In a Vase on Monday: The heat is on (again)

The heat returned late last week, although yesterday's temperature wasn't as bad as Saturday's when it peaked at 90F (32C).  It looks as though we can expect to see highs in the mid-80s for the next ten days.  The humidity level also remains high but then there's another hurricane threatening the coast of Mexico.  It shouldn't directly affect Southern California  but there seems to be some concern that it could rise our surf levels, contributing to beach erosion.  Meanwhile, we await El Niño and the impact it's likely to have here.  It's hard to ignore the possibilities when we see headline articles in the papers nearly daily of late about its pending arrival.

I still have some dahlias in my cutting garden but the zinnias are making a bigger splash this week, even if only a handful of the seed varieties I sowed back in June have made an appearance.

I started off using only white flowers before throwing in a few oranges and yellows to perk things up 

Back view: As the Lantanas I pruned back hard a month ago have rebounded, I threw in several stems of Lantana 'Irene' because it picked up the same color theme so well

Overhead view

Clockwise from the upper left, the vase contains: Lantana camara 'Irene', Leptospermum 'Copper Glow', Tanacetum parthenium 'Aureum', Dahlia 'Snowball', Zinnia 'Benary's Giant Salmon Rose', Z. 'Queeny Lemon Peach', and Z. 'Oklahoma White'

I got a little gardening done last week before the heat and humidity had me backing off again.  I did a bit of plant shopping too as I'm finding it hard to ignore all the empty spots that opened up over the summer months in part because I've simply had less time and energy to give my garden this year.  Fall is typically the peak time to plant here and I can only be hopeful that El Niño doesn't make that more difficult this year.  If you're unfamiliar with El Niño, a weather phenomenon that often has particular impact on my area of the US, you can find a recent article here.

To view other IAVOM posts, check in with Cathy at Rambling in the Garden to see what she and other contributors have put together to share with us this week.

A side note to my fellow bloggers:  Blogspot has been experiencing a problem in updating my blogroll and those of many others using the same platform.  There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to what gets updated and when, and it affects even the recording of posts originating on other platforms like Wordpress.  I currently have to manually check each URL to determine whether or not other bloggers have posted something new.  Bear with me as I wait out Google's efforts to fix the problem.

All material © 2012-2026 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party