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Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Weekends Plantings

This past weekend, in addition to the Mother's Day festivities, we were able to make it to the nursery to start on the back planting bed.  One of these days I'm going to make an actual diagram of the yard, because I'm finding we tend to jump around all over the place.  It goes hand in hand with my having the attention span of a gnat.

Anyway, we first started with some Cuphea Llavea 'Flamenco Samba'.


Hmmm.  Too much sun.  This was the flower a few posts ago whose name I couldn't remember.  We have had this plant at our last home and it was gorgeous.  It does have a tendency to get a bit leggy, but can easily be trimmed back in the winter and bounces right back again the following spring.  It will get about two to three feet in all directions.

Next up is Helichrysu Petiolare 'Limelight'.


This is one of my wife's favorites.  We also had it at our home in Huntington Beach before moving.  It was mixed in with the Flamenco Samba and looked quite stunning.  This one does creep and the foliage will start to gray in the the center.  We found keeping it constantly trimmed and removing the gray matter regularly kept it looking tip top.

This is how the initial set up is.


We currently have seven of the Flamenco Samba's and three of the Limelights.  Some of the Samba's are a little small.  We bought five of them a few weeks back and they were ravaged by the dog we were dogsitting.  They're fighting back, though.  The dog is gone, so we felt safe adding more.  I don't mean gone as in with his maker, I mean back with his owners.  The hope is to create a meandering line of the Samba's with the limelights in between.  In the back (to the right of thg bottom picture) we're going to squeeze in items with height, as we would like to enclose the garden in some. 

5 comments:

  1. Looks good. That limelight plant should make the whole bed glow. Can't wait to shee what you pick for the height. Diagrams are handy and so are photos like these.

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  2. Hey I have the patience of a gnat , we may be related. I did have the patience of a flea, but I graduated to a gnat once I got older and gardened more. Like your post, Gina

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  3. Sherlock, I can't wait to see what we pick for the height, either. It feels like darts into a dartboard sometimes.

    ART, luckily I started right at gnat status. Unfortunately, I haven't progressed. Thanks for your comment.

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  4. Oh you're so much smarter than me. I know better, but I can never resist planting my ornamentals too close together! Maybe I have a pessimistic streak? Your garden bed looks great! I had great luck with Cuphea when we lived in the central valley, nice and drought tolerant, and loved it for it's low growing habit in the front of a border. I have to admit though, the Helichrysu is new me.

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  5. Curbstone, you run a farm so I don't think the word 'smarter' should ever be used to describe me against you. Drunker, yes, smarter, not so much.

    The Helichrysu is fantastic. It was previously in the same bed as the Cuphea and, thus, has the same water requirements. Native to South Africa, it will do quite well in our 100 plus degree summers.

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