Friday Night Garden

I'm planting a small drift of echeveria in a small corner of the garden (inspired by something I saw last month at UC Davis). It will fill in eventually. In the meantime, it looks nice with Sisyrinchium bellum.







I thought I pulled out all the sweet pea. This was a nice little surprise coming up in the tomato.



I think tomatoes like this come from flowers like these.



New lemon blossoms--yay!



Next to it, Datura wrightii. I had to pull the one I showed you so many pictures of because it was getting out of line. This one should be fine here.



It hasn't flowered yet, but once it starts this will be a nice place to sit.



The other solanum?



Yeah, I'm going to let the brugmansia do whatever it wants this year. But next year, I prune.



I thought I might have to reconsider my shade plants when the neighbor nuked his yard a month ago. I had planted in consideration of the shade his forest cast over my garden.

But I know some plants that need shade inland will do fine in full sun on the coast. So, it's a question of exactly how coastal am I, here in south central San Francisco. I really don't know. I'm going to wait a while and see what happens. I don't want to move anything unless I have to.

So far, the only thing that had to go was some Clivia miniata that I could see was suffering. I potted them up and replaced them with these cymbidium I got from a friend last year. These are actually two of three divisions I took from a single plant.



Now I think Cymbidium is a better choice than Clivia all around.



I added some Stachys byzantina from a clump that wants to swallow the path at the bottom of the stairs.



Here, by the way, is the neighbor's yard. It's no surprise some of those bamboo shoots are already taller than I am. In another year or two, I'll have his bamboo on my side of the fence. Sigh.



Back to my garden, this is Mimulus cardinalis; it will take sun or shade. This one's in shade.



Cute!



I'm trying to grow some cuttings.

I planted a buckeye this year. Aesculus californica. Here it is.



I'll have to prune this every year, or it will become an enormous tree and destroy the garden. It can take a lot of pruning tho, and I will be happy to do it. I love this tree and I have no concerns at all about its quick, sudden summer dormancy that turns the whole thing brown for a month in the middle of the summer. No problem.

I picked a fabulous specimen. Look at the branching!




Okay, gotta go. More later.