Garden Report: August 3
It's been a while. Some family stuff came up. Everybody is OK, but we've both been super busy with things that are not the house. Also, perhaps I did not mention this, we finally hired a landscape designer/contractor to redo the landscape, in particular to get the hardscape under control. We had an initial meeting with them which went well, and they are coming out to do some measuring soon, with an eye to getting construction started in the fall. To say I am excited about this is a vast understatement. The only thing that will excite me more is when the greenhouse permit finally comes through.
In the meantime.
Some folks have asked for full shots of the bog garden. It's really hard to take pictures of because it is in full sun, so I have to remember to go out in the twilight to take pictures. By which time the flowers have closed up.
And here we are. The drain end feels like it's sinking a little, so I need to get under there with a jack and lift it up to even it out.
(Please admire our patio umbrella, which is lying down because in the evening we get a strong wind off the bay that will easily pick up an open umbrella.)
And yes, I did even attach the shower part. I have a dumb idea of actually plumbing the shower head into the irrigation and occasionally spraying everything down. This is one of those incredibly irritating low-flow "mist" showerheads. You know the kind where you basically can't get a decent shower because the spray is so fine? Where better to use such a shower head than as an irrigation tool? Otherwise it would just be trash. The hard part is going to be getting the water pressure high enough to make it mist the right way.
The way I water the entire tub is by filling this sink up. It directs water down under the plants so they don't get drowned but always have wet feet. I'm still working on a constant dripper for this; mostly I just need more time when I don't have a hundred other things to do.
I'm also still pondering whether I need some kind of top-dressing on the planting mix. It does get a little crusty on hot days. But I'm not sure what I would use.
The plants are really happy. As you can see from the overall shots, I went for smaller plants that can grow and fill in the space. I have more of a "buy small and grow them in" budget than a "buy large, impressive plants that will look amazing right now" budget. This drosera I got from our neighbors is blooming now, and I have some hopes for self-sowed seedlings showing up. From what I know of other bog gardens, the plants can grow quite rapidly to fill in the space, so in a year it should look much more decorative.
The "Feist Dog" sarracenia is really happy. Every time I go out to fiddle with the garden there is something buzzing in the pitchers, and they have a decided lean from lots of bugs inside (surprisingly, as far as I can tell only one bee; the pitchers are still fairly small). In the center you can see several new pitchers starting to come up, which is a good sign.
Speaking of the bees, I requeened one hive successfully, and they are going mad putting up lavender honey (it's about the only thing in bloom now and every lavender plant in the neighborhood is alive with bees all day long). In the other hive I could not find the queen for the life of me. They had one really ugly box full of combs that were built sideways on the frames and I could not get in there to look for her. So I split the hive into one side where I knew there was no queen -- they got my fancy new Italian queen. The other side has the yucky box and a queen excluder and I'm going to just spend a month or so finding her, and then I can recombine those frames with the split with the new queen.
The reason for requeening the hives was that the bees were very irritable, and in an urban back yard I won't allow that. Even in dearth they need to be mild-mannered or they have to go.
Anyway, I went out today and did a quick inspection and both the big hives were running out of room so I added honey supers on top. The tiny split hive was having trouble releasing their queen so I helped them out a little. And I need to go into the middle hive again later this week and resume looking for that stupid queen.
Out front, the plum tree is doing well.
I was going through my notes on this tree and this is Parfumé de Septembre, even though I think I've called it Golden Transparent repeatedly; that one died off early on for unknown reasons. I am quite fond of this tree; every year it produces so many of these tiny, sweet plums. People walking by on the street eat some of them, and we have plenty for ourselves.
Every year we learn important lessons about how many tiny plums you should eat in one sitting. It is less than you think. They are just so easy to eat. I've gone out and picked several collanders full of them so far. Once the fruit is over, I'll prune the tree back for size. Next year, I'd like to plant more kinds of these tiny European plums out front. We will see what the garden designers think of that.
posted by ayse on 08/03/21