Hanging Hoyas

One thing i've done every spring/summer for a while now is put my Hoya kerrii outside. In the summer of 2018, hoya carnosa 'Rubra' was also big enough to join it. These two hung out just by the front door all summer:

rubra on the left, kerrii on the right

This spot is basically in full shade all day - it gets about 2 hours of morning sun. Through experimenting with kerrii, anything more than that will induce leaf burn. It's also a very sheltered spot from the wind, since it's almost enclosed from 3 sides - 2 by the house, and the 3rd by that large pillar covered with rocks. That means the wind can't/won't (hasn't?) damaged these yet.

from the other side

 While hoya kerrii will bloom indoor for me, putting it outside usually causes it to bloom all summer. The flowers look strange... both when they are in bud and actually blooming.

Hoya kerrii bloom hanging out above the hoya carnosa

 The other nice thing about them being outside is that the nectar doesn't drip all over the place inside.

Hoya carnosa rubra aka Pink Princess bloomed too, but less. 

This year, the hoyas stayed outside until right before Halloween. Now they are sitting on one of the ledges near the stairs inside. They grow so much when they're outside that they sprawl all over the place...

Sitting on the ledge, sprawling like octopus...

Starting around early April they'll go back out. I'm sure they can't wait!

Saving Mangaves!

This weekend, some "emergency gardening" had to take place! These three pictures explain the problem...

there is supposed to be a Mangave Kaleidoscope here?

this one shows the problem - what eats only the core, and from below?

most heartbreaking - there used to be a mangave 'Moonglow' there!

I'd like to pretend the gophers are dead now (traps and poison), but the fact that they ate Moonglow, and because the stupid critters always come back ( i assume different ones, not like zombie-gophers), I decided to pull all the other mangave out of the planting beds and plant them up in pots. About half my mangave (i have quite a few) already are in pots, just in case they have to come in for winter, so i know it works.

So this afternoon, i dug up most of the remaining clumps, and potted them up:

four out of the ground, and two that were already in pots

 All of them together - good thing i had some extra containers!

From the top, and left to right, we have:

• Mangave Espresso (had been hiding under a bush, in the ground, hopefully it will appreciate the extra sun)
• Mangave Cappuccino (has been in a pot for a while, but needs a better spot/more care)
• A random agave that got rescued from the russian sage it was stuck under
• Mangave 'Freckles and Speckles' (had been in the ground)
• Mangave 'Cherry chocolate chip' (had been in the ground)
• Mangave 'pineapple express' (had been in ground, and has already survived being half eaten before) 
• Mangave 'Lavender Lady' (has been in that pot for a while, but hasn't been getting enough water)
• Mangave 'Whale Tail' (has been in that pot, but unhappy under the russian sage)
• Mangave 'Navajo Princess' (has been in that pot, and mostly happy, but i'd like it somewhere were i can see it...)

After they all got cleaned up/potted up, i had to find a spot to put them back. They look very nice here:

view from the patio

the blue + steel looks good

even with the brand name., very apropos for Veterans day too!

So i'll have to plan something like that next summer. An excuse to buy more pots & plants!

But for now, there is no irrigation there, and super full sun all day. Neither of which is good for mangaves coming out of shady hiding places/into a pot/etc, so all of them actually went back to where most of them were planted in the ground before. 

This is a spot where a yucca isn't doing very well (i'd like to blame it on the gophers also, but i think it's a sprinkler issue... too much water), so there's some extra room. The mangaves will stay here until i figure out what to do with them/make sure they are all alright. 

There are two more mangaves in the ground, but I don't want to move these...

mangave 'mission to mars'

mangave 'crazy cowlick'

But now i'm second guessing myself - what if they get eaten?!? Do I put these in pots too? They look so good in the ground. Most of the others were in places where they'll look just as good in pots as in the ground, unlike these two. Maybe pots that are buried in the ground will work? 

Also, I did buy another 'Kaleidoscope' (because it is so pretty), along with 3 other new ones: Iron Man, Coffee Jitters, and Desert Dragon. I think all of them will be going directly into pots, or whatever i figure out to do with the other 2...)

(btw - this whole exercise was helpful in 2 other ways:

1. by process of elimination, the mangave in the pot from the last post is 'Electric Cheetah' (the only that i've ordered, is not know to be dead, not in this post, and not one of the "other ones")
2. it shows how different all these mangaves are! which means i can happily continue to buy more, blissfully unaware of any "problems" i might have, like too many mangaves...)

And obviously, my "emergency" pails in comparison to all the fires that have been happening. We've been unaffected so far, but i hope everyone else is staying safe out there!

Weekend Wrap Up: Quiet Summer

It's getting to the end (let's hope!) of a quiet summer - between the heat & travel, not much gardening got done. Before diving head first into the problems (why are all my sprinklers misaligned at once, what is wrong with the agave in the front, and FML, gophers), let's look at a random collection of things I think are pretty...

this pink muhly catching the light

a baby agave!

That one was eaten by gophers in the spring, then covered with rock by the landscaping crew... but it's coming back!

the front garden

 From that angle, you can't see the new gopher mounds... but in general, the front garden redo has held up really well over the summer! The new rock mulch means the xMangave Macho Mocha could finally grow without slug damage..

In the back garden, some things have made it through the summer well also. After adjusting the sprinklers (...they work better when the controller is on, who knew!), all three of these xMangaves came back from the near-dead

Mayan Queen, Catch a Wave, Inkblot

As long as you don't look too close, the entire back garden looks like it made it through summer ok - Mr. Ripple holding court, as ever.

there are 3 summer projects visible in one picture!

Before talking about projects - this Yucca 'Blue Boy' is rarely featured in pictures, but seems to be enjoying the hillside.

 A fourth summer project was the pots on the top of hill side - first time i've successfully found something that wants to grow in them. In this case, it's bougainvillea.

this is Thai Pink - i think our cooler weather + shade makes it this white-lime color

Watering these once a week became one of my summer gardening rituals, marking the start of my weekends.

barbara karst here - hopefully they make it through the winter!

 More xMangaves - i may have a problem. This one is growing in a pot on the hillside. It seems to be working... the plant looks good, it's not getting eaten by gophers (they got my xMangave Kaleidoscope!) and it adds some interest to hillside.

i lost the tag - i'll have to play process of elimination later to remember which one this is.

 Back to the summer projects - project 1 was replacing the path at the bottom of the hillside with gravel. This used to be compacted decomposed granite (DG), which was brown. It looked like dirt and eventually, lots of weeds grew in it.

the gravel looks much better

The plants are starting to grow back over the edges. I'm also hoping that the gravel will make it easier to trim everything back in the spring. It now also matches the path at the top of hill, which makes my engineer-brain happy (symmetry!)

Summer project 2 is not completely done yet, but has been very exciting!

I got a stock pond!

It's only a little one (3ft diameter) and i'm still trying to figure out plants, and water quality, and lots of other things, but I am very excited. All the basic stuff seems to have settle now, and i'm trying very hard to wait until after winter to experiment more with plants.

A few last pictures before i wrap this up...

Little John is starting to bloom

Sometimes, i think it's funny how plants take their own sweet time deciding whether to live or die. At least for now, my acacia baileyana purpurea has decided to live, and actually grow. 

which means i should probably trim back some of the scrubs?

And finally - agave ovatifolia continues to appreciate the fact that the Palo Verde got limbed up. This is still one of my favorite views in the back garden, even if it needs to be tidied up a lot!

picture carefully cropped to cut out the weird sprinkler situation...

I think i enjoyed this summer in the garden more than any other summer, even though it wasn't any cooler (if anything, it was hotter!). Maybe a sign that i'm starting to get somewhere that makes sense in our climate? Now let's hope everything makes it through winter, and that we get some rain!