Uh, didn't it rain, like, all day yesterday?

The rain gauge says exactly one-half inch fell here at Aurora which is disappointing after what seemed like nonstop rain all day yesterday, including some heavy downpours. Today I went to the Vale house to dig up some liriope plugs, since it’s always much easier to dig these after a rain.
I was trying to come up with something different to frame the rose bed, but in the end I’ve fallen back into my routine edging solution, reasoning that Big Blue Lily Turf is bulletproof and of course, free. The Vale front garden is really quite mature now; I cut back some of the deadwood on the perennials as a kindness to George, who’s oblivious to overgrowth. I remember after my mother died, observing how her garden evolved in response to its no longer being lovingly tended. Some things keeled over, but the bones of the garden remained: crepe myrtles, Barbados cherry, pomegranate, fig, even the bougainvillea. It was the fleshy subtropicals that disappeared: bananas, elephant ears, cannas.
Nothing is dying at Vale, it's just the opposite. Massive overgrowth. The backyard in particular is a jungle.
One interesting thing I notice at Vale is the disparity between the two different plantings of soft-leaf yucca. The first batch planted are dark gray bluegreen and after 5 years, the size of giant tumbleweeds. As yet they have no height or stalk emerging; they’re still low to the ground and their shape is a handsome globe of symmetrical leaves. They are really spectacular among the cenizo. The second batch I planted, also identified as soft-leaf yucca, are completely different. These are more yellow green, their shape is in no way globe-like, they are not symmetrical, the curve of their leaves have a ratty random quality. And they are now twice as tall as the original SLYs. At first I disliked them, but now I accept them on their own terms, though I prefer the globular SLYs. I have been harvesting pups from the preferred SLY because I can never find this one in the nurseries.
The front garden here at Aurora is heavily dormant and without a single point of interest. Every single inch of the front yard and flowerbeds is still littered with a half-foot of nonbiodegradable liveoak leaves. My across-the-street neighbors have completed their professional landscaping, so I at least have something interesting to look at. Or in my know-it-all fashion, criticize. These are professionals, after all. Why would they plant those straggly chlorotic-looking dwarf nandinas? And surely the most overplanted landscape plant going these days is the dietes or African iris. Can't they think of something different?
One happy development in my backyard are the flourishing cosmos seedlings which I need to thin. Can't wait for these blowsy frousy ramshackle kids to bloom!

The Key West Cottage Garden

Several years ago my ex and I went to Key West. It was the fall after that terrible summer when our skies were occluded for three months with smoke from agricultural fires in Central America. We had cancelled our family trip to Port Aransas since it was so depressing to be outside; it felt like the world was coming to an end. Anyway it was my ex's wonderful idea to surprise me with this trip for our anniversary.

Ever since then I had the notion of doing a Key West garden. And now with my new house, this idea seems ideal. What I took away from Key West was: small frame cottages with simple paint colors, lots of white trim, white railings, and gardens that were foliage-intense rather than flower-focussed. Which is totally my cup of tea for front garden--I love greens, grays and year-round evergreens. Once the construction is done next door I will be painting the exterior of the house; the main siding will be a manila folder color and the trim will all be white; the shutters black. Very Key West and all about setting off the dark green of the evergreen tropical foliage plantings.

So here’s the plan:

Palm fronds are the key (no pun intended).
There is nothing that says tropical Key West shanty like rustling palm fronds. But I don’t want or need a palm tree. My tiny front yard already is dwarfed on the south side by a #@!!$% liveoak tree (I know they are majestic, but they belong in a field; their twice-a-year leaf-drop-pollen-spewing-fuzzy-caterpillar-flowering output is a massive annoyance to a residential yard—and what’s with the non-biodegradable leaves? Do they EVER decay? I think not.).

So after researching palms, I have concluded that the best solution is the Dwarf Palmetto, which is a southern U.S. native and can endure some freezing temps as well. Plus it doesn’t get very big; but it also has a reputation for slow growth. Everything’s a trade-off. I looked at the sago palms, but something about them seems almost plastic. Plus after reading Oliver Sacks’ treatise on cycads, I wonder if they aren’t alien beings.


So I have planted a Dwarf Palmetto (sabal minor) on either side of the front windows. You can see in this picture the tiny size of this palm to the right of the window in the sunny patch. Let's hope that their slow growth doesn't spell garden dissappointment for me.
I’m leaving the boxwoods in between them; assuming they come back from my merciless pruning. In March right after I moved in, I put plugs of small liriope (that I brought from R-wood house) along the front and side beds. I love liriope and it can’t be beat as an edging medium; it’s dark green, cold hardy, evergreen, appears lush in the worst conditions, and it even has purple flower spikes.

In between the foundation planting of boxwoods and the liriope is a big whole at the moment. So I’m mulling what would be good here. I want something low and evergreen but with a tropical bent, possibly 2 or 3 dwarf oleanders with some rambling verbena filling in the spaces.


Meanwhile the shade garden in front is doing well. From my Rollingwood house I brought and planted these shade lovers:

Inland sea oats
Physostegia (purple fall bloomer)
Brazilian pavonia (pale pink flower with wine throat)
Turk’s cap


This bed is under a copse of mountain laurel and the tallest pittosporum I've ever seen and unfortunately some rather pervasive poison ivy. Apparently even John Dromgoole endorse Roundup for this scourge.