September 24, 2013

This past weekend, I took advantage of our newly cool weather and did LOTS of pruning and moving of plants around in the garden.  When I first put new plants in the garden, I like things to look lush from the start so I tend to space plants fairly close together.  I use the plant card's recommendations as a guideline but I usually select the closest allowable spacing.  And what happens several months later is the plants start crowding each other so I have to move them to allow each plant more room to expand.  The nice thing about this is I get to shop my own garden.

In early spring, I planted two romantica hybrid tea roses on the west side of our swimming pool (the only place in our garden with full sun throughout the day and no automatic sprinklers).  I had good intentions of hand watering them regularly with a nearby hose and sprinkler head attachment but once our Central California temps reach the 100's with great regularity during the summer, I tend to stay indoors so my poor beauties got neglected and they show it.  I decided to get real with myself and move the suffering roses to better locations.

On a side note, I have The Alnwick Rose, Heritage and Janet in the same bed (they were planted last year - April 2012) and they are doing fine.  I must have been better about providing them with regular hand watering while they were getting established.

The roses I moved and their new locations:

  • Michelangelo.  Originally planted to the left of the rosemary, which is to the left of The Alnwick Rose, it is now located in the south facing bed on the left side of the garage - where my future "blue, purple & yellow" garden will be).  I will eventually have to move Sophy's Rose, Kimberlina and Winsome out of this south garden to new locations because they are not blue, purple or yellow.
  • Yves Piaget.  Originally planted to the left of Michelangelo, I moved YP to a new location in front of and just to the left of Eden Climber.  This area gets full sun all day but is shielded from the scorching afternoon sun.
  •  Belinda's Dream.  Originally planted in front of and slightly to the right of Brilliant Pink Iceberg, it is now situated in the east facing garden in the front of the picture window.  I'm not sure how it will do here as it only gets filtered morning sun.  I may rethink its location.  Side note, I put a lavender that was looking sad (originally planted to the right of the fortnight lily) in Belinda's previous spot.  I think it will flourish in this location.
The yarrow I planted in 2012 never really did anything but become a big mound of green so I took it out this weekend and tossed it in the yard waste bin.  No sense letting a non-performer take up valuable garden real estate.  Not sure what I'll put in its place.

I moved an unhappy gardenia (darn thing never would bloom) from the east facing garden in front of the picture window (Okay, I need to come up with a nickname for this garden so I don't have to type out so many words each time) picture window garden (much better) to a spot in front of the potato vine and to the left of the orange tree.  The recycling/trash/yard-waste bins are located to the left of this garden bed so hopefully the gardenia will eventually bloom and sweeten up this spot.

I moved three azaleas from the east facing garden in front of the picture window because they were getting crowded and a little burnt on their leaves.  I put two of them in empty spots in my north facing shade garden in the back underneath the lemon and bottle brush trees.  I already have a few azaleas there so they are welcome additions and will blend in nicely.  The third one is in the gardenia's original spot.

Lastly, I moved my Endless Summer hydrangea (that I previously moved last winter) from behind the Muskogee Crepe Tree to underneath the bottle brush where I dug up and tossed a camellia sasanqua that was getting spindly and didn't have the pretty flowers like my camellia japonicas do.


What's blooming in the garden today:
Yves Piaget
 
Princess Alexandra of Kent

Julia Child
 Julia Child

 Julia Child fades to ivory with pink tips

 Julia Child



South side yard


Under the bottle brush tree