Starting a new garden is really testing my patience. Not much is really going on here at Aurora with the exception of the Neverending Cycle of the Liveoak Leaf Drop. Can I just say how much I loathe liveoaks? I know this is not a popular opinion, but as a yard tree they bite. There are few things that will grow beneath their canopy (aspidistras, liriope, indian hawthorne, blue shade; I think that covers it), and they spend about six months of the year in their twice-a-year leafdrop process. First they throw off little fuzzy caterpillar-bloom things which are tracked into the house on clothes, dogs, and shoes and then it's about 3 weeks of spewing tons of yellow pollen powder (which impacts the walls of the house, cars, patio furniture, and, oh yeah, LUNGS). Then there are the leaves themselves which take a leisurely two months or so to completely drop in succeeding waves of snowdrift-like heaps. These leaves have the biodegradable quotient of Kevlar. In the lawn, acorn caps, detached from the nut, are as painful to bare feet as sticker burs. I do not know where in this cycle the phenomenon of the oak gall occurs. But it really is the liveoak's
coup de grace of annoyance. These hard round balls lie camoflaged in the oakleaf debris, ready to send the idle gardener (namely, me), into a logrolling pratfall with one false step.
But enough of this raving. Here's what bloomed today.
Rainbow knockout with pretty bug (hope he likes aphids)
Blackfoot daisy
Mountain Laurel, which is having a boom year all over town.
It would be helpful if I kept better records. I put in four crossvines in two varieties, Dragon Lady and Tangerine Dream. I can't tell which this is even after consulting the hang tags and google search; it's not the usual orange one. Not sure if I like it.
A flop-eared mutabilis.
The notion of seeing blossoms from a window is an Ur-cottage desire that in reality is practically impossible to attain. But for a few weeks purple fills this window thanks to a mountain laurel.
Fortunately you cannot see from this same window the desolation which is the front lawn. Today I broadcast 5 lbs. of La Prima XD Bermudagrass seed on this spot. On the other side of the sidewalk, also a wasteland, my delusional schemes of monkey grass and pavers has been scaled back. I realized the space was too small—the paver business would be too busy. Instead this total-shade strip will be a bed of English ivy contained by the sidewalk and driveway. It will take awhile as per the old garden rule of thumb for ivy: 
