west bed updates

Now that the mess from the flood has (mostly) been cleaned up and summer is quickly turning to autumn I thought I'd update on how things are looking.  The gaura needed to be tied back so they don't flop all over, and the lavender got its autumn trim.  The geum is doing ok, it wilts if it gets too dry and probably wouldn't survive one of our hot summers.

This side of the west bed is thriving.  Look at the size of that colocasia in the corner, it's huge!  It's much happier there than the maple tree ever was.  The vitex has really surprised me with how quickly it's growing, too, hopefully by summer 2012 or 2013 it'll have spread enough to cast some shade around.  It's got lots of flower buds but they haven't opened yet.  The dichondra "silver falls" has realy taken to that bed, although it doesn't seem to want to spill over the front as I was hoping it would.  Some wild violets have seeded at the back of the bed and I've decided to let them stay, they form a nice dense green ground cover and love shade.  Some "weeds" can be very helpful.

The Amazon Queen colocasia is going crazy too.  It makes this whole bed look very lush which I love.  The hellebores have held out well over the summer heat (the crowns can die back completely but mine manage to hold on), the plectranthus cuttings are really growing along and the ajuga "black scallop" are slowly spreading.

Overall, not a bad effort.

back corner and veggies

The back corner garden is also coming into its own.  This is what it looked ago about 18 months ago, not long after I moved here.  Pretty desolate place innit.

This is what it looks like today.  Marigolds and nasturtium, perennial statice, and the dichondra "silver falls" is really coming along.  I planted it hoping it would drape over the brick to shade it a bit and keep the roots of the oak-leaf hydrangea from getting too hot.

The melons back there are coming along well, you can just see the Minnesota midget is starting to grab onto the wall.  The watermelon in the tub is doing ok too and the pumpkin is now covered with both male and female flowers.

Unfortunately despite some hand-pollination it doesn't look like any of the female babies have set.  Something I learned last year is that if the pollination "takes", the pistil (the female part of the flower) sticks to the fruit as it first starts to swell and grow.  These ones, as you can see, have a flat end because the pistils fell straight off.  I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure this means they didn't pollinate.  No worries, it's still a small vine, it's got plenty of growing to do.

And although these are on the front porch, not the back corner, I wanted to update you on the tomatoes.  I've not eaten 3 or 4 of my lovely little Tommy Toe tomatoes and eagerly awaiting the first rouge de marmande ripening.  I took a photo to show you why I'm impatient.  They've reached a lovely size and may be still growing.  Most of the bunches are quite full, one of the clusters in this photos has 6 of these puppies all squeezed together! 

When will you be ripe!!?

Unfortunately I lost a full set of RdM blossoms before I realised they weren't getting enough water.  So there's one "layer" of almost-ripe fruit, one empty layer of no fruit where all the blossoms dropped, and finally a new layer where it seems the fruit has properly set.  The Tommy Toes didn't have this problem, they kept powering along all the while.

dichondra silver falls

I managed to find some nice big pots of Dichondra "silver falls".  I turned two of these:

Into eight of these:

I really like how they look - the silver is a great contrast to all of that dark green foliage and the wine-red of the autumn hydrangeas.  With luck by mid-summer they'll have grown long and thick over the edge of the bed.  I'm also thinking of planting some flowers in the beds until the hydrangeas grow up a bit - I'm thinking violas or maybe forget-me-nots.  What do you think?