In a Vase on Monday: Flashy Lady

I still haven't run out of dahlias for In a Vase on Monday!  Some have grown ridiculously tall and two of those have either twisted their stems around their neighbors to catch the sun or collapsed on stems too weak to support the flowers.  However, my first arrangement features Dahlia 'Lady Darlene' which has blooms that stand tall and stately straight.  This 'Lady's' flowers are also on the flashy end of the dahlia spectrum, hence the title of this post.

When the temperatures were trending higher, the flowers of 'Lady Darlene' tended to be pinky-red and cream but she's showing more of her true colors, red and yellow, now that it's cooler

Back view: I wasn't sure what to pair with the dahlia's flowers other than feverfew until I realized that the red bracts of Leucadendron 'Blush' would make a nice complement

Top view

Clockwise from the upper left: Dahlia 'Lady Darlene', Leptospermum 'Copper Glow', Leucadendron salignum 'Blush', noID red Pelargonium peltatum, Tanacetum parthenium, and Zinnia elegans 'Raspberry Limeade'

My second arrangement features Dahlia 'Summer's End'.  The plant is the most prolific bloomer of all my dahlias.  

'Summer's End' has the tallest stems of any of my dahlias and most of them are twisted, which made arranging them a bit challenging

Back view

Top view

Clockwise from the upper left: Dahlia 'Summer's End', Leptospermum 'Copper Glow', Rudbeckia hirta 'Sahara', Tanacetum parthenium, Zinnia elegans 'Golden Hour', and a noID Zinnia

I've been filling a small vase on my kitchen island with stems of Dahlia 'La Luna' most weeks because those stems flop over under their own weight but this week both Dahlia 'Excentric' and Zinnia 'Benary's Giant Wine' are flowering heavily so they won the spot.

Top: views of the vase in place and from the top
Bottom: Zinnia elegans 'Benary's Giant Wine', Plectranthus scutellarioides 'Stained Glassworks Velvet', and Dahlia 'Excentric'  (with my go-to Leptospermum foliage thrown in)

A ridge of high pressure is expected to push temperatures back up again in our area this week.  While temperatures could zip back up to 100F (37C) in the inland valleys, it looks as though our area will stay in the low 80sF (28C) thanks to the persistence of the morning marine layer.  I hope that's right!

For more IAVOM creations, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

 

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

Destination Garden Center

During peak garden seasons, I usually end up at my local garden center at least once every week or two.  Summer is not a peak gardening period; however, fall is the best time to work in the garden in coastal Southern California.  Although it's entirely possible that we'll have periodic heat spells for a time yet and we're unlikely to see any measurable rain until November, the shorter days and cooler nights make it less problematic to start planting.  When a friend and I made arrangements to meet for lunch in Orange County this week, she suggested the the Farmhouse restaurant at Roger's Gardens and I was agreeable (as she suspected I would be).  It gave me an opportunity to check out the inventory at one of SoCal's largest garden centers.  According to my records, I haven't visited Roger's Gardens since November 2022.  I'm not sure how that happened!  In any case, a visit was long overdue.

Halloween decorations are big business at Roger's so I wasn't surprised to see a focus on pumpkins and holiday decor.  I'll wait until October to cover the latter but it's not too early to talk about pumpkins.

This is a view of the main entrance

As soon as I walked in I saw a plethora of succulent-topped pumpkins.  They were pricey, as you may note on the tags attached to the 3 shown in closeups.

Pumpkins have displaced the seasonal plants that usually dominate the areas shown here

There's nowhere else I know of to find a wider selection of pumpkin varieties, however.  But even the "naked" pumpkins cost a pretty penny.

Roger's has themed gardens spread throughout its grounds, although I noted that a few were awaiting replanting.

The bird and butterfly garden is a little bare behind that mosaic

Vertical garden space covered in succulents

A small waterfall emptying into a pond

They've updated this waterwise garden since my last visit.  It's heavy on Mangaves and Westringia 'Morning Light'.

This is another, less flashy waterwise garden space

I think this is the only time I've seen this demonstration garden without plants in the 20+ years I've visited.  They seem to be in the process of setting up the miniature train that's a central feature of the Christmas holiday display.  The year-end holiday decorations are due to be revealed in early October.

I checked out a wide variety of plant displays.

These obviously aren't plants but they caught my attention.  Our backyard fountain was out of commission for a time in July and August and we were considering replacements but I couldn't find anything I liked at the time and my husband managed to repair the one we have.  If we do replace it at some point, I'd like something simple and streamlined like those shown here.

I was actually more interested in some indoor plants than most of the outdoor plants I saw during this visit

The container plants are attractive but I prefer to put together my own combinations

Roger's has expanded its succulent plant collection over the years.  The 'Sun Glow' Agaves shown on the right practically screamed at me but at $300 I tuned them out.

Overhead view of the lower area of the garden center

Surprisingly, I didn't find any shrubs or perennials I couldn't live without to fill the empty spots in my garden, although I spotted a few things to consider further after lunch with my friend.  I headed to the Farmhouse to meet up with her.

Views of the Farmhouse from the outside.  The seating is in an open air setting, perfect for a 3 hour lunch!

I rarely leave a garden center empty-handed and this visit was no exception.  Nothing I purchased was anything I "needed" but then that seldom makes a difference.

I purchased 5 plants.  The orchid was a splurge.  Clockwise from the upper left: Asplenium 'Hurricane', Celosia 'Twisted Yellow', Helianthus 'Sunfinity', a 6-pack of Nasturtium 'Alaska', and an Oncidium.  The fern, Celosia, and orchid all found a home in my lath house.

Finally, here are shots I took in the parking lot and along the beds bordering the street.

This stretch of plants along the driveway entrance was simple but very attractive.  Aloes, Westringia ('Morning Light' again) and Lantana dominate the space but there were some Leucadendrons backing up those plants.

I was surprised at how much I liked the orange pumpkins dotting what I recall was red-flowered Vinca (left).  Phormiums and Leucadendrons dotted the parking medians (right).

The area surrounding the gazebo was packed with large succulents the last time I visited but there are clearly new plans for planting the area.  I didn't take time to survey the area there or along the street but I was struck once again by the widespread use of Westringia.  I also noted what I think was Chondropetalum. Lomandra, and the repetitious use of Agave attenuata 'Ray of Light'.

I may try to make another trip to Roger's in early November in the hope they'll have restocked their plant shelves but, once the Christmas trees arrive arrive before Thanksgiving, plant shopping will come to an abrupt stop until the holiday season is over.

My thoughts are with all those in the path of Hurricane Helene this weekend.  Stay safe!

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

Adjustments

I met a good friend for lunch earlier this week.  We'd worked together at a start-up company many years ago, she as legal counsel and me in human resource management.  After that company was acquired by a larger one, we both moved on to different opportunities but we got together once or twice a year until the pandemic.  Meeting up again after five years, we had a lot of catching up to do so it was a very long lunch!  She told me about her kids, the eldest already in his second year of college, another on the brink of launching out into the world on his own terms, and the youngest looking for ways to meld her love of ballet with a future career.  I brought her up to speed on my nieces and nephews, my trip to the Puget Sound, and my recent bout with COVID, among other things.  A non-gardener, she asked me if I was "done" with my garden, and I replied with the familiar refrain that "gardens are never done."  I also mentioned the situation in progress five miles away from me, where a very old landslide has stepped up its pace, apparently as a result of two years of heavier-than-usual rainfall.  She lives fifty miles to the south and it's not daily news there as it is in Los Angeles County.  Land movement, once measured in inches or less a year, has accelerated to feet per month.  As power lines fell and underground utilities were affected, electricity has been indefinitely turned off to some three hundred homes and gas was cut to nearly the same number.  Efforts were underway to pump the water "seepage," measured in gallons per minutes in spots, into special wells as a way of slowing the slide when another geologic survey was ordered prior to expansion of that plan.  They found a second, bigger, faster-moving slide hundreds of feet underneath the first one so plans are now uncertain.  It's a chilling example of the challenges nature can impose.  Still, the affected residents are trying to find ways to stay in their homes.

Anxious as I am to see the start of our rainy season after our long dry period, I also have to hope that any rain we get this year may fall only lightly on the affected area.  Meanwhile, I'm making adjustments to my garden as circumstances change.  In the front garden, I've done a lot of tweaking.

I planted 6 'Maori Queen' Phormiums in my front garden in late 2014.  Three got very big and 2 of those started looking ungainly.  I removed those 2 last week.  Before and after shots are shown above, reflecting the removal of the one flopping over the Lomandra longifolia surrounding it.

The photo on the left shows the second Phormium I removed several feet away from the first one.  I left the most stately Phormium in place as you can see in both after shots.

I also refurbished 3 of the 6 barrels surrounding the Magnolia tree.  In addition to Dahlia 'Labyrinth' the barrel shown here had held a peach foxglove and Calibrachoa, both of which had died back.  I filled in the holes with an a 'Skyscraper Orange' Salvia and a 'Little Pink Splash' Pelargonium.  The black rocks are intended to deter digging on the part of raccoons.

Before I replanted this barrel, all the annual Dianthus had died back, leaving only an Argyranthemum with dark pink flowers and one small 'Choco Chili' Alternanthera.  I cut back the scraggly Argyranthemum and added another Alternanthera, 2 coleus (Plectranthus scutellairiodes 'Wasabi' and 'Down Town Columbus'), as well as a small polka dot plant (Hypoestes phyllostachys).

I pulled everything that had been in this barrel and planted coleus 'Indian Summer', 2 Pentas lanceolata, white Impatiens, and another polka dot plant

The Dutch Iris and Primula vulgaris I had growing at the front of this bed earlier this year were done for the season so I recently added another 'Choco Chili' Alternanthera and more Plectranthus scutellarioides 'Wasabi' to the other coleus I've been tucking in whenever I find more I like

Three of the 4 Prostanthera ovatifolia 'Variegata' growing in my garden suddenly fell into decline last week.  I've cut back the 3 that occupied pots to their bare bones.  Its before and after shots are shown here.  I don't really expect them to rebound but I'm giving them a chance rather than replanting the containers from scratch.

This Prostanthera ovalifolia (aka mint bush) planted in the back garden shows you what it should look like.  It's one of my favorite plants.

I finally got around to planting the 18 tiny 2-inch succulents I received by mail order before the heatwave.  Three Echeveria agavoides prolifera are shown here, along with an Agave 'Blue Glow' pup I'd saved last year.  The rest were used to fill in a variety of empty spots.

In the north-side garden, I'm still holding off on cleaning up the large Phormium 'Apricot Queen' that was scorched during our recent heatwave but I took steps to protect my whale's tongue agave.

I realized that my largest and oldest Agave ovatifolia was in danger of having sticky persimmon fruit fall into its crevices from the tree branches directly above it (as shown in the left photo).  I cut several branches hanging above the Agave, sacrificing the unripe fruits. 

I lost 10 persimmons in the process.  I don't personally care for the fruit but my neighbors do.

I've started tidying up the back garden but I've little to show for it other than some cuttings so far.

All my Arctotis look shabby at summer's end but they're perennial in my climate, if somewhat short-lived.  I've already cut the 'Pink Sugar' plants down to the ground but I took some cuttings as a backup.

I haven't done much with the south-side garden yet either beyond pruning away the worst of the dead foliage on Coprosma 'Plum Hussey'.

Before and after photos of the tall Coprosma are shown above

The pruning looks more severe from the back

The cooler temperatures this past week have raised my spirits despite the damage summer's heat has inflicted on my garden.  I'll be chipping away at my other projects well into November.  I got another energy boost yesterday when I saw these:

My Proteas are about to bloom!  These are both Protea neriifolia.  The one on the left is 'Claire' and the one on the right is 'Pink Ice' but at the moment they look close to identical to me.

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

In a Vase on Monday: Kicking off the fall season

Although the calendar says we've entered the fall season, "Indian summers" are the norm rather than the exception here in coastal Southern California.  For one thing, we don't get frosts.  However, in contrast to the recent heatwave, our temperatures were on the deliciously cool side last week.  It's supposed to be warmer today (low 80sF/27C) but our morning marine layer is back, which operates like natural air conditioning.  If we're lucky, we can at least anticipate that the heatwaves are behind us and nighttime temperatures should continue in the low 60sF (17C).  In other words, it's our version of fall even if very different from conditions in much of the Northern Hemisphere.

My dahlias are still going strong.  The first arrangement includes two varieties of dahlias, one which I've used before (and also grew last year) and the other which is new.

I've featured the huge blooms of Dahlia 'Fairway Spur' before but the ball-shaped 'Brown Sugar' Dahlias are new to my garden.  I haven't made up my mind about them yet but I thought their rusty orange color echoed that at the center of 'Fairway Spur'.

Back view: The foliage of Leptospermum 'Copper Glow' may be too similar to the 'Brown Sugar' Dahlias

Top view

Clockwise from the upper left: Dahlia 'Brown Sugar', D. 'Fairway Spur', Leptospermum 'Copper Glow', and Zinnia elegans 'Golden Hour'

The second arrangement contains another dahlia I'm growing for the first time this year.  As with Dahlia 'Brown Sugar', I haven't decided if this one's a keeper either.

Dahlia 'Excentric' is supposed to be a hot coral-pink variety but in the garden it's more pink than coral, although the coral element is easier to see up close than it is in the photos here

Back view

Top view

Clockwise from the upper left: Dahlia 'Excentric', Leptospermum 'Copper Glow', Zinnia elegans 'Benary's Giant Coral', Z. e. 'Raspberry Limeade', and Z. e. 'Zinderella Peach'

For more IAVOM creations, visit our host, Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.

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