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The Garden—August 2008
August 27 & 29, 2008  

We are so excited that our yard now ends at the Dragon’s Teeth, my name for the rocks you see in this photo. Down below, just out of sight at the edge of the grass, is another row. These rocks are volcanic tuff and are the top of the cliff above the pond.

They are also the edge of the Santa Rosa formation. The Petaluma formation starts at about the back of the pond. There is a little fault which runs around the pond, perhaps at the intersection of these two formations. We cut through the fault when we cut into the hill at the east side of the pond to make the keyway for the dam.

This is my Bergamot Orange tree brought up from a tub in my old garden. It is quite a large tree for a tub—it is difficult to understand the scale in this photo—and it suffered a little damage from being transported—but seems quite happy in its new home so far.

Bergamot Oranges are a very sour and aromatic orange used for flavoring, particularly in foods from northeastern France. It is also the flavor used to make Earl Grey tea. I love the smell of these oranges and would like to try to make some hard candy from the juice when I finally get settled.

The salvia we planted by the barn is blooming and I tried to get a photo of the flower, but it is not very impressive here. It is actually, a dark, rich purple-blue.
Here are some of my plants waiting behind the barn for their new spots. We have set them up on temporary irrigation.
Unfortunately , the sun got into this photo, but you can see all the large pots lined up along the wall. The basket shaped pots are cast concrete and weigh probably 150 lbs. with dirt and plant in place.

Behind the cottage are all the smaller pots. It looks like a nursery—although that shouldn’t be surprising when we filled up a 17' box truck with plants.

A lot of these will end up in the courtyard or on the veranda, especially until we come up with a more permanent landscape plan.

This group was here for several weeks, and includes the little roses like the ones we planted down below, but these are pink or red.
These plants all came on the truck . . .
. . . and so did these.
August 20, 2008  
I took this shot from the top of the rose garden. With the roses filling in at this end, it almost looks like a finished garden, even though there is a long way to go.
Our little, baby roses are hanging in there. You should be able to see them in the picture above but they are still too small. It was probably a dumb idea to put them right into the ground like this, but they all are still alive, so far.
Here is the Veilchenblau that we moved a couple of weeks ago. It went into shock, but like the tough girl it is, immediately started putting out new foliage.
Here you can see the new leaves. Roses are amazingly tough plants.
The nasturtiums are getting larger too. I hope they will draw off some of the aphids, since we are starting to experience a huge influx of them, particularly in the red roses.
Here is close-up of one of the nasturtiums. Next year, we will have a lot more flowers in the beds with the roses, but this year I have been too busy with the construction to concentrate on anything but getting the plants moved from the old garden.
President Macia is getting bigger too. It seems quite happy here. This is especially nice since I paid so much for this rose because of buying it at the charity auction.
August 15, 2008  

Today, Karen Boness, garden designer, came by to help me brainstorm about what to do in the courtyard. She was leaving the next day for a trip, but gave me enough ideas to make a clear plan for the courtyard shown here (for a larger version, click here.)

The large, green area will be the main bed and backs up against the utility wing wall. It will get the most sun and will contain at least one Meyer Lemon tree!

On Saturday, Jim and I went looking for fountains and found this one. I had really wanted one with a pond—that is, a basin on the ground. However, we do not want the fountain to crowd the courtyard and the pond fountains are much wider than this one.

I liked this one because it has a top bubbler and is very graceful in real life. We also bought a base for it, which will raise it up about 4" more off the ground. That way, I can have pots around the base without hiding the bottom of the fountain.

August 13, 2008  

We planted one of the blue salvias—which have been languishing in pots on the other side of the cottage—by the barn stairs. I basically got tired of seeing them look so wan and even though I thought it would be too hot for them, I decided to try one in this spot. It is so happy and green that we decided to put the other one in behind it.

Conversely, the borage in front of it is not doing well. Both plants are on drip and are getting plenty of water, but the salvia is the only one taking advantage of it. This salvia gets huge and has a beautiful blue-violet flower.

The morning of my birthday, I walked down to check the progress of the rose garden and while I was standing there, a huge flock of geese flew over. I had to enhance this picture in Photoshop so you could see the geese because their image was so faint against the trees, but it was very exciting.

We don’t get too many geese at our little pond, mostly just ducks.

The white roses were looking fantastic.
The China Doll standard—which I never liked too much in the old garden—has looked beautiful all summer. And Susan Louise in the foreground is getting bigger and continues to bloom heavily.
Gentle Giant, my gift from last year’s birthday, has proved to be a trouble-free bloomer.
Here is another view of the China Doll standard, with Gentle Giant to the right of it.
Now that we have removed the wood covered with the blue tarp, the whole rose garden looks better.
August 6, 2008  
It’s hot and dry at the property now. We have a wide firebreak around the house, you can see some of it here. In the foreground is a Mexican sage planted in front of the big rocks near the road down to the rose garden. It is finally taking off. I guess it wasn’t getting enough water until now.
Below it, in the gully, the Valley Oaks are all doing well. We had a scare earlier in the spring when a frost killed off all the first leaves of a couple, but they all rallied and survived.
Here is one that was really badly frostbit. As you can see it is plenty green.
The climbers-in-waiting near the arbor are all doing well, even the one in the middle. That rose, Sombrieul, was dug up for the move very badly. It had been a large, established climber. I had cut it back severely in anticipation of the move, but the guy who dug it up did not get much of the root structure, and I hadn’t thought it would survive. As you can see, it is blooming and fairly fluffed out for such a poor start. By next January it will be ready to be transplanted on the arbor.

Here is one of the little potted roses we separated and transplanted.

These were some of those forced “Mother’s Day” roses in the small pots you see in late spring. There are often 4 or 5 plants in the pot. I have separated them and grown them in the past with mixed results. The first ones I did are absolutely beautiful, pest-free roses which I still have and love.

Others have not worked so well, either not surviving the transplant or—as is the case with the dark red hedge near the gazebo—being troublesome, pest prone, even though pretty, roses.

My assistant at the old garden and I had put these into individual pots in May. I decided to bring the cream ones up and try planting them as a hedge near the top of the garden.

They all seem to have survived—so far. We will see what happens next.

This tiny little plant is a nasturtium. I decided to fill in some of the empty beds with nasturtiums since they like the sun.
As you can see, we planted quite a few of them. Another good thing about them is that they grow fast. I took these pictures in the morning, but by late in the afternoon, they were noticeably larger.
The gazebo never ceases to satisfy me. Once I get surfacing on the paths, it is going to look even better.
Instead of waiting till fall, we decided to move the Veilchenblau right away. It went into a little shock, but has new leaves coming. I was just afraid to let it get any bigger where it was!
This is Polka, a cutting I took from my old garden where this rose is just too big to move. The cutting has been in a pot since last fall. It hasn’t gone into shock at all from the transplant—but this is a very tough rose with heinous thorns and, of course, gorgeous flowers. It is quite a vigorous climber so it should be happy here growing on the arbor.
Our boy still has his cast on. I haven’t had the courage to take it off yet, although we should check the trunk underneath it soon. I have a feeling that the cast has become an earwig condo.
Magic Lantern continues to pump out the gorgeous orange roses. It is certainly happier here than in the old place, even though it had one of the “good” spots in the garden.
I bought a red version of the California poppy. It has never done that well for me in the old place—too prone to mildew—but here, in the hot sun, it has a chance. Its gold cousins are certainly doing well.
These weeds are growing by the pond. They look prettier than this in real life but the main thing is that they are so full of bees that it sounds like a swarm. I am very happy to provide the honey bees something to feed on this time of year when flowers are so scarce.
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