Thursday, August 2, 2012

First view of August

It's August and it's hot, hot, hot.  Most of my gardens are looking very tired and thirsty, and not very floriferous.  The front-yard garden is probably the only presentable one right now.  I pulled out most of the annual black-eyed Susans because they were beginning to look very ratty. 

The gardener should probably be estivating now.  But I needed a garden fix after working for several weeks on a huge stressful project at work, so I actually went and bought new plants to fill in some of the spaces.  Am I crazy?  I muddied them in well and have watered them several times.  In the first two days after I planted them, I shaded them with thin row cover material pinned to stakes (the stakes are still there, just in case).  So far they are still doing OK.  The new ones in this bed include a dahlia at the lower edge of the photo that is supposed to have burgundy leaves but already looks very green to me, compared to the neighboring canna; and the Stipa ornamental grass next to the rock.  I also had to move the coreopsis (behind the grass) since I misjudged the girth of the pineapple sage (to the right of the grass) when I planted it in the spring.  It seems like every year I'm buying new plants for this bed which I think looks great just after I put them in... and then it doesn't look too good again the next year.  Two years ago I put in several clumps of Autumn Joy sedum.  They're still there somewhere, believe it or not, but they look like Brussels sprouts, post harvest.  The local wildlife (deer or bunnies?) seems to enjoy sedum, much to my surprise.  I also had a lot more lambs ears (some still visible at the right edge) but they alternate between huge lush clumps and sudden death.  I'm beginning to think they really like more shade and moisture than the gray hairy leaves would suggest.  The bed looked a lot more gray then, but the yellow-green leaves of the crocosmia that I added in several places last year seemed to clash, so this year's replacements were picked with a warmer palette in mind.  I think the big clump of pink/white/yellow multicolored four o'clocks tie the different colors together pretty well (when they're open!)

There are still some lamb's ears present in the bed to the left of the gate.  Along with the catmint, that gives this bed a much bluer feel than the yellow-green feel of the bed to the right. Even more so now that I swapped in the blue bird bath that used to be in the butterfly garden for the cement bird bath that used to be just behind the fence.  The bed behind the fence is a little too small to hold the bird bath comfortably.  Also, I'm thinking of putting some herbs in that bed and I don't think edible herbs and a bird bath are great company.  But I'm still trying to decide if I like the changes.  I think I do.

Thanks for visiting my garden this August.  Check out Town Mouse and Country Mouse's blog for more Garden First Views. 

6 comments:

  1. Bunnies nibbled at my sedum, too. I've also pulled a few plants that I decided were too unfabulous to take up valuable garden real estate for the rest of the summer and replaced them with others I like better.

    Have you thought of pulling up some grass and expanding the bed? Your 4 O'Clocks look great! I pulled mine last year because they looked so wretched.

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    1. Ha ha, I have thought about taking over more grass, and have already expanded! More than laziness, that's why the beds don't have permanent edging, because I don't know if I'm satisfied yet. On the flip side, I don't want to expand past my ability to keep these beds looking respectable most of the time, since it's in front of the house. The green stuff is pretty low maintenance since it's just whatever weeds will grow there (not much grass).

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  2. I would not want my garden to be seen in first view right now. The heat and rainy downpours have given me an explosion of weeds.

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    1. Yes, my backyard (not shown!) is poor tired looking desirable plants and lots of lush crab grass. Our downpours have not added up to much on this side of the water, though. We've had approximately 1 minute of hard rain on three occasions without any sustained moisture. Since I just spent an hour and a half watering, I expect we'll get at least an inch tonight.

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  3. Oh, I love that blue bird bath! This is the time of year where a little extra color is so welcome (but good luck with the new arrivals, seems like you've done what you could to make them comfortable.

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    1. Thanks! So far the new arrivals seem OK; thankfully it has rained a few times.

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