Straw Bale Gardenning

 Squash and Beans

Tomatoes and more squash

Un-Potting

The view out my bedroom window is a work in progress, mostly because it's not my property. Nevertheless I've been planting stuff there for a couple years. First it was jade from up the hill and then some big agaves that Holly gave me. I figure in a couple more years it will be all filled up.


The jade is starting to turn red for the summer but it seems to be well established now. I water it a little through the dry months but less and less.


There are also some nice weeds growing. There's some fennel and mustard and some fuzzy glaucus plant.

It's popping up all over, even under my scrap pile.


This volunteer walnut will have to be moved soon. If it wasn't so close to the wall it could stay where the squirrel planted it.


This year I also have some plants that I bought at the Theodore Payne Spring sale. I was intending to put them somewhere on my hill but things are too in flux up there right now. I'd like to put in a couple of retaining walls before I plant too much. But in the mean time I have these plants in pots that are starting to suffer from the heat. I'd rather see them growing outside my window than watch them shrivel up.

This Cleveland Sage has already had some beautiful purple blooms. Hopefully next year they can feed my bees.



This Adenostoma is one of my favorites. It looks a little spindly right now but as it grows it will form a nice mound with arching branches. These little side sprouts are new.


Ceanothus 'Dark Star'


I figure this White Sage, Salvia apiana can fill in the space between the two big agaves.


The Cleveland Sage can grow up next to the smaller agave.


This is Artemisia californica 'Montara,' Montara Sagebrush. I didn't know it smelled so good. I've seen some big shaggy clumps of this growing in Debs Park.


This fence lizards still seemed a little groggy in the morning cool. He didn't move far even when I started digging.


While I had the shovel out I figured I do something about the front hill too. I pulled out all the vinca in round two of our ongoing battle and even pulled out some jade to make room for the little Ceanothus 'Dark Star.'


I also like to see this gorgeous agave.


Now that the vinca is gone this new branch on the euphorbia is uncovered. I didn't even know it was there. Samantha gave me these pieces a couple years ago. The two downhill pieces are making a go of it but the top two still seem to be struggling. Maybe the bottom two get more water.


The hill looks cute again, although it could use some mulch.


All it took was pulling out about 30 pounds of vinca and jade.

Bees

Last weekend I got the final coat of paint on the bee box and this weekend I was hoping to get it positioned somewhere up on the hill. I needed to have some kind of base that would be sturdy but also impregnable to ants. Apparently ants can do a number on bees so a lot of people have legs that can be set inside containers that hold something to prevent the ants from crossing.

Azalea and Marc and Max have very slick pipes that screw into the base of box. They look great and can be adjusted to make the box level, but when is saw how much they cost (almost $24 for all the pieces) and after spending so much for my SWCs I decided I needed to find another solution.

I scavenged around the yard and found a couple 2x4s that were long enough to do something with. I made a frame that was 16"x 6' with a couple cross braces in the middle. I figure I can fit at least two hives on here or maybe three. I always thought that bees were territorial and needed to be separated but they seem to do OK closer together. This way I don't have to build a base for each hive.


I had some leftover rebar from building the stairs.

So I drilled holes in the bottom of the base and pounded the legs in with a hammer

The whole contraption seems pretty solid. I could stand on it. I hope that I'm heavier than a couple bee hives.


This is my finger. I just thought it was a pretty color orange.


I found a place on the hill that is fairly out of the way but also easy to access.

I should have known any work on the hill would require digging.


I finally managed to get it level and firmly in place.


Now all I need is the bees.

More Pruning (2)

So I have a little update on my recent pruning. I had pruned half of the bushes in the front yard hoping that they would come back a little fuller but I was worried about doing the whole run of bushes. I didn't want to spend the whole summer with no screening from the street. That was two and half months ago and the bushes have already sent out a lot of new growth:


Here you can see one of the branches that I cut and the new shoots coming out.


I decided to do the rest of the bushes. The ones that I had left alone hadn't started to send out any new growth so I figured I still had a chance to clean them up.

It looks pretty dense but there are only leaves on the ends of 5 and 6 foot branches. I was afraid that if I let them grow for another year they would be all branch and very little leaf.


I got a new tool that made the job a lot easier. It's like a long one-handled lopper. It extended my reach about 5 feet.

I still had to crawl under the bushes on the downhill side to be able to reach most of the branches. Here's what it looked like when I started:


Half of it was dead stuff that I had to clear out. The fire department will be happy.


Here's where I stopped. I cut about half of it out. I figure that I can do the other half next year after it's filled in a little.


Here's the before again from the top:


And the after:

It feels much better. The old looming branches were looking a little Grey Gardens.

The area that I cut is a little difficult to see in this photo from the street, but it's directly below the palm tree. I would like to have the bushes be much more compact and not cantilevering out over the street.


I also decided to clean up the bushes on the side yard. These grow so fast that it's hard to keep up with them. One day I would like to replace the fence that is slowly sagging into the neighbors yard. I think the bushes have contributed to the degradation of the fence. In strong winds they really whip back and forth and have managed to pull one of the fence posts out of its footing.


It's also covering my wall planters that are hanging from the fence.


It looks so different now. You can see more of the view and the whole yard feels more open.


One day I'll tackle the rest of it but I need to get on a ladder in my neighbor's yard to reach most of it. I might be easier to do once the old fence comes down.

More Pruning

Since I had the pruning shears out I thought it might be a good time to tackle the hedge in the front yard. It's evergreen but it seems that winter is still its slowest time. In the spring it puts out a lot of growth then blooms in the summer and develops seeds in the fall.

Although I haven't identified this plant yet I love it for holding up the hill. It is growing vigorously and the trunks seem rock solid. Right after these plants the hill drops off at almost 90 degrees. I guess it's more of a cliff than a hill.

I didn't want to tax the plants but they have grown so much in the past couple years that they are tall and leggy. They are shading everything beneath them and don't screen my yard from the street as well as they used to. I'm hoping that with some aggressive pruning they will growing in fuller and a little lower.

My photos are horrible so it's hard to tell what's what. That's part of the problem for me. The hedge is consuming the magnolia sapling and hiding all of the the other plants growing here.

After the pruning you can see that there's actually a palm tree growing on the cliff as well. I think this is a volunteer from the large tree on the empty lot next door. I haven't seen much of it until now.

You can also see some of the aeoniums that I planted a couple years ago. Since they've been in the dirt that have probably quadrupled in size. They are surging over the little curb and trying to occupy as much space as possible. I'll probably have to do something about them next year, but for now I like how lush they look. In the Summer one of them turns much redder and the whole bed gets a lot more texture. There are also some aloes in there but I may have to move them. They don't seem as competitive as some of the other plants.

It looks a little sparse right now but hopefully it will leaf out soon. I think I might have to coax it along over the Summer with more pruning. Last year it grew long spindly branches with only a few leaves. I would like to encourage it to become more dense and not grow so tall.





I also decided to cut the bloom stalk off of one of the foxtail agaves. I was waiting for it to grow some bulbils, little plantlets that I could propogate, but it never happened. I got sick of looking at the ratty brown thing.

The stump already has some little sprouts coming out, so hopefully it will soon be covered in new little plants. And now I don't have to duck under it to move around the yard.