in early June.  I added 6 Rudbeckia 'Sahara' I'd potted up as plugs and sowed Zinnia seeds, which are growing very slowly.

Proceeding down the cutting garden's walkway through a gate brings us into the northside garden.

Nothing much has happened here except that I recently pulled all the pink evening primroses (Oenothera speciosa) and many other weeds, excluding the ivy that continues to creep underneath the hedge from the upper section of the back slope.  The persimmon (Diospyros kaki 'Hachiya') in the background now has ripening fruit.  The tall plant with reddish foliage is Leucadendron salignum 'Chief', another plant I never got around to pruning during the spring season.  

If we continue down the gravel path, we come to the concrete block stairway heading down into the back slope, which is otherwise invisible from the anywhere else in the garden.

These photos of the back slope looking down were taken just days apart.  The photo on the left doesn't clearly show what a terrible mess it was in before I spent 2 solid hours on my first pass at cleaning it up last Saturday so the gardeners can get down there to trim the massive bay laurel hedge that lines my neighbor's wire fence, which I'm sorry to say they've let go wild when I wasn't paying attention.  In an effort to evade the dreaded fire ants, I all but took a bath in insect repellent beforehand, tucked my pant legs into my socks before donning boots, and gloved my hands before getting to work.  

Another before and after comparison from the bottom of the slope looking up.  I took out an artichoke that had collapsed (the third to do so) and cut down 2 others growing sky high next to the stairway.  In addition to pulling all the rampant weeds I could reach without crawling into the ivy covering the upper slope, I cut back and pulled out scads of spent and overgrown Centranthus that blocked both the stairway and the narrow dirt path between the lower bed and the laurel hedge.  I also removed dead sea squill and calla lily foliage.  There's a lot more to do but, overheated and exhausted, I left that for another day.

The last area to show is the street-side succulent bed.

The biggest issues here at the moment are pulling the weeds that continue to appear

UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain predicts that the heatwave facing California this week will be most intense in the interior areas of Northern and Central California but that conditions in the Pacific could raise temperatures along the coast as well, at least during its initial stage, peaking on July 3rd.  Interior areas may experience a second peak around July 7th or 8th.  Higher than normal overnight "low" temperatures may create the biggest problems.  Fire risk will also be exceptionally high during this period and, it should be noted, we've already experienced an early start on the fire season.  (If interested, you can find Swain's report here.)

Despite the widespread heatwave in California expected to extend into next week, local online weather services are still predicting temperatures in the upper 70sF for my area.  I've banked on the accuracy of those predictions (even though yesterday's afternoon temperature peaked at 84F/28C). I've reserved a time slot to visit the botanic garden's butterfly pavilion late this morning.  My fingers are crossed I don't melt.

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