Christmas Notebook

The daisies began blooming last week. The clumps of white add a lot to the daylily beds. These are the daisy ‘Becky.’ It’s a sturdy plant and great at staying upright. Never needs staking. It spreads quickly, so give it plenty of room or be prepared to divide it in the next few years.

The Russian sage seems to suffer this year from the lack of rain. It looks good, but is not as full and vigorous as it usually is.

The daylily ‘Red Hawk’ has long flower scapes (stalks). The blossoms hover well above the plant.

The center of the driveway is a mix of some good spots and some very weedy spots. It needs to be reworked. The northern end has a nice bed of daylilies, though.

Where the lawn gets full sun, the grass is dry, brown and brittle. Mowing sends up a cloud of dry grass and dust.

The only way to know if I had mowed parts of the lawn was to look for the flower stalks of the English plantain. Just look at how brittle and dry that grass is. Thankfully, those parts of the yard that get more shade are still green and growing, if slowly.

As a general rule, the only watering we do is when putting in new plants to get them well established. We do not water the lawn or the flower beds. Mulching and mature plants that are crowded together help preserve the moisture. But we are way behind on rain this summer and the sun-soaked parts of the garden are suffering.

The tiger lilies opened this week. Even though orange is my least favorite color, this is such a pretty flower. Do you see the tiny inch worm standing on his hind legs?

Some of the hostas that are in a lot of sun are beginning to burn a bit. But most get enough shade that, even is the dry conditions, they still look great. Many are flowering right now.

Hosta ‘Gold Standard’ and “Lemon Lime’ and ‘Pizzazz’

Hosta ‘Daybreak’ and ‘Candy Hearts’

A quick tour of the front yard today, but I hope you enjoyed it.

~~Rhonda