Pity

Taking pity on the extremely dry garden today, Matt and I set up sprinklers on a few spots for a couple hours. While the parched soil soaked up the dampness, we went around trimming, pruning, weeding and deadheading.

The Philadelphus got pruned, some Cotyledon orbiculata and Achillea got deadheaded, some Chasmanthe and Crocosmia got cut back. All good in the hood. Except that the shed's lock was melted off and clearly someone had been rummaging in there... not much taken that I could see, but we need a new lock. Sigh.

Random Verbascum

Salvia "Limelight"

Aloe ferox

Aeonium blushing

Midsummer trim

Aloe tomentosa

Today's volunteer day attracted a core crew of people: Matt, Carlin, Nathan, Jackie, Anna, Mary and Keyvan.

Matt turned and watered the compost, and spread aged compost in the garden. Keyvan weeded and trimmed, which he has been doing a lot of recently, and Anna and Mary planted a whole tubtrug of the bromeliad Fascicularia pitcairnifolia on the Triangle garden, deadheading the yarrow "Coronation Gold" too.

Jackie shears

Nathan cut back the monstrous Salvia gesneriifolia "Tequila" which is done flowering and needed a haircut. That thing is about 15' wide and almost as tall. Golden Gate Park Arboretum, where I bought it,  weren't kidding when they said it was big... anyway, it seems very happy with zero water, so if you have a large area to fill with drama, I'll give you a cutting.

Santolina before/after

Jackie and I went down to PRG and Jackie ably buffed out the graffiti tag left on the fence, once again leaving it pristine. I pulled weeds and picked up all the trash, and started shearing all the Santolinas along there, since they are done flowering now and need a trim to stay compact. After a while Jackie took over and pretty soon the whole lot were done. Nice.