Is It Fall Yet?

After a little rain and some (slightly) cooler temperatures, I forayed out into the garden this morning to see what was still holding on after our hottest ever August.

In this picture, you will notice the Lindheimer senna looking prety perky with its sunny yellow flowers and velvetty soft grey- green leaves. What a winner- it takes the heat and the dry without losing a leaf. Five years ago one of these seedlings piggy- backed into my garden in the pot of a Barbados Cherry I bought at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I didn"t know what it was but I gave it a shot and it shot up and bloomed it's heart out for a few weeks beginning in September. It produces lots of long seed pods that will provide you with plants for years to come. I love the leaves on this plant and look forward to the splash of color it brings in the fall when lots of plants are pretty done in.

Evolution of a Garden

Here is an overview of how the garden looked this morning from the deck. The crazy color bed is at top and the cooler, pastel bed, below, featuring an orchid tree (Bauhinia lunariodes), at left and a baby arroyo sweetwood (Myrospermum sousanum) with the pom- pom of chartreuse leaves. The plant at the corner of the deck in the bottom photo is a dwarf Cara Cara orange. The leaves hanging into the upper right corner belong to a Xylosma (Xylosma congestum), one of my favorites.

Look at the xylosma when I planted them in Spring 2007. Notice that are no center beds yet.