What's happening in your mid summer garden?

Mid summer ?- time for some new coleus>

To join the throng>

Remember when houseplants were a big thing and everyone had an indoor jungle? The very first greenhouse I was given to water when I was 21 was a huge house full of hanging coleus!!! Three tiers of every color in the book! I was in heaven!! That is of course, before I was put in charge of the fern department.......

What great greenhouses. ANd Louise you sure have some pretty plants. Plumeria is one of my favorites and that one is spectacular.
Nice color combo surfcity.

Thank you my friend! Plumeria is definitely a favorite here too. May explain why I have 35+! (Clare got me addicted!)

I'm trying very hard not to get addicted to them--my greenhouse is already too full every winter with all my tropical hibiscus, I don't really have room for plumies too! LOL

My garden is mostly all wild and wooly:

I love your W&W garden, WC.

I once overheard my neighbor say to the kids, "Oh honey, don't pick the neighbor's WEEDS!"

This message was edited Jul 19, 2009 10:08 AM

This message was edited Jul 19, 2009 10:09 AM

Yikes, surfcity, hopefully they couldn't tell weeds and plants apart!
Sherry, beautiful garden!

WC, I have to add, I love the quiet, relaxing feel of your garden. It's really beautiful.

You've got it, Surf - that's exactly the feel of her garden. And very lush.

I agree, WC's garden looks like the perfect place to relax and just enjoy the view.
And surfcity, don't get me started on people who think everything they don't recognize must be a weed!!! I hope the children took heed and did not pull up any of your beautiful flowers.
That would be an interesting new thread, horror stories of what has happened in our gardens at the hands of the uninformed/misinformed........

No, it would be a downer. Better to appreciate the upside of our efforts ;-D

DH thought to do a favor for our neighbors across the row and whack the mustard down on the road verge while he was doing ours. Neighbor ran out saying, "stop, stop!" DH was very embarrassed - we like these neighbors a lot and it never occurred to him it would not be a good thing to do. He apologized - neighbor somehow thought we were being critical of their "non-gardening" (it really is pitiful, but they are so busy with other things). The other day we was out taking the mustard out by hand. :-)

I love bulbs. I love the fact that they come up out of what seems like nothing and then dissappear. At the moment, I am waiting for my summer show of Stargazer lilies. The buds are big and green! I have allot of bulbs in pots so I can rotate out "the show." But now I am very careful to put the dormant ones in a safer place. Especially my saffron crocus! Ever since a neighbor who was just supposed to water for me while I was gone for a few days, did me a "favor" and threw away all the pots with "dead" plants............

Wow everyone, your gardens/plants look great.

Donna - when you fill the dirt up to the blocks, will it tend to push the blocks or does it all just stay in place. You did a lot of hard work there and it looks good. As much work as I'm sure it was, it does look do-able as a dry stack. I would not want to get into the mortar thing. Did you have the blocks delivered?

PC & Dale - Now those are REALLY greenhouses!! They are huge. You do have plants in there in the summer too? I'm thinking that since it was 109 in the shade here today, a greenhouse would be over the top hot for plants. Although that would be just enough extra warmth in the winter.

When I think of plumerias, I think of HI and less heat and much more humidity (ditto with bananas and pinapples). They grow well here - I mean I know Rancho Cucamonga is not a whole lot different than the Temecula Valley.

Thank you...I tend to plant things that get quite large and as DH says...I apparently can't do 'neat and tidy'. And, boy would I love to have one of those greenhouses! And a few Stargazers also......the scent...
Surf City, I have never been able to get verbena bonariensis to grow for me...I do not know why,verbena rigida has spread and spread and one of my favorite things of all is rudbeckias grown with pennisetum rubrum/ Purple Fountain Grass, those 3-4 ft tall rudbeckias and now I can't grow the rudbeckias at all since the rabbits have descended on us and they gobble them.

Sherry, I have a R. 'Green Wizard' in a pot. I had it in the cart under the trees, but I moved it because it wasn't getting enough sun. Now it's on the veranda out front getting burned. So far they bun-buns haven't touched it. They have gone after the native irises, but otherwise seem to favor the weeds, believe it or not, and the spent blooms from the passion flower.

I was growing r. Indian Summer and Cherokee Sunset and the rabbits would eat them down to the ground. I miss them so much that I think I'm going to plant some of my grasses in the whiskey barrels so that I can plant the rudbeckias in with them, far removed from the rabbits. The golden rudbeckias with the pennisetum look so good for Fall and very 'prairie-like'..I also think I'd like some pumpkins sitting around with them come Fall. I have barrels filled with variegated lacecap hydrangeas on the north side of the workshop, but this time of year they're getting too much sun and are burned, so I think I may pull them and put the grasses/ rudbeckias in there.

Hi Lynda,

No, we did not have them delivered. They wanted $80 even though we only got 75 blocks. We borrowed a neighbors truck. They put the blocks on the truck, but we had to take them off at home. I wonder how many times I picked up each block. lol

I'm hoping the blocks are heavy enough to stay in place. I haven't backfilled yet as I'm trying to figure out where to put some of the extra soil. I also want to add alot of admendments to the soil while I'm at it. I think some of that soil will be used to build up another bed, but I am waiting for some guidance.

Sherry, your place looks so pretty and peaceful. One of these days I'm coming to view your gardens.

Are those purple fountain grass in your picture, WC? They're beautiful. I love grasses. Your garden belongs in a magazine!

I noticed your ratibida (Mexican hat). I had one of those and it was going great guns and then....it just died...for no apparent reason. I replaced it with some centranthus, figuring nothing will kill IT! So far, so good.

Oh...lol...I have LOTS of centranthus. I love it and the butterflies do too. This is my first year with the ratibida and I'm told it will be invasive, nothing thrills me more but I think it's one that the rabbits will enjoy also, so I may keep a lot of it in barrels. It has the same prairie look that I like. I love the grasses too. The purple pennisetum looks so gorgeous with so many things and it can grow very large with lots of water, or small and contained with little...and the rabbits don't eat it. Some of the other grasses are just far too tempting for the rabbits. I love chasmanthium also, but so do the bunnies. There are so many good things to be said for city gardens. Not to mention the weather being so much better where you are! We had to escape yesterday and make our usual run up PCH to Long Beach and back...sooo nice there, sooo hot here.
edited to add...I will have lots of seed of the ratibida should you want to try it again....

This message was edited Jul 20, 2009 5:47 AM

Hey, next time you're going up (or down) PCH, pop in! We're just 2 miles up from that big ugly power plant on the beach in HB. Maybe you can give me some pointers!

You're not far from SoCal...have you guys gotten together?

I hear ya, wcgypsy, one of my little sisters lives in Fallbrook and has decided it is time to find a cooler place to live! One of my aunts has a little ranch in Temacula and wants to move back north after 20 years down there also! Too hot!
The photos of my greenhouses were from 20 years ago when I worked in a large commercial nursery.... alas, I do not have a greenhouse now. But it is certainly my goal to have at least one small one again soon someday. My house is very, very small and very old, there is no where to have house plants and/or keep anything warm over the winter, except for one window devoted to my dendrobiums and rhipsalis, and the kitchen floor, ha, ha! So if it can't survive the outdoors, I don't grow it ;-)

Yes, Temecula is a good 10 degrees hotter than Fallbrook and Fallbrook is a good 10 degrees hotter than 4 miles to the west toward Oceanside. Still, there are many microclimates here. Our property doesn't hardly ever even get frost. This time evey year we want to move north again, then winter comes and we still sit here. We hate heat. I grew up in my young, young years in the San Joaquin and I must have learned to hate heat early on....

Sherry, I guess if the rabbits like it, it won't have a chance to become invasive. Actually, at this point I don;t mind the rabbits as it is easier to put in little fences until the plants get established (our rabbits prefer new, tender tidbits), but the #*@&%^^ ground squirrels and gophers are tenacious. Funny story, when I first planted the pots of fountain grass, the neighbor commented on how they looked nice. The next evening we were talking over the fence and he asked if I had decided to move the fountain grass. I said no and turned around and all 3 plants had been bunny eaten down to the nibs! Not long after, while looking at more pots of it at HD A lady said they had just cut out a couple clumps of it because it was too big for their small yard and gave me her address to take it from the trash on the curb! I rescued it and even though it had started to dry out it came back and the bunnies did NOT eat that.

It's hard to have too much sympathy for your heat trials as we are even hotter than Temecula (109 in the shade yesterday) and had looked to move to Fallbrook to be cooler!! LOL We escape to Oceanside beaches when we get a chance - less traffic and crowds, but prefer weekdays.

PC - I looked your temps up and see it is wonderful. More like when I lived in Santa Barbara, WHen I was pregnant in 1993 we drove to San Jose in July and stopped to show DH the Booardwalk in Santa Cruz and the big thermometer read 100 degrees and the next day it got that hot in SF itself!! Very unusual.

One of my summer favorites is this abutilon. There is a pink and yellow in there also, but didn't get into the shot. It is patented hybrid of which I have long the tag long ago. It has grow up into the nectorine and french prune.
Quiltygirl, the ridge I live on is a bit of a micro climate like wcgypsy's area. Since I am 12 miles inland and on a ridge, it is often over 95 here. And I ain't got no ac!
Since I live miles outside of any city, I must use the zip code 95076, which makes me look like I am in zone 9b.
Not as hot as down there, I know, but still too hot for me to be outdoors in it. So I get up way early to get all of the watering done ;-)
The hummingbirds really, really love the abutilons!

The gophers I learned to deal with years ago...I just gave up and realized that everything would be planted in wire. I have too much to make fences around to keep the rabbits at bay and this is the first year that we've ever had squirrel problems and I'm hearing from others that they're eating everything....

We've never had AC and we've always had woodstoves for heat....if we had AC, I'm afraid I would have it on the minute the temps went above 70. I'd like to find a spot to grow the abutions, but I think I've finally given up on the idea of growing everything.
That's true, QG, you're REALLY hot out in Wildomar! Today I'm out looking at and appreciating how much I love the way our Ash trees have grown and are providing so much shade. I need to look around and see where I have spots left to plant more trees. I'm real big on shade.....

Chaste tree's happy.

Wow, that is beautiful! I LOVE blue! What is the latin name of it so I can look it up here in the Plant Files?
I am big on shade also, wcgypsy! The first thing I did when I moved in here ten years ago was plant a row of fruit trees along the front yard fence. 'Cause I also love fruit ;-)
My roof is sideways and faces west, so I'd come home to such a blast of heat that I'd break out in a sweat just trying to get the front door open and get inside to the oven in there, ha, ha! I've pruned them into a solid wall of afternoon shade! And my van, on the street side, stays cool until the afternoon!

Vitex. I have 3 trees, 2 different varieties, and love them. They're related to rue, so if it bothers your skin you need to be aware of that. Now sure which varieties I have, but these are my guesses:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/139925/
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/126619/

BTW, for anyone going to the Garlic Festival, you can get your tix onling and avoid standing in line!
http://gilroygarlicfestival.com/

Vitex agnus-castus. A much underappreciated and underplanted tree, IMO. The hummers and butterflies love it, too. A reliable summer bloomer, even here on the coast.

Ima, I saw a white flowering version recently which I never knew existed. If I had room, I'd get one.

This message was edited Jul 21, 2009 3:59 PM

I have 6-7 of the vitex that I need to find space for..want to get them into the ground when it cools off. If I'd gone to the Piergrossi's Nursery sale, I would have brought home the variegated vitex...so it's just as well that I didn't go..lol....and you know I want the white one too....

We managed to get a couple of Salvias in the ground today - DH had to pull out the jackhammer - and I've repotted some of the smaller plants I got from Piergrossi's so they can grow a bit before I try to plant them. Because of all the rabbits and squirrels around, I left the baskets sticking up a little, with the raw edges turned out as a deterrent. Don't know if it will have any effect, but it makes me feel better. One of the holes DH dug had a huge gopher tunnel going right through it, so I put some pellets deep inside - take that, you dirty little buggers!

Oooh---oooh----the landscapers killed off a small weeping birch last August when they turned off the old watering system for 6 weeks to build the new one.......maybe a white vitex would be a good replacement! I've been thinking about a smoke bush (cotinus) or another mallow---or turning the trunk into a bottle tree....LOL!

Pretty funny Sherry, so you are going to wait, what, 3 months for it to cool down to plant?

That is a might purdy tree. Sure would like one/some of those. Is Piergrossi's one of the local Fallbrook nurseries?

I would like more trees and more trees closer to the house, but with the limited budget and trying to stay within firescaping standards AND keep a view means fewer trees. I do transplant some of the native trees that come up after the rains each year. They grow fast and full and need no care. The don't grow where you want them (like the small space between AC unit/gas line and house!), but are easily moved in the winter as they are deciduous. Unfortunately, right now the most tree-less spot is right where the sun currently goes down. We have one of those woven shades they use at restaurants to cut the afternoon sun, because it is nasty hot out there on that side in the afternoon. I would like to be able to keep my view of the hills, but I guess shade is most important. I just loved Kathleen's shade room, but since we also face west, guess that would still be too hot this time of year.

Sherry - you said you have planted in wire. What wire and what method do you use? For my first veggie garden last year, neighbor used his tractor to remove all the dirt and we lined bottom and sides with chicken wire, refilled, then made a 2.5 ft chicken wire fence around it. Critters still got in. Suspect they chewed through wire and/or slipped under fence - or who knows, climbed it? Guess I need to line each hole with galvanized wire mesh and bring it up and across the top of the root ball?

Way to go critter killer Kathleen!! Take no prisoners! Some places it is dangerous to walk for fear of the the tunnels collapsing.

Breakfast anyone? I love fresh fruit for breakfast and this time of year it is so easy to just walk outside to see what is available. Sometimes I feel like a little spider monkey, searching under the fig tree for ripe ones. These two wound up in a bowl with a little cream.
Gohhers are one reason I do allot of container gardening! Even vegetables. And a few years back, I bought six used apple bins from one of the big orchards around here. I lined the bottoms with aviary netting. Which has a much tighter weave than chicken wire. The gophers can squeeze through that. Found that out when I also found out they will even eat onions and leeks! Now, with the huge apple bins, I have "raised" beds tall enough to garden in without bending over so much. Filling them was a booger though!

We face west, too, QG. The shade provided by the screened room still helps cool the house - although we did have to invest in a/c last year because I'm just getting old and can't take the really bad heat anymore. We set the thermostat to 80, though. The ramada is really useful, because we can do some projects out there in the shade. And the extension DH put on the back of the garage makes that a nice breezy place to cool off and work.

Oh, yes, the squirrels at least will definitely go over the wire fence. I put one around my straw bales and finally caught them zipping over it one day like nobody's business. Perhaps barbed wire would help? Remote controlled howitzers? Snake pits? How did you know DH calls me 'Killer?' LOL - he calls for me to kill spiders in the house, too. They are allowed outside, but not in the house!

Piergrossi's is closed now - it was their liquidation sale, as they're moving to Hawaii. I bought some plants there that will definitely wait until Fall to go in the ground. That's prime planting time!

I'm sure the fire dept would not like our vines and the Lady Banks rose, but other than that we try to be careful where/what we plant too. I still haven't dug up my rosemary, but I have a new one to put in a pot.