Took Friday vacation and Bert and I drove up Thursday night after dinner with the Big Six for Mom and Dad's 63rd wedding anniversary dinner at Costa Brava.
- Friday. Straight out to the Orchard. It looked better than how I remembered leaving it last weekend. So that was a good development. I cut back salvia. I pulled up crabgrass (which can be a real chore when it gets really rooted into a mat). I cut down coneflower stems and spread the seeds. I raked wherever I was working as I went along so that I wouldn't be too tired at the end to do it. I sowed Ox Eye daisy seed in moist semi-shaded areas such as under the fruit trees and behind the screen covered with Sweet Autumn Clematis. I cut down lily stems. I finished cutting back the native lantana and threw the seed in the Meadow. I spent about 3 hours down there. It looks good. If I go down there on Saturday and do a bit more I think it will be in good shape. I want to spread some more wildflower seeds as well.
- I pulled up basil seedlings and weeds in the Vegetable Garden.
- I spent some time pulling up the dreaded camphor weed and woolly croton in the Meadow. Those are both invasives. My goal this weekend is to pull up all of it in the top section of the Meadow. Next year I will have to get to it earlier down the slope where it's everywhere. I can spray it when it's small and effectively kill it. I let it get away from me this year and last year. That's why it's so bad this year - because I didn't do anything about it last year. Now I have a real problem.
- I spent about an hour in the Star Garden. I weeded and cut summer plants away from autumn plants. I cut down lots and lots of salvia. I remember thinking what a great discovery a re-seeding blue salvia was, but now it's everywhere.
- I planted some starts of Wandering Jew underneath the Almond Verbena. It's always been sort of a no mans land under there. I cut some stems from the Houston Garden and brought them here to plant. I just stuck them in the ground, I am assuming that's all I need to do. That stuff is pretty hardy. I like the purple color, and I like that I'm adding a new foliage color to the garden.
- Inside for the hottest part of the day.
- Back outside about 4:00. I watered here and there.
- I cut down a truck full of woolly croton at the bottom of the hill in the Meadow. I dumped it in the fire since it's an invasive. I didn't want to use it in an erosion spot.
- In the early evening I went out to the Rose Garden and spot watered. I cut down a bunch of gomphrena growing up around my Katy Pink.
- September has really gotten away from me. I haven't planted any fall vegetables.
- Saturday. Cool morning, but got hot quickly. Still, fall is starting, and that's wonderful.
- I went straight out to the Orchard. I pulled some weeds and did more raking, but it was for perfection. It looks really good in there. I sowed Moss Verbena, gold yarrow, and Black-eyed Susan seed in a lot of the beds. I trimmed grape vines and cut down a few blackberry canes that died (I don't know why, they were new growth). I smoothed out a bunch of leaf cutter ant nests which didn't look active because I didn't see any holes. I spent about 2 hours down there.
- I cut down some more woolly croton at the bottom of the hill. The stems are so thick that it would take too much energy to pull them up.
- I went up to the top of the Meadow, and as planned, I pulled up a truck load of woolly croton and camphor weed. It is a bummer to be pulling weeds in a field! Below are before and after pictures which I took as support for one of my wildlife management requirements. That was some hard work.
AFTER
- Next, I weeded in the Vegetable Garden, and I planted 60 feet of Blue Lake 274 bush beans. If we have our first freeze after Thanksgiving and not before, I will get some beans.
- Inside for the hot part of the day. Napped.
- Spot watered here and there throughout the Rose Garden and the Water Garden.
- I raked in the Greenhouse Gardens.
- Sowed a 3 foot row of Merlot lettuce in the Vegetable Garden.
- I sowed Moss Verbena in various places in the Star Garden along the front of beds where it can spill over the edges.
- Gathered lots of seed from my Mexican Buckeyes and threw it in the Meadow. I should have been doing that all these many years. It's dry out there, but I'm sure some of them would have rooted. Mexican Buckeye is very easy to root from seed. It doesn't need any special treatment such as chilling.
- I watered all my new trees planted near the Rose Garden: Huisache, 3 Witch Hazels, and the Parsley Hawthorn.
- Cut back some salvia in the Rose Garden. Pulled weeds.
- I used some chicken wire that was down in the Orchard and covered up some gaps along the bottom of the fence, I'm not having a lot of trouble from armadillos down there anymore - I think we put a dent in the population - but I was right there holding the chicken wire.
- Sunday. Outside at first light. I walked out to the Water Garden and every leaf had been eaten off my Icecap rose. I noticed some leaves gone on Saturday, and I thought with dismay that it was a deer. But this morning I realized it was leaf cutter ants which makes sense since the rose right next to it was fine, not a bite taken (so not deer). I searched for the trail and found it easily. Leaf cutter ants will wear a trail in the grass and dirt as they move back and forth between their food source and their nest. I've seen the nest entrances throughout the summer, but they were so far away from any of my gardens that I ignored them. Big mistake. I poisoned all around my rose, along the trail and at the entrance holes to 10 or so nest entrances. I went down to the Orchard and saw that they were already re-building their low mounds in there. So I poisoned those as well. Unfortunately I ran out of ant poison before I finished. Destructive little insects.
- I cleaned out all the beds in the hinterlands as well as the ginger bed. Not much is growing because of the drought - I depend on rain to water those areas, and there has been none to speak of. But Basketgrass mats were everywhere. I cut down any wild petunia I came across. I cleaned under the pink Vitex as well. Cut away red shrimp plant from the path. Cut away Climbing Pinkie that was drooping over the path. I cleaned up stick and twigs in the wild areas of the garden. Spot watered. Weeded, weeded, weeded. I raked the paths everywhere I worked. It looks really good in that area.
- I sowed a six foot row of dill in the Vegetable Garden. Pulled some weeds. Looks good in there too. Yay me.
- Giant Swallowtails are plentiful in the garden. I've seen some Queens as well. And the little skippers are every-present. But no Monarchs. Not a one.
- I seeded the Rose Garden with Moss Verbena, Ox Eyes, Anise Hyssop, and gold yarrow. I set up the sprinklers so that all the spots would get watered, and I put bamboo stakes in the ground everywhere I sowed seeds. It's hard to remember where I have sowed seeds, so the markers will help. When I move the sprinklers around to spot water, I know where to put the sprinklers back.
- Sprayed herbicide everywhere - around the pool, in the Orchard, in the Rose Garden, the Star Garden, along fence lines, in the Shade Garden, on the path behind the house, and the Greenhouse Gardens.
- I planted a little Two Winged Silverbell tree adjacent to the Anacacho Orchid tree. Lots of water in the hole and some fertilizer.
- This was a great weekend. I felt like I was on fire with energy. I love it when I get motivated to do a bunch of stuff that I have walked past for a long time. I will pass by something over and over and think, "I need to fix that." But I keep walking. This weekend I fixed lots of things.
- Headed home about 3:00.
