I planted Festuca glauca ‘Golden Toupee’ last spring and it didn’t do much. It didn’t grow at all and it faded to an unremarkable white/blue.
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| At planting |
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| In August |
But now?
In a sea of dead things this little guy is a cheery blast of chartreuse.
I think I’d like to buy 40 more of these. And I’d like to make it grow. Does anyone have this grass? Is it ever going to stretch its legs?
And one day late, to boot. I’ve been preoccupied with being cold, hiding out under blankets, knitting, and rewatching the entire run of Gilmore Girls. I am so good at doing winter.
My salvia ‘Black and Blue’ is still going strong, though the weather isn’t always kind to the blooms.
Salvia pulchella x involucrata looks like it might finally bloom.
My Knautia macedonica is still pushing out blooms.
Fatsia japonica!
In slightly troubling news, my hellebores are already blooming, which didn’t happen until February last year.
My Allium schubertii are poking out of the ground. A lot.
Am I worrying over nothing? Am I going to lose these alliums once the really cold weather gets here? Will Luke and Lorelei ever figure out that they’re in love with each other? So many questions.
Please visit our host Carol at May Dreams Gardens for a look at what’s blooming in everyone else’s gardens.
I’m still not sure about my rusty wheelbarrow planter but the agave pups I put in there are so much happier. They got water every day this summer but the drainage is very sharp, so they’ve gone from skinny desiccated things to being fat and happy.
I’m hoping that the sedums fill in next spring before the weeds can.
I’m pretty excited for next summer to see what survives. I purchased a trellis to go behind this area, next to the stock tank full of bamboo. I’d like to plant Kennedia nigricans, so I have black blooms twining behind the yellow bamboo.
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| Photo source: Annie’s Annuals |
And then maybe I’ll actually plant the surrounding bare ground with some grasses or something so it doesn’t look so staged.
I’m practicing tough love with the Cryptomeria in the backyard. After a year with stakes and wires, we’re burning its bra. It’s going to have to learn to stand on its own.
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| Rise up! |
Initially it flopped forward, now it seems to want to go back. If it can’t support itself by next winter I’ll relocate it and plant the tree I really wanted: a Korean fir. They are prettier but they grow so slowly.
I whined and complained that I wanted rain so the ground would soften. After about five days of heavy rain we got a sun break and I headed out to plant the future meadowscape:
Despite the rain, the ground was still hard as a rock in places. Despite my sincerest desire to not hurt the dogwood, I ran into a lot of roots and might have just said, “Eff it, let’s hope it lives.” I really hope it lives.
Keeping with the tradition of doing everything wrong, I also planted everything too closely together. I followed Carolyn Kolb’s recommendations for planting grasses . . . sort of. She recommends cutting off the bottom 1/2″ from nursery starts (my bread knife worked perfectly), roughing up the roots a bit, then giving the grasses a smidge of granular fertilizer and some compost to get them going.
Everything looks so lame right now but I’m hopeful it will look great come spring. And next fall should be spectacular. I have a mix of switch grass (Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’), Pennisetum ‘White Lancer’ (Pennisetum macrourum), and little bluestem grasses (Schizachyrium scoparium ‘Blue Heaven’), plus a fountain grass for good measure (Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Redhead’). This is part of the master plan that Scott drew up. Hopefully I won’t screw it up too much. I need to smother more lawn so I can fit in the rest of the grasses and plants I have planned.
The inspiration for this planting scheme was a photo by Pam Penick, located here. Large swaths of different colored grasses will be intermixed with some bright drought-tolerant perennials. My goal is to water this once a week or less, once established.
I’m trying to tell myself that this will grow and look okay but I always doubt my spacing. But hey, this looked lame once, too.
Some of the plants are having a harder time with the rain than others.
No Day of the Dead garlands for me.
I snapped most of these last week, right before the rain kicked in.
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| Salvia ‘Black and Blue’ |
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| Mexican milkweed Asclepias curassavica |
Greg’s father gave us what he dubbed “screaming orange” crocosmia in July. They got in the ground late so they bloomed late . . . I wish I could do that every year. They are so hard to photograph but they are the most fantastic yellow-orange-red combo.
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| NOID Crocosmia |
The yellow Coreopsis ‘Moonbeam’ and orange Zauschneria californica ‘Wayne’s Select’ are still blooming like crazy.
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| Symphoricarpos mollis |
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| Agastache ‘Ava’ |
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| NOID canna |
Happy bloom day, y’all! Head over to Carol’s to see the rest of the show.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
A cat or a raccoon or someone who really hates birds broke the $5 birdbath that I drove all the way to Cornelius in rush hour traffic to get. This is the third one I’ve lost. I don’t know how I can find them any cheaper than that.
I give up.
Grow, baby, grow! That castor bean is going to die soon and I’ll have a big gaping hole that you need to fill.
