Garden Day Bloom Bellyaching

Another bloom day arrives at Aurora with nothing much to add to the sum of gardening splendor. The Iceberg roses in front are blooming but the petals are wrenched from their stems about an hour after opening by this crazy wind and then strewn about the yard like styrofoam peanuts.


The white plumbago is pretty; but the four plants all take turns flowering, so there is never a mass display which is what I was striving for. Striving plays a big part in my garden vocab. Despite my careful study I am unable to discern the bud/flower/seed pattern in the plumbago so I am never certain when to shear off. I cannot tell what is past flower and what is new flower bud.



The Pink Knockouts are doing better now that the heat is over. Although their color still seems washed out. I would like to say that this photo doesn’t do them justice, but in fact, the color is accurate. I’ve been feeding the living daylights out of them, so I don’t know what more I can do.




Ah, the Port St. John Creeper, the English sheepdog of vines. A shaggy slobbering happy pink blob that is always happy to see you. And it has a two-fer aroma package: the desert willow scent of its flowers and the pinto bean pungency of its crushed stems and leaves.



Here’s poor ’ol Charles Grimaldi, who’ll probably be goners by the morning if the predicted freeze happens. He’s loaded down with buds and not one has yet struggled into bloom. Charles has been thoroughly watered and tonight he'll don his newly-purchased little jacket (a length of foam pipe wrap) so maybe he’ll live to see some bloom. But I think there’s another Arctic front coming mid-week so his future is doubtful.



In preparation for colder temps, I ventured in to the small shed built into the garage, where I keep large pots and cuttings over the winter. I haven’t been in there since last spring. To my horror I saw that I had overlooked a baby yucca. It has been in there unwatered all through this past dire summer. I felt like Hitler.



It looks pretty damn good, all things considered. No amount of striving needed for this hardy survivor.

O Happy Day

87 degrees out. Practically a cold front. I've been piling decaying leaves in giant piles on all my baby shrubs (with the terrifying words of Scott Ogden echoing in my mind, "gardeners on calcareous soil must always bear in mind the admonition: to watch and do nothing to cover exposed bare earth constitutes an unforgivable sin." The problem with this unforgivable sin thing is that the application of humus is an ongoing backbreaking process with the giant sucking maw of our limey soil bellowing FEED ME on a nonstop basis. There is no way I can keep up with clothing my naked dirt.

Okay, this was going to be a happy post. A real cause for joy has been the blossoming of the Port St. John Creeper. This fluffy pink bloomer tumbles all over the back garden gate providing a welcome bouquet when I arrive home. Also just in time for the anniversary of Elvis's death (January 8, 1935–August 16, 1977), I deployed the head I got in San Antonio at this crazy plaster import store that sells cornices, Florentine friezes, and all manner of decorative plinths, pedestals, and faux ruins. I always thought Elvis looked just like Apollo.

Why do they taunt us with this chance of rain b.s.?

Normally I leave work and head to Deep Eddy to swim. It's better than two martinis, for flushing away work stress. Today I came home and fed everything. Lisa, a neighbor with a phantasmagoric garden (and apparently the last remaining gardener without a blog) came by walking her dogs and said supportive things about my miserable front bed, which frankly looks like an abandoned drive-in movie theater--all rubble and stems. We agreed this has been a challenging summer. Heat. No rain. Both of these are bad enough but not that unusual. It's the aberrant and apocalyptic wind that has us most unnerved. In combination with the heat and drought, it's impossible to combat. Lisa says she suspects she's lost a lot of bulbs, but she won't know til next year.
It's not all death and dying here. The Port St. John Creeper (podranea ricasoliana) is fixing to explode. I planted it right after I moved in, in Spring 2007, but it declined to bloom during its settling-in year. Another bloomer right now is the Brugmansia Charles Grimaldi, which after the sun goes down, scents the deck with its lemon buttercream icing perfume. In the debris that is the front bed, a white plumbago is valiantly blooming.
So I fed it and the rest of the rubble in front hoping that fall comes soon.