Late to the Garden Party: October 2025

My dahlias are clearly on their way out the door now. It's possible that I may be able to cobble together another arrangement including a few stems next week but I'm not counting on that. I've pulled the majority of the zinnias already and more of the dahlias will go this week. There are promising buds here and there but, if temperatures soar later this week as predicted, they may end up in a green bin rather than a vase.

My first arrangement was created using bits and pieces of four different dahlias.

Dahlia 'Fairway Spur', shown front and center here, got a very late start on the season and has only recently picked up its pace

I dressed up the back of the arrangement with stems of Dahlias 'Brown Sugar' and 'Creme de Cognac'. The latter was badly afflicted by the mosaic virus and had only just produced another flush of flowers.

Overhead view

Clockwise from the upper left: Agonis flexuosa 'Nana', Zinnia 'Benary's Giant Salmon Rose', Dahlia 'Fairway Spur', D. 'Summer's End', D. 'Creme de Cognac', and D. 'Brown Sugar'

Stems of three other dahlias ended up in the second arrangement with a few leftover zinnias.

Dahlias 'Lady Darlene' and 'Miss Brandy' were also late bloomers. They're similar in color but not in form.

Back view

Overhead view

Clockwise from the upper left: Leptospermum 'Copper Glow', Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder', Zinnia elegans 'Queeny Red Lime', Z. e. 'Benary's Giant Lime', Dahlia 'La Luna', D. 'Lady Darlene', and D. 'Miss Brandy'

Preparing the raised beds in my cutting garden for cool season plants is always time consuming. The fact that I'll probably toss all of the dahlia tubers this year so as to avoid another round with dahlia mosaic virus next year will actually simplify the process as I won't be spending hours cleaning, dividing, and storing tubers as I usually do. However, removing all remnants of the tubers before refreshing the soil for replanting will require more effort this year. I'll approach the process in stages, leaving the plants with the most promising buds to the end. I'll receive some assistance. The raccoons and/or possums are paying me almost nightly visits at present so I expect they'll be "helping" me clear the beds of grubs - yesterday, I saw the first evidence they they'd already been digging in the raised planters.

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

On a quarterly basis, I take time to capture wide shots of my garden, which gives me an opportunity to track the good and the bad for future reference and planning purposes. As summer's heat's backed off a bit, I've put a lot of time into garden maintenance (pruning, deadheading, pulling weeds, removing shabby plants, etc.), although I can't say the impact is very noticeable at this point. There's still a lot for me to do and I've already created a list of tasks for my tree service provider, currently awaiting a cost estimate. My first (of three) fall bulb orders has arrived and I've already planted fifty of them with hopes of getting at least another twenty-five in this coming weekend.

I'll kick this post off with wide shot of the vista that's recently been greeting me each morning.

We've had lots of morning clouds like these suggesting a chance of rain but, since the trivial amount we received late last week, we haven't seen a drop

I'll start my stroll around the garden as usual in the back.

View from the back door looking out at the harbor. I gave both the Salvia canariensis and its neighbor, Salvia hybrid 'Pozo Blue' (middle rear of the back border) a hard pruning but they still look ungainly to me. After I reviewed this photo, I also took my clippers to Teucrium fruticans 'Azureum' which had become a messy silver blob, which I many remove entirely.

View from the patio looking north. I still miss the Leucadendron 'Pisa' and the Acacia 'Cousin Itt' I had in the bed in the foreground but what I planted afterwards is slowly coming together.

Unfortunately, a raccoon or a platoon of possums dug up the area earlier this week, presumably looking for grubs. That's the down side of having smaller plants here.

View from the south end of the back garden looking toward the back patio. I admit this view is nicer with the large shrubs that blocked the area beyond them gone.

View from the patio looking south. The huge Callistemon 'Cane's Hybrid' and the peppermint willow tree (Agonis flexuosa) beyond it are on the list for pruning by the tree service, hopefully in late October or early November.

View of the back garden from the south end, looking north. The Gingko biloba 'Autumn Gold' tree in the distance has already lost most of its leaves.

Next, we turn to the south-side garden, which has undergone some major changes this year.

View of the south-side garden looking west. The empty spaces left from removal of the 'Blue Flame' Agaves and, more recently, the bloomed-out Agave 'Blue Glow' remain empty, waiting for me to make some decisions about how to fill the gaps.

View from the small south patio, looking south

View of the south-side garden looking east. I'm currently debating whether to take out some of the Aeoniums edging the bed on the left.

Moving into the front garden, I stopped off briefly in the lower-level area occupied by my lath (shade) house. While my husband invested a lot of time making improvements to the lath house this summer, I've seriously neglected the entire area. It needs a good cleanup.

There's a lot of leaf litter mess on the slope but the succulents are filling out nicely, if also slowly

Back on the main level of the front garden at its south end, the view looking north highlights some of my largest shrubs.

This view is impeded mainly by the Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder', which despite periodic pruning is also intruding on the flagstone path. Rather than take it out, I'm inclined to push the path further to the left.

This view from alongside the Magnolia tree looking back toward the south further illustrates the problem with the Leucadendron

What you couldn't see in either of the prior 2 photos of this area was evidence of a second raccoon/possum raid at this end. They returned and dug up the same spot, as well as another one by the garage containing succulents, 2 days later.

From the driveway, we get a good look at the front of the house.

I'm going to have the tree service trim both the tree-sized 'Copper Glow' Leptospermums again this year

Area on the north side of the path to the front door. I no longer miss the Hong Kong orchid tree (Bauhinia x blakeana), pretty as it could be in flower. I spent a couple of hours weeding this area and planting 25 Crocus tommasianus earlier this week. Crocus are iffy bulbs at best in my climate but they weren't expensive.

Area on the south side of the path to the front door. Protea 'Claire' already has several buds.

This area alongside the front door has been cleared of both a Calladrina haematocephala hedge and 2 woody Coleonema album shrubs this year. I've yet to do much in the way of replanting here other than throw in 3 Carex divulsa along the edge. I plan to transplant a Lomandra 'Platinum Beauty' moved from elsewhere in the garden here soon.

View of the area surrounding the Magnolia tree, looking west. There's a dahlia in the barrel in the foreground that's only produced a single flower so far. It's not a keeper.

On the other side of the driveway is one of the areas I intend to give attention to during the late fall and early winter months.

The purple-flowered sweet pea shrubs (Polygala myrtifolia) have self-seeded rampantly in this area (and occasionally also in the back garden). I've already pulled over 2 dozen of them from this area but you wouldn't know it. I need to replant much of the area still covered in Polygala shrubs but I haven't made any decisions as to what to use yet.

View of the same area from the street side

This is the succulent bed in the northwest corner of the garden next to the garage. I replanted it earlier this year but I'm still not happy with how the front section looks.

The cutting garden on the other side of the garage will be the focus of my efforts in the near future.

The zinnias are mostly gone, felled by mildew and high winds, and the dahlias are on their way out, hurried along by dahlia mosaic virus. Everything is slated to go within the next few weeks to lay the groundwork for cool season flowers.

I filled this barrel with red and white flowers to complement Dahlia 'Caproz Pizzazz', the green blob on the left. It may have just started to produce its first bud. It's not a keeper either, even thought its foliage is pristine.

A fence still divides the cutting garden from the dry garden on the northeast side of the house. Its replacement is still an open issue.

I pruned the 2 'Pink Pearl' Leptospermums on the left and tried my best to prune the massive Leucadendron 'Chief' on the right. I've yet to make any firm decisions on what to plant in the area cleared of rosemary shrubs back in May.

I was able to open up the interior of the Leucadendron and cut out most of the dead foliage but the large limb running along the far left and lying on top of the Xylosma congestum hedge behind it requires removal. I'm going to request that of the tree service and cross my fingers that the shrub survives the amputation.

One of the neighbor's Strelitzia nicolai insists on poking its leaves through the fence separating our properties

The back slope also needs attention. I've only just begun to cut back plants well past their prime and, even so, I ended up getting a dozen bites by fire ants.

I ignored the back slope most of the summer and it looks like it but I wanted to avoid the fire ants. Unfortunately, I didn't wait long enough for cooler weather and didn't wear sufficient protective clothing.

I need several more hours just to clean the area up. The gardeners keep the bay laurel hedge (right) trimmed and cut back the ivy along the concrete stairwell (left). Irrigation is limited to the hedge and the lemon tree and I provided no supplemental water this summer. The dead tree-sized Ceanothus arboreus outside the frame of this photo on the left is slated for removal.

Lastly, here's a shot of the street-side succulent bed:

My husband did a nice job of re-leveling the lath house, which had sunken on one side. A 'Blue Flame' Agave is once again threatening to fall over into the street but action on that can wait a while.

The gardeners decided to cut off the front section of the cape rush (Chondropetalum tectorum) hanging over the 'Blue Glow' Agaves but left the rest of the stems standing. I'll cut those back and try to clear removal of the debris and other dead material when I get a chance. These plants do not make good companions but there's no easy way to remove the rush (backed up by the Xylosma hedge) until it comes time to remove the agaves.

That's it for this quarterly overview. By the time of my next wide shots post in January, all my most prominent trees, as well as many of my largest shrubs, will have been pruned. Hopefully, two dead shrubs will also have been removed. Meanwhile, I'll continue to tackle the smaller pruning tasks still in front of me - and I'll have tricked out my cutting garden for our cool season, as well as planted all the bulbs still pending delivery.

Best wishes for a pleasant weekend.