tz_garden

 It was HOT over the weekend, 100's.  Yesterday afternoon I ran to the grocery store, as I left the store I was shocked to feel rain, real RAINDROPS!  Although Livermore is fairly close to San Francisco (44 miles approx.) we have drastically different weather.  No June gloom, barely get morning fog and can easily be 30° hotter than the Bay cities.  It couldn't have amounted to anything but was still very exciting.  I thought I would take advantage of the kooky weather for some pictures.  Here are some long shots of the garden this morning, under the nice protection of some rare summer clouds. My hope with the back garden is to someday walk out, and not be able to "see" everything.  Hopefully to make a person want to walk down the pathways to check everything out. Sorry for the almost duplicates, this shows the side of the house to the left is part of the veggie garden (behind the sunflowers).    You can see haphazard shade cloth to protect the 2 remaining Phylica pube

We were out of town and out of touch for a bit.   I ca't wait to get caught up with everyone's blog posts and see what you've been up to! This tall bright gladiola was a surprise to come home to.   We celebrated Father's Day on Sunday, and Olivia's UCSB graduation -and moved her from her housing there.  She was the last one to move out of her apartment, I had a large refrigerator to clean out (6 roomates, hahaha). We had such a fun busy weekend! My three 💖, we had a great Father's Day lunch -Mexican, James's favorite.   Delphinium 'Cobalt Blue' sent a second bloom. I'm anxious to have a good look around the garden. Dr. never enjoys it when we leave for a few days, I think he's saying "don't do that again"

 I was down & out a couple days with a stomach bug, no fun.  Am feeling better today and will be going out to tame the tomatoes & dead head with vigor!  A few weeks back, I picked some flowers to preserve in silica.   I'm not sure if I can re-use the silica to dry again?   I had done this with my daughters in the Fall, and was delighted with the outcome.  Below is the after.  Most flowers came through nicely, with a couple roses looking like they'd been left in Grandma's underthings drawer too long.   Our tulip tree that nicely shades the front perennial garden is blooming, however I only get to see the blooms when they fall off.  They are all scattered at the very tippy top of the tree.   This Parodia magnifica balloon cactus looks like a little frosted cupcake.  I love the coloring on this Agave chazaroi.  I am going to need to move it so it has proper space to grow.   Also need to move this leaning tower of Pisa.  What is it doing? and what is this agave doing? 

Tuesday & Wednesday predicted to be triple digits.  Not my favorite!  I've got some shade cloth up, but need to go around today in the just about perfect 75 degree weather and do some more creative shading. First daylily opened. Does anyone keep bees, I'd love to hear from you?  My studly Lophocereus schottii monstrosus has a little bud? that gets a bit larger every day, I didn't expect it to bloom so this is fun to watch. A bit of a weird and wonderful thing, haha. The first sunflowers have opened, this dark one so high I had to reach up as high as I could to snap the picture. This one, more my height and a bit more cheerful. And Ivan pointed out, my Platycerium superbum is throwing out an apron!  I go check on this every morning to see how far it's pushing out the new growth. So exciting!   Well, I need to prepare to wilt over the next few days.  Is the ridiculous heat hitting your area?