Happy Dry Sunday Morning

 

The path to the backyard.

It feels like it's only rained twice in the last six weeks or so...OK, maybe three times.  The hose and I have become best buddies as we sprinkle lifesaving water on the perennial beds at least once a week. 

I don't water the lawn, as you can tell.

Sometimes I think that this should be called the Season of Despair, when it seems crazy to be a gardener, to put all of that work, and money and emotion in the ground out back and just leave it to the mercy of endless hot, sunny, dry days.

As the surrounding shrubs have filled in, the sunny, dry Gothic trough has become the shady, dry Gothic trough.

The andropogon gerardii likes its new dry position this year.

The troughs need watering less than you'd think.

Although it's hard to resist the urge to give them a drink.

Hang on plants.  I promise it will rain again someday.

The Gauntlet

I'm that guy on our street.  The guy with the front yard garden that's hanging over the sidewalk.  Passers-by have to do the limbo to avoid being scratched by the overhanging sunflowers.

I don't know what possessed me this spring.  I was sowing annual seeds in the front yard in May and I thought, "Oh, sunflowers would be nice here until the zinnias take over."  I was thinking demure 4' sunflowers with a single head, for some reason.

 What I got where 8' multi-branched monsters.  The edge of the front garden is lined with them like some sort of living fence, alive with bees and goldfinches.

Slightly embarrassed by their size and vigor, I keep waiting for them to finish so that I can pull them out.

They have other plans, and keep budding up on side shoots.  I think that they're in for the long haul.  

Sorry neighbors.

Mid-August Already?

Yesterday we got back from a gorgeous week in Avalon, NJ.  Can you tell they replenished the beaches with sand from offshore?

Last night I had to unwrap and clear these two beauties out of the garage so that I could cast a couple more troughs this morning.  I got up at 6AM to beat the heat.  It didn't really work, of course, but at least I was done by 9:30, before it got into the 90's.

All about the Foliage

Antennaria dioica 'rubra'

Edrianthus pumilio

Mattholia trojana

Agave 'Kissho Kan'

Saxifraga 'Kyrilli'

OK, OK, enough texture; here's an erodium that's flowering.

It's so gorgeous that I bring it in every fall rather than risk losing it in a cold snap.

Two Succulents, One Bowl

Orostachys furusei

Sedum spathulifolium 'Cape Blanco'

Taller Quatrefoil

I added 2" in height to the quatrefoil trough mold from this spring, so that it's 9" tall now.  Above is the first cast.  It's a subtle difference but I like it a lot.  

Quatrefoil with rectangular Wilson trough above.  Both are only a month old; the gray color will turn a lighter brown-gray as they age.

Above, in the previous incarnation, with the same rectangular trough for comparison.

It's the small things, ya know?

Figs

A few years ago a friend gave me a potted fig cutting about 2' high with the regular story, saying it was from on old Italian neighbor, but that she didn't have enough sun to grow it.  I reluctantly took it, knowing I had no room in the yard for it.  I know how much attention people lavish on their fig trees in this area, and, frankly, growing food is not my thing.  I put it in the largest plastic pot I had on hand and dutifully kept it in the cold basement all winter and the hot deck all summer.

Once it finally bore fruit in a couple of years, I was surprised that it was a yellow fig, not the common brown one that I had assumed.  The tree has gotten larger and larger in its plastic pot and the branches sprawl lazily out from the main trunk.  This spring when I carried it out of the basement I was surprised to see it set with the beginnings of a breba crop.  These few bonus figs are weeks ahead of the regular crop of fruit.  I had the first, warm jammy fig this morning before anyone else was awake.  

This tree is worth the hassle.