It’s just past the middle of summer but there are already hints of autumn in the garden. The obedient plants are beginning to open and all the lantanas are really blooming proficiently now. The Gregg salvias are waking back up too. Fall is my favorite season in the garden and I’m looking forward to it.
Most of the plants that love the hot summer will still be blooming in the fall too, like the zexmenia and the turk’s cap.
I finally found the energy and time to clean up the back garden enough to make it seem presentable. The very back is still pretty wild and wooly but I am working my way that direction. A plan is shaping up in my head about how to redo the one corner that looks especially bad.
One of my problems in gardening is that I don’t stick with a plan. I make plans all right but I keep changing them. And some of the plans I make don’t work out the way I intended. The garden is just a place for playing around and having fun anyway. It is not as if it is intended to last or be a work of art or anything.
We got some bids on replacing the wooden fence separating us from the schoolyard but decided to pass on it for now. The question is whether it can stand up to the pounding it gets from schoolkids and their soccer balls every day. In the last couple weeks they brought in some temp buildings and partially filled up the schoolyard. Word is that they are going to do some renovation of the main building. It brings the kids closer to the back fence. Before they weren’t even near our end of the playground except when they were chasing a ball.
Comments (8)
It’s a pity the new acrylic fences weren’t so expensive — they really are beautiful, strong, and completely maintenance-free. It would definitely withstand the abuse the kids could throw at it.
yeouch! You live that close to a school yard? I think I would be considering a concrete block fence about 8 feet high! and then train Ivy up it to cut the noise back.
I have Turks caps in full sun and they grow like a weed; flowers are beautiful, but I am not sure I like their agressiveness. A near neighbor has a few widely scattered in relative shade; they grow in a more behaved way, and bloom. I think I like his more zen-like plants.
Fall will be nice for my loose strife and sedum; my blue plumbago, which survived the winter here in Tarrant County, has spread into my moon flowers and Turks Caps. The blue plumbago is blooming up a blue storm.
I also have Lantana that survive the winter, but a trim them back so that they don’t take over the world.
lrd
Am curious about Larry’s post on Lantana- I was under the impression that Lantana was an annual……..I planted it once a couple of years ago for the butterflies but it did not return…….is there a perennial Lantana????
I’ll answer for Larry:
Lantana is sort-of perennial in Texas. I have three kinds of lantana myself. Two of them have been coming back regularly for 7 or 8 years. The one pictured above was only planted last fall so it has only survived one winter.
Severe winters will kill them completely. Also some gardeners are too impatient to wait for theirs to come back. The plants being sold in the nurseries have blooms weeks before the ones in the ground even have a green leaf.
For once, we have plants roughly in sync. My obediant plants are also just in the early stages of opening up.
I like comparing the gardens. I too, have a wild and wooly corner that is in need of some dramtic changes. Mine is unlikely to see my hand for some time. Too much else to do.
the garden: my schoolhouse lilies are now blooming; my rain lilies have one bloom, first of the year. In my neighborhood someone has a little spread of 20 separate school house lilies; I have 3 up right now, but usually about 7 or 8 stalks will come up, and this year’s are higher than average at about 15 inches. I don’t have to bend so low to take their digital imagages.
thelrd in TEXAS–Tarrant County
I love lantana. It grows like a weed here in Georgia. Great site. I often post pics of our garden or rare plants I have obtained on my site. Also, I have a ‘Plant of the week’ link. Stop by and say hi.