Some progress

I've made progress here and there with my annual fall cleanup but there's still plenty to do - and seemingly never enough time to do it.  I have a habit of getting distracted by the little things that need doing.  Fortunately, little things do eventually add up.  Just yesterday morning I managed to fit in two small pruning jobs and a bit of weeding before breakfast.

I cleared out the dead plants in my back border and pruned the 'Pozo Blue' Salvia that was dominating the space shown on the left.  I also cut back the dead artichoke stalk (Cynara scolymus 'Romagna', which promptly produced fresh foliage (upper right).  Two overgrown Artemisia californica received a hard pruning (middle right) and the feather grass (Nassella tenuissima, lower right) got another grooming session.

I finally dug out the large clump of Helichrysum thianschanicum 'Icicles' that dominated another section of the back garden, replanting the area with 2 small replacements.  I originally had 3 of the plants in the area but hope than 2 will be more manageable in the long run.

Two 'Winnifred Gilman' Salvia clevelandii in the south-side garden also got a hard pruning

I finally tackled the Phormium 'Apricot Queen' that was so severely burned during September's heatwave in the north-side garden (before photo on the left and after shot in the middle).  The smaller Phormium 'Yellow Wave' (right) wasn't as affected but it got a cleanup too.

After years of frustration with the pom-pom tree (Dais cotinifolia, left) I planted in the same north-side bed in 2019, I cut it down and dug it up.  I got it from Annie's Annuals & Perennials with the assurance that it could be grown as a shrub but it was determined to be a tall, skinny tree that never showed a single sign of flowering.  I also removed a lot of self-planted western sword ferns (Polystichum munitum) but I need to pull many more, as shown on the right.

A few of the pruning tasks I'd undertaken earlier have already produced positive results.

Melianthus major (left) and Sonchus palmensis (upper right) are greening up again and the Arctotis 'Pink Sugar' cuttings I took a month ago (lower right) are doing well

Getting to the jobs already on my docket is complicated by the fact that I keep buying new plants.

Clockwise from the upper left are: Rex Begonia 'Spirit of Sumatra', Cordyline 'Can Can', Peperomia 'Ginny', and 5 Eustoma grandiflorum (aka lisianthus) and 2 Evolvulus glomeratus 'Beach Bum Blue' intended to go into the ground as soon as the temperatures cool

The biggest jobs ahead include clearing out my cutting garden and preparing the cool season garden to come and cleaning up the back slope, which is currently in rough shape.  In the near term, I also need to harvest the persimmons.

Both persimmon trees, Disospyros 'Fuyu' on the top row and D. 'Hachiya' on the bottom, are ripening fast.  In the past, I've picked the fruit to give away as early as September and as late as mid-November.  There's no evidence that the squirrels (or rats!) are getting to them yet but I probably need to harvest the fruit within the next 2 weeks.

There's a lot of pruning yet to tackle but I'm contracting some of what I normally handle myself to my trusted tree service this year.  That work is currently scheduled for November 19th.

In the meantime, the strawberry trees (Arbutus 'Marina') are dropping scads of spent flowers.  I've swept those that fall on the pavement and dumped them in my compost bin but the rest pepper the beds surrounding them.

I have a tendency to focus on what needs to be done rather than what's looking good.

The bush violets (Barleria obtusa, left) are just getting started; some Japanese anemones (Eriocapitella hupehensis, middle) survived both the heatwave and the drying wind; and what I think is an autumn zephyrlily (Zephyranthes candida, right) popped up as a surprise

 

Aloe lukeana (left) is putting up a new bloom stalk and Mangave 'Praying Hands' (right) is living up to its publicity photos

And I managed to collect enough presentable flowers from my cutting garden to fill 3 small plastic bottles to give to friends I met for lunch on Wednesday

As the season continues to shift, I hope you're seeing the positives around you.  Best wishes for a happy weekend. Whatever you're up to, I recommend tuning out the political ads.  Honestly, I'd like to see the US Congress enact a law terminating all political ads during the two weeks leading up to the election - a steady diet of them is poisonous.

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