June Favorites

My garden is a mess.  That's not all that unusual for summer, which is the toughest season in my garden, but several days away during a heatwave didn't help matters any and a full schedule has yet to give me time to dig into a full-scale clean-up even though the return of our marine layer has made working in the garden pleasant again.  So, when I stepped into the garden to take photos for the monthly favorites post hosted by Loree of danger garden, I was hard-pressed to see what was looking good.  The biggest problem is that everything within 20 feet of the large mimosa tree (Albizia julibrissin) in the middle of my back garden, is covered in a layer of pink and brown fuzz.

Although I love the structure and presence of the multi-trunked Albizia in my back garden, I HATE the mess it creates every year, starting from the moment it begins leafing out in late spring and continuing into winter when every seedpod it drops seems to produce viable seedlings.  During the height of the drought last year, the litter was low by comparison to prior years but, after our solid winter rains this year, it seems to be making up for lost time in the litter department.  Within an hour of arriving home late Monday afternoon, with the temperature still in the low 90s, I spent half an hour sweeping up the back patio, just because I couldn't stand the mess.  The picture on the right was taken on Wednesday, just hours after the gardeners had visited to blow the debris clear.  Those fuzzy pink flowers stick to everything!

But I persevered and, after a couple of rounds of the garden, photographed quite a few plants that held their own against both heat and pink fuzz to share with you.

All the Abelias in my garden are looking good right now.  I have at least 4 different cultivars and perhaps a dozen plants but Abelia 'Kaleidoscope' stood out from the pack.  It's done a nice job here of acting as a ground cover, although, as you can see in this photo, it does have the odd habit of throwing up a few straight stems.  As soon as I get more time in the garden, I'll be cutting those off to encourage the plant to extend out rather than up.  One bonus with this plant is that pink fuzz does not adhere to its glossy leaves.

I'm chagrined to report that I don't have a name for this dark-leaved Aeonium arboreum.  I clipped a rosette from somewhere and stuck it in among the green-leafed variety when I planted the area above the dry-stacked wall we extended last year.  Its rosettes seem to be flatter than the dark Aeonium I grow elsewhere.

The Agapanthus I inherited with the garden are in full bloom in both the back and front gardens.  The largest clumps are in the back but those are covered in pink fuzz so I photographed these fuzz-free specimens in the border fronting the house.  I probably have a month more of blooms before I start cutting the flowers back.  Last year, I stopped counting the bloom stalks I cut after I passed 250.  Most are various shades of blue but there are a few clumps of a white-flowered variety too.

This Coprosma repens 'Plum Hussey' planted alongside our south patio looked terrible last year.  I gave it a judicious pruning during the winter months but I think the winter rains deserve most of the credit for its resurrection.  I love its glassy foliage, which I frequently use as an accent in floral arrangements.

I didn't have this plant listed in my personal directory but I believe it's a Cotyledon orbiculata.  It's taller and has larger leaves than the 2 other Cotyledon I have.  It's surrounded by another Abelia 'Kaleidoscope' on one side and Grevillea 'Superb' on another.  The flowers play off the colors in both of those plants and the leaves contrast nicely with their textures.

This is Duranta 'Sapphire Showers', which is the heaviest bloomer by far of any of the Duranta I grow.  I dump gray water from the kitchen on it once a week and it flowers without fail during the summer months.  (I picked the pink fuzz off of it before taking my photographs.)

I returned home from the Garden Blogger's Fling to find that the wisteria I've been trying to eradicate almost since we moved in had crept onto the side patio along my cat's screened enclosure to weave itself up this potted Kalanchoe orgyalis.  Although there was no way I was going to leave the wisteria in place, I admit that I like the way its green and bronze foliage complemented the succulent.

The wispy foliage of Leptospermum 'Copper Glow' isn't easy to photograph but this tall shrub, one of 2 in my front garden, deserves special mention for the large sprays of small white flowers it produced this year.  The second shrub has just a few widely scattered blooms.  Neither produced much in the way of flowers at all in prior years.  Perhaps this is yet another impact of our heavier-than-usual winter rains.

Certain Leucadendron develop red foliage during the summer months.  L. salignum 'Chief' is one of those.  Its foliage is finer than that of most of the other Leucadendron I grow.  The smaller dark-leaved shrub in front of 'Chief' is L. 'Ebony' and the burgundy-foliage plant to the rear on the right is another Coprosma 'Plum Hussey'.

Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder', one of my all-time favorite plants, also develops red color during the summer months.  This is the smaller of my 2 specimens, planted 2 and a half years ago.  I'm hoping I can keep it smaller than the one I brought with us when we moved here over 6 years ago, which is probably 6 feet tall and at least as wide.  (You can see a photo of it in its summer glory in an earlier post here.)

For more June favorite plant selections, visit Loree at danger garden.

Best wishes for a wonderful holiday weekend for those of you in the US celebrating Independence Day!


All material © 2012-2017 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Foliage Follow-up: The Southwest Corner

When I went out to snap foliage photos for the monthly feature hosted by Pam at Digging, the first thing that caught my eye was the curtain of Agonis flexuosa (Peppermint Willows) lit up by the late afternoon sun on the southwest side of our property.

There are still some bare spots in the bed in the foreground, which was hit hard by the start-of-summer killer heatwave

That photo led me to focus my attention on the surrounding area.

This photo captures the same 2 Agonis and the nearby Arbutus 'Marina' from a different angle, looking south instead of west.  The remaining 2 Ceanothus shrubs, shown on the lower right, once formed part of a hedge but are declining just as the 3 we took out last year did.  In the near future, I expect I'm going to have to bite the bullet and remove these too.

This photo, taken from the left of the one before, shows Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder' with Carex testacea at its feet, Duranta repens to the left, Agave 'Jaws' to the right and the same Arbutus in the background with Pennisetum 'Fireworks' nearby

The Leucadendron shown in the photo above, planted in November 2014, has grown a lot but it still has a way to go to catch up with the specimen I planted shortly after we moved in December 2010.

This Leucadendron 'Wilson's Wonder' is on the northwest side of the house, NOT the southwest side.  I brought it from our former garden, where it spent its life in a pot until I plunked it in the ground not long after we moved in here.  It's well over 6 feet tall now.  (It's in its glory so I couldn't pass up a chance to show it off.)

Back to the southwest corner of the property, the dwarf Agonis flexuosa 'Nana' I planted around the small patio in that area has filled in nicely.

The dwarf Agonis were planted in September 2013 after we tore out the grass on the south side of the house, as were the Coprosma repens 'Plum Hussey' on the right and the left.  The noID Aloe, Aeonium arboreum and Sedums in the foreground were planted more recently.  (Earlier plantings were routinely dug up by my raccoon friends.)

This is another view of the dwarf Agonis from the backyard looking west

In the upper right hand corner of above photo you can see Kalanchoe orgyalis (aka Copper Spoons), which has done well in a large pot.

The Kalanchoe sits outside the screened porch my husband built for our cat.  The succulent in the pot next to it is a new acquisition I picked up at my local botanic garden last weekend: Echeveria 'Raindrops'.

The raised dots at the end of each leaf account for its name

I'll conclude this foliage follow-up post with a shot of one of the groundcovers I've used extensively in the shadier areas of the southwest side of the garden.

Pelargonium tomentosum (aka peppermint geranium) can cover a lot of ground quickly under the right conditions.  Planted from cuttings, it's done particularly well in the shade, spilling down the front slope.  You can see it here threatening to engulf the Aeonium cuttings I planted below.  Pennisetum advena 'Rubrum' is visible above, as is the Durata shown in an earlier photo.

For more foliage coverage, visit Pam at Digging.


All material © 2012-2016 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party