JUST WHEN YOU THINK IT WILL LAST FOREVER

Just when you think it will last forever summer is over in a flash. Jack Frost pays your garden a visit and takes away with him much of your lingering color.

We have had two freezes in the last two weeks. The first one dipped into the 20s.  It was just for a few hours but what a difference those few hours made. Gone are the tithonia, gomphrena, most of the zinnias. The garden is taking on her winter cloak. A sudden bareness.

Yesterday, in a more sheltered, shady spot by the front entry gate, it was time to deal with the mountain of potted pothos that had grown during the summer, trailing and rooting alongside the wall. After taking a few cuttings, to root in a glass jar, I sat down and began a serious cutback. I was just pointing out to a visitor last week that I never sit on this bench. I was wrong.

It was the perfect place to sit and do the job. I also trimmed the tips of the A. demettiana, which will go inside for the winter. I'm not the one who has to carry this inside and I'm very cognizant of things that could cause eye damage these days.

Then I turned my attention to the sunken garden pulling out the faded zinnias and the masses of gomphrena.

What lies beneath would make a good title for a posting. So many things come to light after removing the summer planting. This ice plant can now enjoy the spotlight.

Billowing mounds of alyssum need to be cut back so that they will once again take on a more compact form.

It isn't easy to cut back flowering plants but I am thinking now of spring. I want my alyssum to look like this one which was cut back to nothing several weeks ago. Although I love the deep purple one I have all shades from purple down to white. It is another of my reliable re-seeders. The bees love it and it perfumes the air with its sweet honey fragrance.

While crouching down removing errant seedlings and weeds I noticed that the blue gilia, Gilia rigidula, is once again in flower. I have never seen this plant in a nursery and I don't know why because though a delicate looking and diminutive plant it is as tough as nails. Several plants on the chalky hillside have gone without water all summer and although not blooming like this one are starting to leaf out again. It seems to seed readily although I have yet to see the seeds. This one is growing by the rock in the center of the sunken garden. The soil is poor and dry and the constant shedding of the surface of the stone makes for a very alkaline soil.

I am certainly going to try to propagate this little beauty.

ANOTHER ROUND OF SUMMER

The garden has been fooled into thinking it is fall. Color began returning to my plants when we began to experience a cooling in evenings and mornings.

Gomphrena never seem to mind the hot days, continuing to bloom through even the most miserably hot of days. I have been pruning them back, especially these new firecrackers. Unlike the globe amaranth they tend to elongate with age and shed the bracts. Cutting the stem back to the last leaf node results in new flowers forming.

Even the alyssum is blooming again and one morning I detected that sweet honey fragrance on the air.
I just wish there weren't so many white ones. I may have to refresh with a packet of Royal Purple seeds.

I still love the globe amaranth saving the seeds from year to year.

Having struggled for years to have success with wall planters I decided to plant agaves and grasses this year. The grasses died, the agave lived and so did the native Portulaca pilosa.

Earlier this week I moved the A. desmettiana from its morning sun location in the front garden where it had spent the summer, back into its pot in the back. Yesterday, with another 103 degree day expected I moved it back into the shade along with the 'sticks of fire' euphorbia.

Should I go into business! I saw them selling bunches of the pink globe amaranth for $9.99 at the grocery store.

Another amaranth or celosia has grown in the corner of this bed. Tucked out of sight behind the potting shed this is probably a good place for it. Two more growing in the path are looking decidedly lanky although starting to produce flower heads.