by Lorraine on December 18, 2010
Rain has arrived in California at last and since last night the showers have been consistent and gradually became heavier with each passing hour. Listening to it on the roof and dripping off the eaves during the night, was lulling and peaceful to me.
Earlier in the week, I timed my gardening chores with the upcoming storms in mind. What a perfect time to move some of the plants into different locations and also to put in some new ones as well and take advantage of the storms arrival!
Everything is looking very good and I suspect over the course of the next few days, the garden will eventually become saturated with rain water. And with the first bit of sunshine, weeds will be sprouting everywhere.
The gardeners bane…
But the winter rain storms are exactly what native plants need and it assists them to become established if they are new transplants and prepare them for the following summer when there is less water.
The older plants are pulling up moisture that they didn’t get during the hot summer months and are becoming revived, green and in some cases, starting to bloom, such as my Ceanothus bush that has blue blossoms on it now.
It’s a lovely day filled with raindrops and downpours and I’m sure that some people are not happy about it and would rather have a sunny sky while they are running their last minute Holiday errands.
Especially since it’s the last weekend before Christmas and many of them are scurrying around, attempting to get in that last bit of Christmas shopping and checking off their to-do lists before December 25th.
But for my garden, it is a welcome gift.
by Lorraine on December 14, 2010
For the last few weeks I have been very busy making changes in my garden and I’m just about done with I wanted to do. Initially I had planned to remove all of the Canyon Prince Rye grasses, two sages and begin trimming many of the plants.
Winter and fall are very busy times if you have a native plant garden because most of the maintainence and planting is done then. With the recent rains that we’ve had, my garden has come to life and every day it looks a bit different and requires some attention.
Many of the bulbs are popping up due to a period of time when the temperatures were warmer and oh my gosh…there are a million California Poppy seedlings that have sprouted, even in the cracks of the sidewalk.
The fuschias are done blooming and they will be my next target for pruning within a couple of weeks or so and I do intend to put in a couple of new plants in a place where I just removed a Desert 4 O’clock that was under a window and was too messy.
I divided some Blue Eyed Grass today, as they are now beginning to be very happily established and since there are so many of them, I dug a few up and transplanted them to another location. I hope they don’t die but do well because they are so beautiful and I love their blue flower.
I moved two Salvia mellifera’s from the garden to the backyard and actually they came up pretty easily. But again, I don’t know if they will survive but hopefully they will, as I enjoy the smell of them and their beautiful blooms in the spring.
We are expecting some rain this weekend, so that’s why I wanted to get all of this done in time to take advantage of it and the cooler temperatures, too and I feel as though I have managed to complete what I set out to do.
Then there’s the Liquid Amber leaves. I have four of them in my front yard and I love them but everything is buried in their leaves and I can’t rake them up fast enough before they get deeper.
Whew! I ‘m tired but satisfied and I love how the garden is looking. All I need to do, is step outside, step into my garden, inhale its fragrance and sink into it’s tranquility.
by Lorraine on December 9, 2010
Well, I guess you could say that I’m not exactly posting regularly here about the events or lack “of” as to what’s going on in my garden. Most of the summer was rather quiet and it’s then that a native plant garden goes into a kind of slumber as it coasts through the long hot days of the season.
I had been trying to decide what I would do about the Canyon Prince Rye Grass, as I commented in my last post and I finally dug up (lets see here, hummm) four of them but I still have three to be removed.
Obviously, there were too many put into the garden three years ago and what I didn’t know at the time, was how large they would become and that they obviously loved the conditions in the garden and thrived.
It took some digging to get out the ones I did remove and I am noticing some shoots coming up here and there where they previously were and that could be a future problem. This means I will have to pay constant attention and make sure that they don’t get a “root hold” again…..
In their place I have planted some Purple Three Awn native bunch grass and several Yarrows. My color palate is grayish-blue and yellow. Mixed in with this are the amazing Woolly Blue Curls that continue to amaze me in their resilience and look healthy and are still blooming.
This weekend I plan to remove the rest of the Canyon Prince and also remove two Salvia mellifera and attempt to relocate them to my backyard. I don’t know how successful this will be, but I want to keep them and I have more space in the backyard for them to spread out.
The garden evolves as we all do, circumstances change and nature’s moods and music continue to delight, regardless of what is happening in the world.
Peace!
