In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
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Wow, this has been a hard, hard year for gardening. Last rainy season started out early and promising; October 2013 we got a couple of good rainstorms and then .... nothing. Nothing. More nothing. Which dragged on to the historic drought.
Usually my water usage goes down during winter, but not last winter. I had to water the garden areas every week, and the lawns twice a week (one of the reasons I'm xeriscaping) just to keep them alive. I took special pains with the two avocados and the camellias because they're the grandparents of the backyard, planted by the previous owners sixty years ago. I soaked them deeply at least once a month. But despite my best efforts, the plants still suffered - not from lack of water, but possibly from high salt buildup or basic soil ... the older avocado and camellia leaves took on a pale bronzy color, and needles on my canary island pines were just beginning to turn yellow.
In addition, the tomatoes were crippled and the eggplant killed by a horrible infestation of spider mites. Last year, I gave away almost thirty pounds of homegrown tomatoes and had all of the eggplant I wanted. This year, I was lucky to have enough fresh tomatoes for a weekly salad, and just a few eggplant before they gave up the ghost. The spider mites went on to attack a few more plants (which fortunately I didn't care so much for). My Italian flat beans- which I've never grown before - and my sunflowers (which I HAVE grown before) were spindly and unproductive. Same seed source. I wonder if the seed was good. At least the corn came up OK.
Two of my recently-planted sundrops died, I only have one left. This is a good representation of what the survivor looks like in my garden
and one of my verbena lilacena died, I only have two left ... another good representation
For no reason that I can see except they really, really didn't appreciate such hard wellwater. And then, the summer was hot and humid - tropical, even - and some native plants which are adapted to cool wet winters and hot DRY summers responded with a fantastic case of mildew. I broke down and got some Neem oil so that next year I'll be prepared for the onslaught.
I have NEVER failed with so many plants all in one season! This was a gardening year I was happy to close the book on, and I now have a much MUCH greater appreciation for the commercial farmer, who lives or dies by whether plants produce or not.
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But in order to be a gardener or a farmer, one must be an optimist, I guess. I've been buying my xeriscape plants mostly in onesies and twosies because I really don't know how they'll grow, or what they'll look like ... or what I want ... and the reality is that I'll still have a surprising amount of bare space, even when the plants mature.
So I took out several of my CA native/ xeriscape gardening books, and just looked at the pictures and figured out what I respond to, and what I hate, and the principles behind both. And I just ordered a crap-ton of plants: Spanish lavender (because it looks most like the Great Basin sagebrush that I like, which won't grow here because the winters are too warm), 
penstemon BOP which looks like a micro boxwood when not in bloom 
white monkeyflower 
blue-eyed grass 
and Indian rice grass 
to go with the germander sage, Dusty Miller, red autumn sage, and the creeping Oregon grape and various native currants and snowbe
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Too hot for snow?
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Oh, I miss snow!
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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.
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Quite the garden.
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Why, thanks RAPPY. I know gardening isn't your thing, but I appreciate the kinds words. 
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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns. But maybe you can grow one with plants!
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So are things flowering at this time of year in your part of the world?
Summer has just started here, so a lot of the spring flowers have finished and we are not onto the summer blooms.
I have a number of salvias in my garden, including lots of this one - pineapple sage, smells yummy
My big bottlebrush out the front has just about finished, but I have a few smaller varieties out in the back
The blooms on the hydrangea is almost ready to colour. Pity my husband hates these, otherwise I'd plant a few more.
It's a cool and rainy start to summer. Okay by me. Anything to prolongue the start of the fire season.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Why, thanks RAPPY. I know gardening isn't your thing, but I appreciate the kinds words.
I'd have made a poor hobbit, but I do appreciate the green growing things.
Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen
I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.
" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall
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these plants grow amazingly in this area. It's a cool temperate region, officially. High rainfall, cool winters, warm to hot summers.
I do feed them, but they almost grow wild.
Along with these 
azaleas
and these
rhodedendrums
and agapanthus really do end up being weed plants
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Magon's
I was going though a heavily wooded area in Pennsylvania years ago. The snow had melted but the trees hadn't leafed out yet. It was dreary, dreary, dreary. And in a clearing was a bright pink azalea in full bloom. I had never seen anything growing wild that was that bright and fancy - to my mind almost gaudy - until then, and haven't since.
I had had the idea that wild flowers were small ... and inconspicuous ... and plain, and that they didn't become extravagant until the hybridists got their hands on them. That azalea made me realize that nature can put on quite a show, all by herself.
SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.
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Our weatherguessers are saying all our snow will melt in the coming days. Is your garden getting drowned or blown away? How fragile are the plants you referred to?
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