The "B" Side

There's a dirt path running along the main section of our backyard between the Xylosma hedge and the sloped area of the property on the other side of the hedge.  When we moved in, the border in front of the hedge was about half as wide as it is now.  The border itself pitched backward toward the slope so that only about half of its width was flat and level with the lawn.  As it's my intent to eliminate most of the lawn over time anyway, widening the border to expand it further into the flat area of the backyard was one of our earliest projects.  I thought I'd written about this project, completed in late Spring 2012, but as I can't find any posts specific to that project, I guess I haven't.  This is the best "before" picture I could find.

The Hebe speciosa 'Variegata' and and Osteospermum '3D Silver' are still part of the border but the area in front of them has expanded

The border immediately after the grass was removed - at its widest point, the border was extended 6 feet

I still use the dirt path regularly to care for the plants at the back of the border.  When I was back there a couple of days ago, I noticed how different the garden looks from that vantage point.  I think some areas actually look better viewed from that direction than they do when viewed from the house and lawn area.  It made me think of the "B" side of a record album.  I'm undoubtedly dating myself with this reference as I'm sure there are many people out there who've never listened to music recorded on vinyl.  In any case, the "B" side of the old vinyl records was generally used, not for a musician's hit songs, but rather for his or her more personal pieces.  That's how I think of the "B" side of my garden.  It's something I expect few, if any, of my friends will see (except here) - after all, how many people want to shuffle along a dirt path less than a foot wide where they're grabbed by plants on both sides?

Here are some pictures of the "B" side of my back border:

This is roughly where the dirt path begins, looking through the side yard area that formerly held the Eucalyptus tree toward the street

The 2 beds on either side of the walkway in the photo above appear to blend together better than I thought they did when viewed from the other direction, probably because the blue and yellow pansies aren't as prominent.  The pansies are waning now and will have to be pulled soon.

Back view of the area featuring Euphorbia 'Ascot Rainbow', Argyranthemum Madiera 'Crested Yellow', some infant lavender, and a self-sown borage

Viewed from either direction, I like how this small, newly planted section is coming together, although I think I should probably pull the borage.

This area will be a bit barren in the back until Acacia cognata 'Cousin Itt" and Plectranthus ecklonii mature

The Plectranthus ecklonii in the foreground of the photo above is happier in this location than the bed closer to the street where I had it until the Eucalyptus tree came down.  It likes the mix of sun and shade it get here.  In time it should get 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide.

The "golden" side of my border looks fuller from the back

From the lawn, I see a lot of bare spots in the section of the garden featured above but, from this perspective, it looks as though it's filling in well.  Most of these plants have been in the ground less than a year - some only for a couple of months.

Mid-border looking across the lawn toward the fountain and the main patio

From this perspective, I really like the way the mint bush (Prostanthera ovalifolia 'Variegata') complements the yellow yarrow (Achillea 'Moonshine') in the photo above.

Photo taken from several feet beyond the last picture and pointed back toward the side yard

I was afraid that the gold tones on one side of the border might clash with the pink and blue colors dominating the other side but, in the photo above, it appears that the blues of the lavender and Geranium 'Brookside' and the yellowish tint of the Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuissima) are doing a good job of mediating the transition.

Moving past a large mass of Agapanthus toward the 2nd half of the border

A glimpse of the peony, no longer blooming, alongside Cuphea ignea 'Starfire Pink' and Mexican feather grass

A clump of fading alstroemeria bordered by foxgloves awaiting their 2nd flush of bloom and Hebe speciosa 'Variegata'

I love the first flush of bloom on the foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) but I can't say I care much for how they look between flushes of bloom.  I may skip them here next year - as the surrounding shrubs and perennials fill out, there may not be space for them anyway.

A view of a Loropetalum I recently planted to replace a sickly member of the same species after pulling some of the surrounding foxgloves to provide more room

Agapanthus and an unidentified dormant daylily, now coming into its own, creating a temporary color clash with the last blooms of a nearby clump of alstroemeria, under the canopy of a large, multi-trunked Mimosa tree

The clash between the new blooms of the orange/red daylily and the pink Alstroemeria bother me less here than they do when viewed from the other direction.  In any case, the Alstroemeria will soon re-enter dormancy.

Although the front border was designed to be seen from 2 sides, I generally take pictures from the street side.  Here are pictures of its "B" side:

Photo of the back of the bed on the left side of the walkway taken from the lawn

Photo taken from the right side of the walkway

In both of the last 2 pictures, the Cuphea ignea 'Starfire Pink' already appear to be overwhelming the pink Meidiland roses, which show more clearly in street side photos.

Do you have "B" side views in your garden?  What do they tell you that you don't get from your "A" side views?

Vegetable Garden: Warm Season

I wasn't able to grow fruits and vegetables at our former house.  I made periodic stabs at it with a few herbs and some strawberries but my postage stamp-sized garden didn't get enough sun to grow these successfully.  One year I put a tomato plant in a tub on a platform with wheels I could move around our driveway following the available sun and, while I did manage to produce some edible tomatoes, it wasn't a practical growing strategy.

When we toured our current house prior to purchase, I was delighted to find not only sunny areas suitable for growing fruits and vegetables but also an area with 3 raised beds constructed just for that purpose.  The first planting I did was in this area.  Although it was January and late for cool season planting, I put in broccoli, carrots, lettuce and some herbs.  All except the carrots did fairly well, even though I didn't do as much soil preparation as I should have.  I discovered that the beds were filled with the same rocky soil as the rest of the garden so I've invested a lot of effort since in improving it.

I'm still learning what vegetables do well here, when to plant them, and how to ensure they get the support they need through the growing season.  I recently pulled the last of my cool season crops, replacing these with plants suitable to the warm season.

The first raised bed, which gets the least sun, is planted entirely with herbs.

Bed #1, planted with a mix of herbs

The last owner planted it with mint - lots of mint - because, as he told me, "it did so well."  I spent a good part of a week trying to dig this spearmint out of the bed after we moved in but I suspect that the only way to eliminate it would be to remove the raised planter and bulldoze out a couple of feet of soil below where the planter now stands.  I do my best to keep it at under control but, as shown below, it even grows through the wood sides of the planter.

Mint growing through the wood side of the raised planter

A Westringia is planted in the center of the bed, which also contains parsley, sage, lemon thyme, lime thyme, Stevia, salvia, chives, oregano and a sunflower.  The sunflower, planted about 4 weeks ago, bloomed today.

Salvia officinalis 'Tricolor'

Oregano ('Hot & spicy' I think)

Vigorous lime thyme with newly planted 'African Blue' basil

Helianthus 'Lemon Queen'

The second bed contains a mix - herbs, vegetables, and a new raspberry bush.

Bed #2 with a mix of herbs, vegetables and fruit

The bed is currently dominated by 2 prostrate rosemary plants (shown on either side of the fairy in the photo above).  I underestimated the mature size of these when I planted them and may have to remove at least one to have adequate room for vegetables in the future.  There are also a couple of basils, an ornamental oregano, a lemon verbena, an agastache, and coriander, spouted from seed sown a couple of months ago.

Origanum rotundifolium 'Kent Beauty', slow to establish but worth the effort

Lemon verbena (Aloysia citrodora), also slow to establish

Coriander (Coriandrum sativum), grown from seed

In the vegetable category, this year I'm growing a squash (just one as they all appear to over-produce) and a new tomato.

'Sunny Delight' squash, a small-sized variety

Tomato 'Believe It or Not', a new variety for me

My prize addition to this bed is one of the new dwarf thornless raspberry plants.  It's supposed to get only 3 feet tall by 3 feet wide.  In the ground for about 6 weeks now, it has produced a few berries but, according to grower Monrovia, it will be a few years before much can be expected (assuming it survives our hot summers in this location).

'Raspberry Shortcake'

The third bed, which gets the most sun, is full of different varieties of vegetables.

Bed #3 contains mostly vegetables

This bed has another tomato, onions (my last cool season leftovers), a lemon cucumber, 3 varieties of pepper, pole beans, planted from seed, and corn, which I've never tried to grow before.  The lemon cucumber is doing better than it did last year but I also planted it earlier in the season this year.  The peppers, like last year, are off to a very slow start - I'm trying not to be impatient.  The beans, as usual are off to a quick start.  I didn't think I had room for more than one or 2 corn stalks but the nursery I bought the 6-pack from showed them planted fairly close together so I put in all 6 plants - I'll thin some out if they struggle.

"Red Pear' tomato

Leftover onions

Lemon cucumber

Yellow bell pepper, still green and under-sized

'Blue Lake' pole beans

Corn! (a bi-color super sweet variety)

Elsewhere in the vegetable garden, I've got some barrel pots with strawberries.

Wine barrel with strawberries, a leftover lettuce, and an artichoke I couldn't find another place for

The vegetable garden is also home to 3 citrus trees, positioned along the back fence bordering a neighbor's yard, and a persimmon tree and a plum tree, planted by the prior owner in a narrow bed along the side fence separating the vegetable garden from the dry garden.  The plum tree suckers continuously - is there a remedy for that other than regularly cutting the suckers back?

On the left is a mandarin orange tree; a naval orange is in the middle; and a lime tree sits on the far right

The 'Fuyu' persimmon on the left and the 'Santa Rosa' plum on the right are underplanted with ivy geraniums

If you exit the gate from the vegetable garden, there are more fruit trees, a grape vine, and blueberries scattered elsewhere.

Garden gate separating the vegetable garden from the dry garden covered by an arbor built by a prior owner

Most of the trees aren't bearing fruit yet.  However, my blueberries are going full-throttle and the grape is also beginning to fruit.

Blueberry pots on the back patio ('Bountiful Blue' and 'Sunshine Blue' varieties)

'Red Flame' seedless grape

Maybe this year I'll get some grapes before the birds take all of them.

Flower Bouquet: Garden Appreciation Society

I rarely cut flowers for the house.  This wasn't always the case.  At our last house, I routinely prepared little bouquets of flowers, at least during the spring and summer months.  With our move to our current house 2.5 years ago, this activity slowed almost to a stop.  I'm not sure why.  I've now got a much larger garden and I spend much more time in it but I seldom stop to cut flowers and bring them inside.

However, while checking other garden blogs today, I came across NellJean's post on gardenias on her Seedscatter blog.  This post linked to Erin's blog, The Impatient Gardener.  Erin has suggested that gardeners need to take time to appreciate their gardens by bringing some flowers inside.  I decided to join in.  Here's my bouquet, cut from the garden as the sun was going down here.

Four different flowers make up this bouquet, 3 of which were chosen from plants currently in full flower.  I inherited a large number of Agapanthus with the house, one of which is included here.  They all seem to come into bloom at the same time but the flowers are fairly long-lasting in the garden, if not so in a vase.  The ruffled white daisies are Leucanthemum x superbum, selected from one of 6 plants gifted me by a good friend last year when I was going through a rough period.  The Alstroemeria is another plant I inherited with the house.  These are among its final blooms for the season as the plant heads back into dormancy.  The dainty pink/purple/white filler is Cuphea ignea 'Starfire Pink', which I introduced to the garden in several locations soon after we moved in.  It doesn't last long in a vase but I think it does a nice job tying the other flowers here together.

Thanks, Erin, for the prodding me to bring some of my flowers inside!  You can view other bouquets on Erin's weekly post of the Garden Appreciation Society.

"New" Potting Bench

The sad job of clearing out my mother-in-law's house in preparation for its eventual sale has already begun.  The house plants came home with me early on as my husband and I live nearby and I'm regarded as a "plant person."  I don't expect that we'll bring a lot home with us but one thing we have moved is the potting bench.  The one at our old house had been attacked by termites so it went into the trash.  A new bench has been on my husband's "to do" build list since we moved into this house but it hasn't been a priority for him.  So, it's nice to be able to re-use my mother in law's bench.  Working at it will be a nice way of keeping her near.

The bench has been placed at the end of the garage wall next to a hose and near the compost bin and our green refuse bins.

I added the clay pots that were previously scattered behind our garage and a few of the succulents transferred from her house.

Perfect.

Remnants of the Past

The gardens associated with older homes have histories.  Established trees and shrubs may be the the most obvious remnants of prior owners.  In many cases, they're part of the curb appeal that attracts a buyer to a particular property.  That was certainly true of our current house - we drove by it when looking at homes in the area and I immediately felt pulled to it.  My husband took some convincing but, after touring many other houses over a couple of months, we eventually came back to this one.  That's not to say that I loved every feature and every plant - from the beginning, there were things I wanted to change about the garden - but I liked the foundation I was given.

When escrow closed and we moved in, one of the things that surprised me most was what prior owners had left behind in the garden.  Although this house is more than 60 years old, I didn't find any garden relics of the sort Loree of Danger Garden recently described (see her post on the subject here).   No old garden tools or interesting pots or evidence of decades-old plant purchases.  When I dig in the back yard, all I uncover are rocks, left over from the area's former incarnation as a rock quarry in the 1940s.  However, the prior owners did leave a number of yard and garden items, some useful, some not.

One very large artifact is this "snorkel spa."

This is basically a firewood-fueled hot tub.  We've used it a few times in the past 2 years but, overall, it's more trouble than its worth as I described in an earlier post.  Getting rid of it isn't so easy as it's big and heavy and there isn't a resale market for an item like this in our area.  My husband hopes to re-use the wood to build patio furniture (someday).  In the meantime, I use it to store outdoor cushions during rainstorms.

Another large, but more useful, item is the compost tumbler in the side yard.

Granted, it probably would be a pain in the neck to move something like this so I guess I understand the decision to leave it behind.  The maker's website says this model is designed for the "serious gardener."  It also claims that it can turn 18 bushels of garden debris into usable compost in as little as 2 weeks but I found that it takes several months even when I turn it a few times a week.  Still, I'm glad to have it.  The red and black item next to it that looks a little like one of Doctor Who's Daleks is a leaf shredder, also left behind by a prior owner.  It's rusted and doesn't work well so it may end up in the garbage soon.

A number of decorative items were left with the house as well.  Leaving the fountain is entirely understandable as I'm sure the cost of transporting it would be considerable.  The birds and I are very pleased to have it.

I was surprised to find two garden benches left by the front door, though.  (I added the cushions and pillows.)

Bench on the right side of the front door

Bench on the left side

And it doesn't seem as though this chiminea would have been that hard to move.

Hoses, a hose caddy, and a hose pot were also left behind.

As was a decorative rain chain.

And a small trellis I keep wondering why I haven't tossed every time I see it.

There are also some tiki torches, currently tucked behind the garage, and a number of drain pipes left over from someone's earlier irrigation project.

When we moved out of our old house, my husband insisted that we take EVERYTHING.  He said something to the effect that it wasn't right for me to leave my "old junk" behind for someone else to throw away.  I tried to leave this concrete pig, claiming the new owner's small children might like it, but even it went into the truck.

Concrete pig in vegetable garden, half-buried by mint (also left by the prior owner)

What would you leave behind in your garden if you moved?