Warm Enough to Water

It has been mild, in the 50s, and this afternoon was 55 degrees, with a strong winter sun. 

All the way up to Christmas it is forecast to be like that, 50ish temperatures and above freezing at night, with only two nights briefly at 33 degrees, all the other nights above that.

But it's been very dry and there is no rain or snow forecast. 

So I watered today. 

I got everything, even the oaks in the field. I actually hooked up the hose and gave all the gardens a good drink.

I brought the overwintering cuphea outside too, and took out the pinecone mulch and added fresh potting soil to the top around the plant. 

It has been regrowing nicely since I hacked it back and brought it in for the winter. I even see a couple little flower buds. I do need to remember to fertilize it, and to let it dry out between waterings.

The forecast is so forgiving, I even brought the pots of salvias and tickseed and obedient plants etc. out from the garage and I'll leave them outside while the next ten days stay mild and the nights above freezing.

They're tender perennials and can stay out but not if it gets really cold.

First Snow

It's gotten cold recently and last night we got our first snowfall.
 

It's not much on the ground, but it's messy and I have a flight out to California later today. 

It should be fine. The roads are mostly just wet, although the temperature is well below freezing, so ice could be an issue.

It does look a bit Christmassy this morning.

🎄   🎄   🎄   🎄   🎄   🎄    🎄   🎄

Leaf Litter and Mulch

A cold rain all day today, about half an inch. Yesterday was nice -- 52° but pleasant to work in. I spread leaf litter and a little bit of mulch.

Before Jim's back got really bad a few weeks ago, he vacuumed up some leaves and in the process the machine chops them into pieces. He filled a whole contractor bag with shredded leaves.

Later the bulk of the fallen leaves were cleaned up and taken away by Jeronimo's men -- the cottonwood and aspen leaves don't disintegrate and form huge mats all over and need to be removed.

So the gardens were cleared up, it had rained the other day so soil was moist, and I had a contractor bag full of chopped leaf litter to spread around.

I dumped it into the trug, added water and then kneaded and mixed it to get it all wet. I did several trugs -- a lot, actually -- there was a ton of leaf litter to work with. Then, after spreading it around the gardens, I used one bag of wood chip mulch to put down to hold the leaf litter from blowing away. 

It is fine and dry and I didn't want it to disappear in the wind.

The steady damp and rain today has tamped it down pretty well, and the soil from the rain we had before was moist underneath. Hopefully the leaf litter will add nutrients and tilth, the bit of mulch will hold it, and the gardens will be happy next spring.

November Rain

I woke to a cold fog this morning after a full day yesterday of off and on rain. We got almost half an inch total. 

The fog burned off pretty quickly to light up our wet world. But the patio cushions are soaked through -- I hadn't brought them in.

Jeronimo had just cleaned up the leaves the day before so the ground could soak in this rain. He charged $412 -- yikes.

Tomorrow, when the forecast is for milder weather, I'll spread some mulch to cover a few areas where bare dirt and some of the irrigation tubing is exposed. 

Corroded Fittings

I brought the hoses in today, disconnected the splitters from the faucet bibs and stored them in the garage. Cold temps are finally coming, with some rain and possibly snow.

The fittings on the hoses always corrode and are nearly impossible to get off. The one by the kitchen door came off, but I could not separate the one in front. 

Jim and I worked on it, used WD40 oil, got the hairdryer out to heat the metal threads and used the biggest wrench.

It came off after much difficulty, but destroyed the leader hose fitting in the process. 

So I ordered a new leader -- fortunately I had an Amazon record of what I got last time (in April 2024) and ordered exactly the same size, the same item. 

It worked well for my rigged extension system from the front faucet around to the back. It lasted just two years, but the replacement is only $17 and I can rescue the system next spring after our debacle getting the old one off.

I always need new Y splitters every year, they don't last long. I got these heavy duty brass ones ($18 each) with longer shut off levers -- the plastic ones I've been using are not as sturdy. 

Speedwells in Fall

I don't remember the Royal Candles veronicas turning any kind of color in fall. This year they are an attractive golden yellow. I cut the long spent stalks back and cleaned up a bit and there were these pretty little mounds of clean, colorful foliage.

It must be the long warm fall weather, with only a few mornings that have hit below 32°. A strange season this year.

The little golden clumps look quite nice.

Should I plant more Royal Candles speedwells, perhaps in the circle garden? I might.

They bloom vividly in June, with that upright spikiness I need around the circle garden, although once they fade the spikes get lanky and need cutting back.

They have been workhorses in the kitchen courtyard garden, and are surprisingly nice even now in fall.

Little Red Jewels

The crabapple's leaves are all down now and the red crabs look like jewels all over the little tree. 

I'm still amazed that there are so many crabapples. Spring flowering was sparse, yet there are tons of fruits.

Very festive and holiday appropriate as Thanksgiving approaches. If we get snow for Christmas it will be perfect.

The fruits are tiny and intact, not yet falling or turning mushy. 

It seems they dry out and get dark and smaller as they age, so I'm hoping there won't be any kind of mess on the ground. 

When they fall I'll have to see what that does to the walkway and gravel below.

Or maybe late in the season when freezing has made them more palatable, the birds will eat some?

Lit Up Perfectly

The way a shaft of morning sun comes through the glass doors of the two way fireplace and lights up the plant on the living room table always amazes me.

Somehow it finds the plant and only the plant. Nothing else in the room is illuminated, just the green leaves all lit up and shining. 

On these November mornings it happens just as I am having coffee in the red recliner, around 7:15 a.m. The timing, the light, the specific way just that one thing shines, is just striking.

It's a plastic Swedish ivy that I've had for decades. I packed it and moved it here. It fits perfectly into the white resin cylinder container that Hope made us a few years ago. 

And it sits perfectly on the glass table in a ray of morning sun that lights it up like it's alive. Wow.

Then, when the pot of ivy is no longer lit, the sun finds the lemon tree and lights that up.

Pretty spectacular.

Some Color

There's some real color in the bush clematis by the garage door this year. A bright golden yellow.

We're still only flirting with freezing temperatures at night. Every once in a while -- like this morning -- it gets down to 28 - 30 degrees. A freeze, but a light one and not for too long. I've unhooked the hoses but haven't brought them in.

Then the mornings go back up to high 30s and into the 40s for several days. 

Afternoons are pleasant.

But the vine on the back fence browned up long ago, and now the crabapple and the redbud are mostly bare. The aspens and the cottonwood leaves are about 3/4 down too. 

The Japanese maple and the plumbagos are deep scarlet red, mostly smothered by fallen cottonwood leaves, but still visible. The Texas betony and veronicas behind, and the columbines behind those, stay green.

The Wood's rose, just planted this year, is still a tall awkward shape. It's turning golden, and that's a nice complement to the reds nearby.

And here's some dramatic color captured last night at dinner time.

Autumn is well underway.

Salvia Greggii Radio Red

I got more Radio Red salvias at Newman's. 

I went in looking for a mum for the urn in front, but it's too late in the season. But they had a table full of Radio Red greggii salvias, and I've had that on my list to get more of next year.

It's my favorite red salvia, redder than Furman's Red, bigger, glossier leaves than the salvia (Hot Lips I think, and microphylla, not greggii) I got at Lowe's and more compact than Windwalker Red (which is actually S. darcyi x microphylla, not a greggii variety either.)

So I got several and plopped one in its nursery pot in the urn in front.

I have two that are in the kitchen courtyard. None of the pots I overwintered survived, but the two in the ground did.

I want two more to put in pots at the deck -- the Windwalker Red really got too big and lanky in a pot there.

And one to plant in the circle garden where the annual Strawberry Fields gomphrena was -- that never grew into much of anything.

It's too late to plant one in the circle garden, so all four that I just got will go in the garage when hard cold hits.

They are hardy to zone 7 and we are supposed to be 7 now, although I think we're right at the edge if not solidly in a colder winter zone.

But we'll see if these four new Radio Reds make it. I was happy to find them.

Mixed Flowers in the Center

My plan is to overwinter the David Verity cuphea so I can plant it out, mature and full, in the white bowl next spring. 

I may rethink that.

I might like a mix of sunny perennials and annuals all together, creating a real focal point of color and form for the center of the circle.

If done right all the plants would fill the bowl in a way the cuphea just didn't.

I rarely do mixed flower containers unless I get some already planted up from the nursery. But I'd try 

• Profusion zinnias
• A division of the blue carpet sedum I have
• Vivid blue lobelia
• Petunias and pansies of course 

. . . just a random mix of things.

I liked the cuphea well enough, but the Vermillionaire plant was a simple look.

I like David Verity better, and if I can winter it and keep it full looking, that's still an option for the bowl. 

If not, a colorful profusion of sunny flowers would be better and I'd put David Verity back in the blue container behind the deck. It did well there.

(I've since taken the Vermillionaire out. It looked fine after one morning this week that hit 26 degrees, but a couple days after that it was clear it was gone. The flowers were still bright, but the foliage had shriveled.)

26 Degrees

The first freeze of the season. It was 26 degrees overnight. 

But everything survived nicely, even the annual lobelia and the Profusion zinnias. The Vermillionaire cuphea is fine. I did bring the David Verity cuphea into the house after cutting it down as I get ready for winter.

The day dawned cold but still, and the hot sun quickly made things pleasant. A lovely fresh feeling day with quiet sunshine and cool air.

There are no more freezing nights for the next 10 days. Just warm days of sunshine in the 50s and 60s with little wind and overnight temps above 32.

I had unhooked the hoses but did not drain them or bring them into the garage. Now I'll have to hook them back up to do chores and water some things over the next weeks.

Cutting Back

I don't think I can bring the David Verity cuphea into the house to winter over as I planned unless I cut it way back. It's just too big and leggy. I tried it in the bathroom and in front of the sliders where winter sun would be good for it. But it's too much.

I did find an article that says potted cuphea can be brought inside, but to cut it back first. So I did, although I hated to sacrifice all the pretty flowers it was still putting out.

The only flirtation with overnight temperatures of 25° - 29° is one night next week, and then it rebounds to above freezing nights and beautiful warm days well into early November!

Will that one overnight freeze be enough to zap the cuphea? 

Assuming it might, I cut it down to just a few leaves at the base of the stems and put it next to to my laundry hamper in my bedroom.

It had gotten so leggy because I watered it too much. 

I did the same with the potted Windwalker Red salvia and the Black Adder agastache. Their leaves got so shriveled in the summer sun if I did not water, but the extra moisture made them tall and spindly.

The salvia was actually cut back in summer and it regrew quickly into tall stalks with vivid blooms at the tips.

I need to figure out how to keep these potted plants happy without over watering. 

The red salvia may go in the ground next spring, in a spot where there is no emitter. It needs water to flower well, and maybe I can keep it hose watered but leave it drier in between waterings.

Despite the continued lovely weather, I did cut back the tickseed that had gotten raggy looking, to get ready to put it in the garage. 

Still full and green and even putting out a few flowers, but it was time. What a performer it was all summer long, constantly in full bloom. 

In spring I will divide it and use the divisions in other locations. Maybe in pots, maybe I'll put one in the ground.

The Blue Ice amsonias are a nice yellow now in the corner by the guest room window. 

They are a cool, lemony yellow, bright and eye catching. I can't wait for the new ones I just planted to fill out around the circle garden and produce this elegant foliage and color in fall. It will take a good 3 to 4 years, though.

Some trees have lost leaves, the Virginia creeper is brown and kaput, but it's still so warm and beautiful.

Simple Switch

I switched two garden decor things and I like it better. For years, ever since we moved in, I have had the Relax sign up against the wall between the two big windows on the east side.  My metal peacock, more recent, has been in a couple locations in the back yard.

I simply switched the sign and the peacock.

The peacock adds a little more presence than the sign in the dining room window garden, and it was a bit lost in the back yard. 

I had it in the open on the deck at first, but tucked it into the potting bench curve where a blank spot was. 

The relax sign is just enough taller and looks better rising above the stuff along the empty wall in the potting bench curve.

The peacock is fuller and more visible in the dining room window garden, and I can see it from inside the house.

Both of these empty spots needed something and I was struggling to think what to plant that would fit the spaces and be tall enough to see. 

But I don't want more plants, I'm trying to edit down. And neither of these empty places has an emitter right there. 

So rather than plants, I need hardscape or decor items to tuck into empty places, without getting too cutesy or over decorated. 

These two metal sculpture things, switched, seem to work.

Raydon's Favorite

Blustery, windy and cloudy all day today, with periods of spitting rain and some harder rain. 

It's the remnants of a hurricane off the west coast of Mexico that are now straggling up from the southwest. Not a lot of rain for us, but chilly, unsettled, agitated weather in northern New Mexico.

This will go on for a few days. Still no frost forecast.

Raydon's Favorite aromatic aster is finally, after many years, looking full and flowery. More magenta pink than I remembered from when I grew it in CT. It had been a deeper purple for me there I thought.

So I checked old photos, and boy did it grow for me back east. I remember now how huge it was and how I had to cut it back and tame it.

It was a soft blue purple there and it formed big round mounds, so lush.

The difference is the climate and the moisture of course. But why the difference in color? Soil chemical and composition?

Anyway, my tidy little aster, blooming mostly at the top and tucked in by the sumacs along the garage wall is nice.

Not what I remembered or grew before, but nice.

Forecast

It's closing in on mid October and there is no frost yet, and none forecast for the next 10 days, only flirting with a low of 37° by the 19th. This is unheard of for fall in the southern Rockies!

I got out on these mild days and cleaned up a bit -- tossed the petunias, cut back some stalks. 

But with more weeks yet of nice weather, it's still too soon to do much else. Too soon to shut off the irrigation and too soon to bring pots into the garage to overwinter.

After a wet summer (12 inches since April 30, most of it gentle and soaking) we are expecting more rain next week, over several days. 

Wet, mild, and so unusual. 

Every year since we have been here, a hard freeze comes quickly and everything gets zapped by now. In some years the garden is done for by late September. Not this year.

The Virginia creeper vine is a nice red on one side, although it never gets that bright red on the long stretch in front of the patio.

On that side it usually just quickly browns with the typical early frost, but this year it hasn't crisped yet, it's just bronzy and dark. 

Not the brilliant red advertised and not the bright red of the vine on the other side by the Rose of Sharon.

I plan to bring the David Verity cuphea into the house for the winter, then plant it out in the white bowl next year.

I'll put it by my sunny bedroom slider. It needs a hard pruning in late winter -- it's gotten a little leggy. 

I'll have to see how it works to overwinter it, and whether we can go away in January (to CA) and again in March (to Tucson) and leave it unwatered for a week or more then. 

It is supposed to have water reduced and dry out while indoors, but it will need some.

This way I'll have a larger, mature plant to put in the bowl next spring, rather than waiting all summer for a small purchased plant to get any size and fill out -- which both David Verity and Vermillion didn't do until late August, really.

But with our mild damp fall and an extended forecast of more, it's still too early to bring this cuphea in. 

The forecast is making me antsy for fall tasks!

Thunder and Rain at Night

Thunderstorms woke us up in the wee hours of the morning and rolled through with hard rain. The patio cushions got soaked -- I did not get out of bed quick enough to bring them in. The kitchen flooded, not bad but a puddle spread out to the rug under the sink, and with tiny bits of mulch washed in.

The total was three quarters of an inch of rain. It's so rare to see anything over a quarter inch in that rain gauge from any one rain event and this year truly measurable rain has been frequent.

In eight years I've never seen a monsoon season like this one. We're now at almost 12 inches since the beginning of May. 

Technically monsoon runs from fourth of July to the end of September, but we've been getting so much rain for almost 6 months now.

More is forecast.

Half an Inch While We were Gone

Apparently it rained a half inch on the 28th, Sunday, while we were in California. I came home to see it in the rain guage.

Of course this was the first time I hired someone to come over and water the pots every day. I'll still pay him, of course, but half an inch in the 7 days took a lot of pressure off to hand water.

The pots are root bound and I guess it has been sunny since the rain event, so some things dried out quickly. And I think he missed the David Verity cuphea behind the deck, it looked pretty shriveled. I watered it as soon as we got in. It revived. Thank goodness for the half inch of rain it got during the week.

The week with grandkids was fabulous -- a birthday party for two year old TJ, swim lessons, grocery shopping, dinner at the other grandmother's new townhouse, movies, the library, the park, play time, running around, reading books, snuggling, and . . .

 . . . . mornings in bed with Grammy.

Now I miss those two something fierce, but I'm also glad to be back to my normal, quiet routine!

Going Away

This time when we go out to California for a week I am having someone come to the house to water all the pots. No more setting up an elaborate sprinkler on a timer with all my scattered pots gathered into one space to be watered automatically.

In the past that worked, kind of, but I don't have an open space big enough for the sprinkler to reach everything when gathered together in one spot. The sprinkler actually overshoots too wide an arc, and it's hard to adjust it down without losing coverage. And the timers are a pain to set.

So I've hired Tommy Tapia, a handyman in the neighborhood, to come every day and hose water everything. It will cost $20 a day.

I offered to move all the pots to one central location, but he says not to, he'll go around and get to each where  it is (there are a couple small pots tucked in the garden, I'll move those out for him). If anything in the ground looks wilted he'll water those too.

This is better than asking a neighbor to do it as a favor -- I really need daily watering even this late in the season (especially this late, the big plants are potbound).

The Table By The Door

💧More rain again last night. 

Just a quarter inch but it was a gentle soaker and it arrived overnight, keeping the soil moist for hours.

The arrangement of pots on top of and around the table looks good. There's a cascading effect as everything has grown in. 

The visual composition is nice with the tall blue door framing the fall of blooms next to it.

But I keep thinking I'd like a simpler look. It feels fussy.

Maybe move the metal scroll trellis next to the garage door and make it the focal point as you look down the yard?

It's hidden behind the redbud, although it fills the blank wall, especially when the redbud's leaves are down.

If I moved it over by the garage door, I'd grow a Major Wheeler honeysuckle on it. The one I have below the railroad ties is lovely but in too much shade to bloom well or fill out.

I'd keep the new little cardinal penstemon in front -- the honeysuckle needs something to hide its bottom bare stems, although that would be a red flowering vine + red flowering penstemon together, too much? I'd keep the blue container of deep purple bush clematis at the foot of the trellis as well.

But the trellis is rusted out and there is only one prong to set in the soil, the other is propped up with a haphazard pile of stones and a brick. 

That supporting mess is shielded by the thick sumacs, but would be visible right at the garage stoop. 

So I don't know. . .  

The composition at the door seems too busy, and yet I keep saying I want a lush, complex, mixed garden look.

The redbud needs to get some height to rise up above all the pots and the sumacs below. That will help, so everything isn't at the same level.

Ehh, I don't think the trellis will work all that well. 

It's okay where it is, and is surprisingly stable even though it's precariously balanced among rocks.

Cumulus Clouds

This summer we've had such unsettled weather with plenty of rain. Wow. 

But the thunderstorms that pop up in the afternoons aren't the violent kind we've gotten in other summers. Mostly they deliver a bit of noise and flash and a steady soaking rain. 

Gray and black clouds hang over the mountains often.

But this week there have been the most incredible cumulus clouds billowing up over us. Everywhere I looked there were giant poufs of marshmallow white. 

The skies looked unreal, like an overly exaggerated painting of a western sky dwarfing all below. The sky was brilliant blue, the clouds dazzling white, the shadows in the folds deep silver.

No real storms, just giant cottony ballooning puffs. What a summer.

Dining Room Window Garden

Planting under the cottonwood tree on the east side of the house was probably a mistake. The cottonwood sucks up all the water, smothers plants in dropped leaves and it's been hard to get anything going with the root competition.

But those windows dominate the whole east side of the house and they are positioned low, so the ground level area under the cottonwood is visible from inside the whole length of the dining room and den.

So I planted.

Now, in late summer, the ground is getting covered with early leaf drop. Later there will be way, way more.

The groundcover plumbagos at the front of the garden and the rock swale are completely smothered.

This should be the plumbagos' season. They should be visible, thickly massed, deep green with vivid blue flowers. Other patches in other gardens look lovely now.

Mine have light green foliage, a few sparse flowers and are not really visible at all. And it is still summer really.

The tall Woods rose at the back stands up above the mess of leaves and the taller plants like the Texas betony and Icicle veronicas are vertical enough to still be seen among the leaf litter.

But I should probably do something about the plumbagos.

I originally wanted this garden to be a shrubbery with greenery and texture, not really a flower garden. 

I still do, but getting shrubs going in the root competition wasn't working. The shallower perennials took. At least some did.

The plumbagos have been spreading over the years, but like all my plants, the individual clumps don't touch, don't mass together. They are nice enough edging the rock ditch, but I have seen such rich looking groundcovers elsewhere, and this patch doesn't look like much.

I guess at a minimum I need to get the blower out and regularly blow the area clean. So many more leaves to fall, though . . .