Re: A little gardening

Hi, Cyndi--Your bay tree. Is it the Greek one, Laurus nobilis, or the California one, Umbellularia californica? I grew both in Sacramento and found the native much more drought tolerant. Flavor is nearly identical. 

On Nov 13, 2007, at 11:49 AM, Johnson Cyndi D Civ 95 CG/SCSRT wrote:
I did actually get some gardening done over 3 days...not much, but some. 
All the patio plants are in the greenhouse now.  Did I mention that I
managed somehow to fry the bay tree again? I think something went wrong
with the automatic watering, maybe a couple months ago, and it really
dried out before I noticed. Poor thing, almost all its leaves are
crunchy, but it doesn't look as bad as the time it got cooked in the
greenhouse, so we'll see if it recovers. It's been a little while, and I 
don't see signs of regrowth yet but it is fall, and the stems are still
green and flexible.
One of the geraniums lost a number of big branches when I pulled it in
through the greenhouse door, so I am going to take cuttings and start
those.
I did a little clean-up in the veggie garden too, couldn't do too much
because once again we filled up all the debris containers cleaning up
after the horses and sheep. So I dug up what's left of the pepper plants and tossed them. We still have not had a frost, so the plants are alive, 
but since I let the chickens out into the garden there is not much left
of them. I left one jalapeno there, had a thought that I might try
cutting it back and digging it up to put in the greenhouse.  If it's
still there next weekend I probably will.
I might go to the garden store and see if there's anything pretty to put 
in there over the winter, but I'm feeling broke.  It cost us over $100
to put gas in the pickup and we had to buy hay, oh my. Ouch. We'll keep
the sheep through next spring when they lamb, but since we have no
grazing we have to buy hay, I'm not sure it's worth it.  Same with the
chickens although there we might be able to let them roam more, they
could pick up some food from the horse pens.
Anyway back to gardening. The dry garden is still looking okay. A few of the penstemons have died. They are pretty short-lived for perennials and 
I'm getting a little bored with buying replacements so I might go for
something else next spring. Salvia greggii and germander sage are
blooming happily, some of the Russian sage too. The front still needs a 
bulldozer and the teahouse garden is doing okay except for whatever is
killing off the creeping thyme. I would like to rearrange some plants
in there as well, but I can wait on it. My rhododendron doesn't look
like it will recover. Husband refuses to believe that one week without
water could have killed it, and I agree it doesn't seem like common
sense...but it was fine before we turned off the sprinklers, and
completely wilted the next week. Maybe something ate all its roots.

Cyndi

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Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.1 N, 82.4 W
Hardiness Zone 10
Heat Zone 10
Sunset Zone 25
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
Maximum 100 F [38 C]

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