Radio Red at Zero

It was 0° this morning when I got up. Our front doors have buckled a little and cold air pours in through the top. I stuffed some towels into the top edge as best I could. The kitchen door leaks air too.

I'm worried about the Radio Red Autumn sages I put in the ground this fall. They are hardy to zone 7 and that means the coldest they can take is 0°.

Santa Fe is sometimes shown as zone 7, but more often zone 6b now, but either way the reality is more severe. 

Combined with dry ground and intense sun in winter, the harsh effects of cold temperatures are heightened I think. 

And our growing season is shorter --we consistently have cold freezes earlier in fall and later in spring than the dates expected for zone 6b or 7. 

One strategy is to mound leaves over the plants and put a bucket over. 

But the leaves blow about on a windy day, and the bucket too. The bucket has to be removed when sun hits so it doesn't overheat even on a cold day.

That seemed like too much.

When I bought these salvias, Newman's was selling them in large quantities as hardy perennials, not tender or annual plants. I asked about hardiness and they said they'd be fine in the ground here.

Spring will tell . .  .

Soft Snow

Light snow this morning, warm coffee, feeling snug. The tiny flakes are drifting down very softly. Not much is accumulating.

A classic winter morning and I feel cozy. 

But I'm also feeling housebound and sluggish and tired of hearing the furnace bellow. It's been cold for a good week now -- not terrible, but too cold for a walk outside and I'm just sitting all day, reading, surfing sites and napping. Ugh.

I finished updating the info for 2024 on my plants blog, and now need to get focused on planning for 2025, but can't quite get started on that.

Winter.

❆

California Memories

View from the Getty gardens

This was my post on my prior garden journal the spring we went out to California and saw Tom and Z's new house, the Getty, and Huntington Gardens. California in its glory.

That was in 2017. Before grandkids arrived. 

Before the fires.

The White Bowl

The ornamental oregano that is in the white bowl now isn't doing it for me. I don't like the look of this variety even though it thrives and it drapes over the lip of the bowl nicely enough. (It's Origanum libanoticum).

I do like the combination of orange zinnias and draping oregano though.

One year it was orange pansies in the bowl. I just like the combination of short orange annuals, graceful oregano falling over the side, backed by the bright blue door.

But I like Origanum Kent's Beauty oregano much better than what's there now. It's a prettier plant, greener and softer looking. But it didn't always winter over for me in the bowl.

I had Kent's Beauty in oblong containers on the plant stand out front one year, and last year I put a bunch of Kent's Beauty in the green trough by the front door, in place of red geraniums.

The year I grew Kent's Beauty in one of the small terracotta oblong pots and had it on the patio table it was lovely. But I decided not to have a plant on the table -- I'd rather keep the table clean and open for food and drinks.

I have an "extra" container of Kent's Beauty already -- I had just put it in a pot and placed it at the back of the potting bench curve in shade to fill an empty spot. I can take out the oregano in the bowl now and transplant the extra Kent's Beauty there.

I thought about making the white bowl a mini herb garden, convenient right there by the back door and a way to grow herbs for cooking. 

But Jim doesn't really use fresh herbs, he likes his collection of dried herbs. I like some fresh things like basil and cilantro and parsley and lemon balm, and feathery dill, but they all get so big and are hard to keep looking good. 

And I would never use very much. I've tried herb gardens before and never got the hang of it.

So here's what I'd like to do with the white bowl next summer:

• Replace the oregano there with Kent's Beauty. 

• Add a basil plant or two, it's the only herb I like growing and I use it for pesto and garnishes.

• Maybe add a blue leaved sage like I had one year back east. And lemon balm.

• Orange Profusion zinnias if I can get them. Or orange pansies.

That would make a nice full combo in the white bowl using just a few smaller herbs.

The Blank Wall

What could be more classic Santa Fe than hollyhocks by a doorway?

I'm thinking of putting some in the spot where the Chinese privet was taken out by the garage door. Something tall and vertical against what is now a blank wall.

The three black alceas by the gate don't really fit there, especially as the butterfly bush has become tall and vase shaped. Tall vertical plants won't fit there.

By the garage door, against the stucco wall, they might be nice.

They haven't done anything yet, all are tiny little bits of leaves, nothing else. I think rabbits ate them at one point.

I had also put a bunch of Las Vegas mixed colors next to the fence by the rain barrel which aren't needed (or doing much) there. 

They did bloom, but stayed short and are a little swamped behind the rain barrel. The colors were not the rich mix I expected -- washed out cream and some pink. They weren't tall or showy.

They got eaten by rabbits which of course set them back badly.

I had some by the brown urn along the back fence too, but the colors and form weren't right for that strip or next to the urn. So I transplanted them to join the others next to the rain barrel.

Hollyhocks don't transplant well, but these were still young and small and they did okay.

But hollyhocks have been a problem for me. They are easy enough to grow but I can't figure out what to do with them in my small garden with its even smaller, tidy separate spaces.

Should I try to put the three black ones by the door next to the table? 

(Move the table closer to the door and put the hollyhocks to the right of the table.)

I actually like the simplicity of the small black table with a green watering can and a few pots in that empty spot now as you look down the yard. 

It keeps the side of the doorway open feeling, but gives a little structure, repeating the black metal of the patio things.

But it's not much, the scale of it is small and I am ditzing over what to put on and around the table -- more containers, different levels, a potted herb collection. 

Tall pots, the long troughs, terra cotta things, and then the tall dramatic black hollyhocks standing next to it all.

I don't even know if the hollyhocks would transplant. I suppose I could just take out the black ones, and then buy new for this project by the table.

I'm concerned it will all look staged and fussy. And still too small, but I won't know until I try some arrangements.

← I like the idea of piling some rocks around the hollyhocks rather randomly like this, and I have some random rocks I could use.

I'm also putting the Windwalker Red salvia in front of the table where there are emitters, but the hollyhocks could go closer to the wall where there are no emitters, and that would suit them. 

It's deep shade by the wall in the morning but bright hot sun in the afternoons, and the wall is reflective. Potted plants there might struggle with that, but the hollyhocks should like it.

So, other adjustments:

I'll I take out the black hollyhocks by the gate regardless of whether I transplant them, and in the narrow little spot there I'd put another Panchito manzanita. A low manzanita under the vase shaped butterfly bush would fill that spot nicely and be something to look at in winter.

I think that would look good.

Panchito

Calm and sunny today, after a cold blustery day yesterday. The day is in the 50s, but in the sun it is warm and nice sitting outside. It got a little breezy in the afternoon.

I hand watered a lot of things today. It isn't much or very deep, but it helps. After our big snow storm in October, we haven't had a drop of moisture. Keeping things watered by hand from a 2 gallon can is hard.

The Panchito manzanita I got last summer from Plants of the Southwest has clean looking evergreen foliage in the brown dormant garden now.

Something to look at, although the leaves are bronzy yellow green now, not the deep glossy green of summer.

But it looks great. 

It does lean forward in an odd way. It was full and well shaped when I bought it, but it struggled at transplant and dropped leaves and got kind of leggy and tilted.

I'm hoping it fills out and settles in this year.

Both Sides of the Door

The Chinese privet is gone now and the garage wall is a blank expanse that needs something against it. I like the open feel and the fact that the blue door is no longer crowded. The redbud can grow into something in its open space now.

But the corner right by the door needs something. So I stuck the little square mesh patio table there, put some pots on it, and it's . . .  something. Some structure at least. I actually like the way it looks and the black metal picks up the black accent of the patio furniture.

Keep in mind there will be greenery, the growing crabapple and other things to look at down the yard. 

Another problem is presenting now that the area is so opened up. The tilted juniper by the door looks silly. It lives in absolutely no soil whatsoever, just four inches around its stem. 

The garage, driveway beyond the gate, patio stones and slab stoop are all impermeable and there is not a spot anywhere near this tree that gets water. I do not know how it lives. Junipers like dry conditions, but this is extreme.

It's so structured and stiff and provides no shade or garden interest. It hides the wall sconce light. 

But it does provide screening from the driveway. As you come up the drive and approach the gate, you'd see straight into the back yard over the gate if that bulky tall thing wasn't there.

You'd look right across to the neighbor's wall and from the road we would be visible, partially, coming and going to the garage side door.

The awkward branches that jut out need to come off. I can hire it. I have the number for the landscape maintenance (and snow) guy the neighbors use. → 

   

I guess I'll keep it. Nothing else tall, evergreen and screening could be planted in the few inches available there. 

Maybe a container with a tall narrow evergreen would work? 

Not as tall, but enough to rise above the fence but not hide the wall sconce. Not sure I can find anything suitable and that seems like a lot of trouble.

Trimming the branches won't do anything to make it less stiff and tilted, but it will be a little less awkwardly goofy looking perhaps.

A New Year, New Blog

The way I was keeping my journal of gardening tasks and commentary was getting cumbersome. 

It was a long continuous post sited on my "Plants" blog, and as each string of observations and photos got longer, I had to break up the text into separate posts by season, and that begged the question of why I wasn't simply keeping a blog journal. 

Each observation could be its own post -- titled, dated and easily searchable.

So here we are.