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I guess these are my stepchildren this week. I’ve been so focused on the new bed in the front yard that I’ve hardly set foot out back. My esperanza and variegated ginger are so unbelievably happy with this extended warm weather. I can’t imagine that they could get any bigger!
My shade bed gets just enough dappled light to keep growing and blooming. Some day I’d like to plant a Japanese red maple as an understory tree when the oaks grow a little more.
I left a little peat pot with a cypress vine seedling from my Dad sitting next to my tomato plant a few months ago and now these two red beauties are coexisting nicely while climbing up my tomato cage.

BTW, I LOVE these square, folding tomato cages from Gardener’s Supply. All my family members that garden got them for gifts this year! They are sturdy and tall and can support these outrageously overgrown tomato plants.
And we’re about to have a nice crop of big beefy tomatoes. I’m going to leave them on the vine for one more day — I’m afraid the birds or bugs will get them — so I will pick them a little early tomorrow. They’ll be mostly-vine-ripened!

It’s done! The plants are in the “BIG BED” and I gave them a little food just before we got a delightful scant inch of rain yesterday afternoon. I took it to mean that Mother Nature was pleased. (My rationalizing skills are, afterall, exceptional~!) Everyone seems happy — I still need some more hostas around the corner in the shady area, but these are small places to fill with a few special little plants.

And, can you believe it, while I was getting this done I was hit upside the head with another idea and a plan for doing some work outside our back wrought iron fence. It’s wild back there – completely natural – but I’ve always wanted some nice agaves, so this week I’ll start pondering that! I moved four beautiful bi-color iris to just outside the fence because I knew they (unlike the other shrubs that weren’t diseased) would survive a transplanting nicely with just a little nurturing. But now they need friends!

And I got another idea while I was garden-blog surfing last night – posting my to-do list! How’s that for accountability?!! So, look for that soon.

Don’t you just love it when it hits you, and you have an epiphany? I had a delightful stroll through Barton Springs Nursery this afternoon, looking for a few more plants for the “Big Bed”. I wanted to put a Texas Sotol on the left side, but was afraid I didn’t have the space for it. I bought it anyway. I am the queen of squeezing too much into a bed (not a good thing). Then as I was putting the Blackfoot daisies, Wedelia and the Sotol into my trunk, I realized that the Sotol is the perfect solution for a center focal point in front of the window box. I was looking for something lower growing, but because the Sotol is so fine, it won’t obstruct the view and will make a nice specimen plant for the middle where I still had a hole. Blackfoot daisies in front of it, and voila! Ha. I get so smug when I figure something out BEFORE I put it into the wrong spot!!!

(However, I am much LESS smug about the fact that I can’t figure out how to rotate this photo, so for now, you’ll just have to turn your heads because I’m rushing out the door!!!)

That’s what I feel like I’ve done. Dipped my big toe into the water. I’m not sure what this bed will look like when I’m done and it’s approaching maturity. (That’s because I didn’t make a plan for it!) I swore that I would, but even though I design for other people, I rarely take the time to do it in my own gardens.

So, I’ve made a nice list of possible plants and have been nursery-hopping for 2 days. Today I found a nice dwarf variety of Abelias so I will be returning the 5 other abelias that I bought just yesterday at two different stores!

Thus far, my collection includes a Japanese Yew (Maki), and Anachoncha Orchid Tree, some trailing lantana, some prostrate rosemary, some cuphea, some variegated hostas, an umbrella plant, (Cyperus alternifolius) and a new discovery, Mickaela Euonymus. It’s variegated, low and compact and trailing, very unlike the traditional Euonymus I’m used to seeing around town. I’m excited about having found something new and fresh — I hope it doesn’t die!

Tomorrow I plan to head to The Great Outdoors and Barton Springs Nursery for a few specimen plants and whatever strikes my fancy.

Well, maybe not done, really, but for me, this was the really tough part. Taking out living plants and bird and lizard habitat. But it was inevitable — the oleanders had truly succumbed to disease and I wanted to get them out and new ones in before winter. And I did replant the bi-color iris in the back of the house outside our wrought iron fence.

The new plants certainly won’t be the lush bird condos they had before, but they’ll grow and we have lots of other places for them to live.

So, the plan is to LOOK at this for a few days and then bite the bullet and put in new plants. I have a good list, thanks to suggestions of my gardening friends and hours spent perusing my favorite garden books.

Ok–here are the long-promised Salvia Leucantha photos in full glory! I took these photos at two different times and was amazed at how different it looks in the changing light.

Sorry I’ve been remiss about blogging – we had family here from out of state and got to relax and actually enjoy our gardens and pool and plants all week without feeling compelled to weed or prune or deadhead. And how nice it is to listen to others appreciate the beds and comment on them. I realize I see them so differently than do guests. So, for a week, I’ve seen only the beauty and it’s been delightful. Next week I’ll be back to looking at them warts and all – and looking for leaf rollers and other pests!

And what a morning this morning was. I know it’s warm out there now, but there was that subtle hint of cooler air this morning as I walked the dogs and sat outside planning the new front bed. A lovely way to usher in the Fall — I sat in the Adirondack chair out back, listening to the gardening shows on the radio with Howard Garrett’s book and a pad of paper in my lap, taking notes on trees and shrubs for foundation plantings. I’ve decided not to buy the new plants until the dead oleander and others are all cleaned out, so I can look at if for while and get some perspective on it.