You'll never guess what I've been doing

When we last left off in the front yard, Greg and I had rented a sod cutter and removed grass up to this point. I wanted to stay outside of the drip line of the dogwood tree, hence this abrupt halt. Because I had things to do, like buying pots and going to Disneyland, it's sat like this for over six weeks.

The weeds decided to have a rager while we were gone. Just wait until their father hears about this.

I had to dig down the soil here because it was sloping toward the house. Back when we removed the cement slab in the backyard, the bobcat was driven through this area, badly compacting the soil in the worst way. So I had to dig down several inches and grade everything away from the house.

Then I had to remove the sod by hand from the rest of the areas where the pathway would go. For the record, I'm sick of removing sod.

Then I had to grade the soil away from the house there, too. For the record, I'm sick of regrading soil.

Faced with yet another large pile of dirt, my first thought was, "I should just buy a bunch of pots." That's more fun than transporting the dirt to the truck, then to the soil recycler.

One yard of cedar chips filled the area perfectly.

I still need to install rock edging on the other side of the pathway and figure out how I'm going to plant the area between my yard and my neighbor's lawn (if anyone has ideas, I'm all ears). The whole thing looks kind of haphazard right now but at least it smells nice. It doesn't help that we're still missing a board from the gate and the posts still need to be cut down, and the rock wall got knocked askew when the sod cutter went through here . . .

Because I'm an awful person, I left this strip of sod that will be impossible to mow (have fun, Greg!). I could've removed it but I was tired and hot and the debris bin was full.

All of these details need to wait because it's supposed to be in the 90s this week, which means I'll be crouching inside by the A/C register, whining about being hot. It's hard being this much of a weather wimp.

Garden bloggers' bloom day July 2013

Agastaches! Salvia! Crocosmia! If you're a hummingbird, this is your month.

Salvia 'Black and Blue'

A nightmare color combination of Agastache 'Ava', roses, and Stachys 'Helen Von Stein'

Echinops ritro ruthenicus

Eucomis comosa 'Sparkling Burgandy'

Agastache 'Blue Blazes'

Agastache 'Golden Jubilee' and Sedum 'Matrona'

NOID crocosmia

And grasses!

Stipa teniussima

Pennisetum 'Redhead' and Pennisetum macrourum 'White Lancer'

Bouteloua gracilis 'Blonde Ambition'

Garden bloggers' bloom day is hosted by Carol at May Dream Gardens. Be sure to check out the show!

Notes to self

Note to self: this area, while lovely with all of its orange flowers, needs something to cool it down.

The Melianthus major, whose cool blue foliage probably would've done the trick, is too short to be seen from the street.

Maybe replace the Drosanthemum micans with something with blue flowers?

Note to self: cutting back the Agastache 'Golden Jubilee' in late May made it look terrible for a couple of weeks but now it's recovered nicely and it's blooming like normal but with a more compact shape. Do this again next year, harder.

This might be a good choice for replacing the Drosanthemum and cooling off the orange cannas.

Or maybe Salvia 'Black and Blue'?

It looks like the Eucomis 'Sparkling Burgandy' that I got for $2 at Viscaya's end-of-the-season closeout last fall is going to bloom. Don't miss that event this year.

Note to self: all the heartache and worrying over how to get your hands on Bouteloua gracilis 'Blonde Ambition' was totally worth it. Those floating eyebrows are gorgeous.

I mean, come on.

Pay attention to deadheading. The lewisia has been blooming for months because you've been diligent about snapping off the spent blooms, something you can do without shears.

Plant more annuals and biennials. They inevitably become your favorite plants and it's fun to have your neighbors ask you what "the Dr. Seuss plant" is (Verbascum 'Arctic Snow').

Divide that Coreopsis 'Moonbeam' in the fall. It's beautiful yellow flowers are threatening to eat the garden.

Stake the milkweed next year. These fell over badly and you couldn't seem the blooms from the sidewalk.

The neighbors shouldn't have to bushwhack to see these awesome milkweed pods. And maybe you'd see Monarch butterflies if you made them more apparent.

Never pull out the rue you planted. It might be coincidence, but once you planted it swallowtail butterflies started appearing in the garden. It's not much to look at so far but it seems worth it.

Note to self: edit the back rain garden. It's a freaking mess. Chop the penstemon next spring to keep it tidier.

Ditto the area behind the rain garden. It's an amorphous blob of ratty green.

Thank Alison for forever burning the name "Hen and Dicks" into your brain.

More pots. They are like jewelry for the garden.

Plant more of these Echinacea purpurea 'Kim's Knee High'. They bridge orange and pink so nicely and they are compact and very upright.

Can someone remind me to read this post in the fall? Pretty please?

I like dogs more than I like dog owners

Overnight my Devon Skies blue-eyed grass went from looking like this:

To this:

I'm thinking dog urine is the culprit. Anyone have any other theories? I think it's going to live but it looks UGLY right now.

The other day I was weeding in the front garden and a woman came by with her two dogs. One went into my hell strip and peed all over my Aristea inaequalis and she looked right at me and said, "Good boy." People can be jerks.

Pollinators on the brain

Growing up I viewed bees as the enemy because my mother is very allergic to them. I hated the enormous Callistemon in our backyard because it was buzzing with insects that wanted to kill my mom (in my mind, at least). I'm terrified of spiders and I still scream if an ant or beetle crawls across my foot in the garden. As a result, I don't know how to explain how obsessed I've become with bugs.

I was going through Kate Bryant's archive on Portland Monthly and ran across an article on attracting pollinators to your yard which somehow led to this plant list that will help attract beneficial insects to your garden, which led to me completely falling down the pollinator rabbit hole, all of which culminated in reading this article on neocotinoids and their devastating effect on pollinators.

It left me sort of depressed and then 50,000 bumblebees were killed by a landscaping company who sprayed some linden trees in a Target parking lot with pesticide and I was really depressed. So what do we do when we get sad? We buy plants! What do we do if all the nurseries are closed and we're feeling impatient? We buy them online!

I placed an order to Annie's Annuals for a buckwheat I'd had on my wishlist for a long time: Eriogonum grande var. rubescens.

Image source: Annie's Annuals

Buckwheat is a favorite plant for hover flies, whose larvae eat aphids, a LOT of them. The larvae can eat an aphid a minute but they don't eat your plants. They look more like bees than flies. Aphids were the reason that landscaping crew sprayed the linden trees, killing all of those bumblebees.

Image source

We have a pretty bad problem with aphids on the roses in the lab, so I placed a buckwheat there. Of course, I ripped out most of my roses but my next-door neighbor still has about 15 planted here. Now I just have to hope that her mow-and-blow guys don't spray this area.

Buckwheats like it hot and dry, which is perfect for this area. This buckwheat is evergreen and tidy, growing to 1' x 3'. The undersides of its spoon-shaped leaves are silver and fuzzy. I want to find a spot in the backyard for another, since the cabbage aphids have recently discovered my edibles.

I've never had a desire to grow sunflowers but I gave in and ordered 'Lemon Queen' which is the official sunflower of The Great Sunflower Project, which has been tracking honeybee colonies for years.

Image source: Annie's Annuals

I also picked up some Erigeron glaucus 'Wayne Roderick', which is supposedly loved by bees. And it's pretty.

Image source: Annie's Annuals

Then this weekend a friend and I went to Portland Nursery and I picked up something for the butterflies: Achillea millefolium 'Terracotta.' After being like, "Where are the freaking butterflies?!" I've witnessed two swallowtails sailing through my yard. I haven't yet witnessed them landing or feeding on anything, but hopefully they'll check out my garden and tell their butterfly friends, "That place is cool. We should hang out there."

Are you unhealthily fixating on anything lately? Any plants I'm missing that will single-handedly repair the damage all these landscapers have done? Sometimes it feels like that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to come to terms with pollinators I've always hated, like wasps. We frequently have them drinking from the bird bath (cute!) and I know they're important predators of bugs that cause a lot of destruction in the garden, but they still make me nervous.

The happiest place on earth

Last week Greg and I traveled to Anaheim to go to Disneyland with my brother, my sister-in-law, and their two girls, along with a smattering of grandparents and friends. We went swimming a lot, rode as many scary rides with my mom as possible (my dad's not a fan), and I bored Greg discussing the landscaping in and around Disneyland.

We also spent a few nights at Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Room. We love tiki and my brother really, really loves tiki, so we had a great time. I accidentally bought too many tiki glasses.

The trip was expensive, even staying at the cheapo Best Western, but it was so much fun. Screw dinners and flowers, I think the most romantic thing in the world is Greg voluntarily spending his vacation time with my family and allowing three little girls to demand that he hold their hands, go swimming with them, sit next to them on rides, or not hold my hands so they can. We don't want kids of our own but I am so grateful to my siblings for giving me such wonderful nieces and nephews. I miss them so much now that we're back home.

Phoebe having a staring contest with Greg

I missed my garden while we were away and it was noticeably larger when we returned. It rained the whole time we were gone, GOOD JOB PORTLAND!

I tried not to be that annoying girl taking photos of the landscaping, especially when I had such cute little girls nearby, but I snapped a few with my phone. California Adventure was particularly nice, with lots of desert plants, including a mass planting of Agave americana that I wanted to photograph but there were so many strollers between me and it.

But really, I bought too many tiki glasses. What was I thinking?

We are now those people

I gave in and ordered a No Solicitors sign, as it's been getting out of hand at our house. Would we like to sign a petition to ban plastic bags statewide? Would we like to donate money to this? Would we like to donate money to fight that same thing? They often come at ungodly hours, like 8am on a Sunday morning. Unless you have a petition banning door to door petitions, I want you to GO AWAY (except for you, I like you).

We bought it from this Etsy seller, from whom we also bought our house numbers.

And then I took down the bird feeder in back so I could hang up the disco ball. More fun for us, less fun for the birds. And possibly less sleep for our neighbor; that might be his bedroom window behind the fence there.