It has been months since I posted any wide shots. I have my reasons. The unusually generous amounts of spring rains led everything to first bolt an extra foot in height and then fall over. (Are you quite as tired of hearing about "all the rain" yet as you were previously tired of hearing about the lack of it?).
It was all very pretty while it was upright, and for the most part everything continued to be functional while it was flopped over. Pollinators still had access to blossoms, seed was set. It all worked for the plants, it just didn't look like much.
Paths here, the ones that are chronically in need of weeding, became entirely overrun. The To-Prune list was short enough - it read "frickin' everything". Only so many hours in the day, only so many mosquito bites I'll host at a time. But I'm at a happy place for the moment and things are back to what passes for normal. Caution to the winds...let's take a look at some of what's going on out back.
These wide shots never proffer the depth a first hand view provides, but I enjoy seeing other folk's gardens taken more as on the whole, so here goes with a few of the bigger picture(s). I'll list most of the plants but not by scientific names. I'm not trying to catalog, just give the general idea. If you see something you wonder about, please ask.
This first shot is when I'd gotten about seventy-five percent of the clean up completed. I thought I could stomach posting at that point but once I got a good look I balked. The path running behind the beds was still the seven inch tall equivalent of a rain forest in some spots.
The darkened soil in the front center bed, to the left of the bottle tree and basil in the planter, is a space where there are passalong purple coneflower plants newly placed in a semi-circle around some H. Duelberg salvia and a couple of re-emerged tropical milkweed plants. To the left of that bench, under the bottle brush tree, are now two mist-flower plants, one white (a passalong) and a second mist flower, a blue, from the sale table at my favorite nursery. Oregano runs rampant to the far right with parsley and Mexican tarragon on the left. The black planter behind the bench is filled with thyme.
The paths are nearly all cleared in this shot. Several planters have been relocated and a few have been elevated to give them more visual impact. The additional height also holds them up above the constant ground-cover warfare I inevitably encourage.
This strawberry pot has been moved and is taking a shot at becoming a succulent garden. It's still an investment waiting to pay off, it will take weeks for the succulents to fill out (fill in?) their spaces. I'm hoping this will prove a hospitable warm weather home for the planter and I appreciate that it provides some needed balance for the Blue Guy. During winter months the planter will be moved to the greenhouse.
That blue Buddha sits atop the broken ceramic post from a bird bath. The blue post found a second life providing a pedestal so Buddha can ride implacably above the four-o-clocks, columbine, Aztec grass, and whatever else is hiding in there under the Althea tree.
Moving left, behind the bird feeder bed that corner now features cannas, tropical salvia, horse herb, dayflower and an elevated terra cotta planter filled with what I believe to be the dwarf form of sansevieria trifasciata. There's a flailing grocery store miniature rose in there as well, given one last shot at recovery.
Under the bird feeder, a second strawberry pot, this one in its second year, sits between a potted Makrut lime on the left and some chives on the right. They help disguise the white base of the pole, a baffle to keep squirrels off.
What's hard to appreciate at this distance is the goldeneye growing up to the right of the volunteer Meyer lemon tree mid-bed, and the row of blanketflower, now gone to seed on the far right. There's also purple prairie verbena, wood sorrel, daisies, wire grass, tropical salvia, tradescantia pallida, various rain lilies, coneflowers, a day lily, some heart leaf skullcap and a large rosemary planted in this bed. Once I get every plant established in every bed, hopefully a large (beautiful) pattern will emerge.
This gives you a slightly better glimpse. That is the bottom half of the bird feeder bed (top left) and the entirety of the bottle tree bed (bottom right).
You can imagine how the cone flowers are going to shine around the blue salvia. I also have a producing jalapeño plant, mint, garlic chives and basil growing in this area. Maybe I don't point it out often, but these beds are all for kitchen use as well as wildlife. There are struggling blackfoot daisy plants, a crag lily, parsley and recently transplanted skullcap (scutellaria suffrutescens) all working things out while the liriope holds court in the corner. Once everything takes it will be splendid, I think.
This is it, an amateur's ongoing attempt to replace lawn with garden beds, captured for the moment, warts and all.
The Death Star is back, the rains have retreated, and there is no longer any play given towards the needs of transplants or new starts. The active work of installing a better planted mixture of native plants and culinary herbs stops until cooler weather returns. I hope you've enjoyed taking a look at the layout here. I certainly look forward to featuring closer shots of these areas as the plantings (and my plans) progress. Happy summer ya'll!
