Fw: Late summer/fall flowers

I believe this was accidentally posted to me, Amy

I would try very hard NOT to make mountains of work, nor to use 
squillions of gallons of water tyring to defy the natural conditions 
of where you live. I'd try to modify things so that all is easily 
managed through the drought and heat so that you do not kill yourself 
from heat stroke, and I'd try to keep the garden neat, with a varied 
background of greens, lawn still green if you must have one for 
pragmatic reasons like having children that need somewhere to play 
and I'd try reaslly hard to have colour accents in big pots and tubs 
at the key points in your garden.

This is what we do here where we get no rain at all for the hot, hot, 
hot summer from early December until the end of April - 5 months of 
heat and drought. Our focus is not on a green, green, green garden 
overflowing un-naturally with flowers. We focus on the swimming pool 
and on several shady bowers, pergola covered patios and shady spots 
made by big trees. The lawn - really semi-wild grass - goes yellow. 
We have planted a background screen of shrubs with varied green 
folaige - varied in shape, in colour of green and in light reflecting 
qualities. Then by the areas which we use and pass by every day we 
plant up collections of pots with all sorts of plants, by colour 
schemes, by spectacular foliage combinations, by need for shade or 
sun and concentrate our garden efforts on these. All the watering is 
concentrated in a few spots - easy to do night and/ or morning and no 
threats of irrigation systems clogging and needing perpetual fixing. 
For late summer colour we use Oriental lilies, Hostas, hardy 
ferns, Vireya rhododendrons, hybrid Echeverias and species 
Echeverias, bromelaids, a wild assortment of succulents and 
caudiciform plants, rhiozomatous begonias - mostly the very old 
fashioned tough pot plants our grandmother's kept on their porches 
and in their shadehouses. The trick is in how daringly they are put 
together. Lots of lovely pots to choose from too that build the 
colour scheme with contrasts or co-ordinates. The fun thing is you 
can change the planting ideas at will - right now, at once if you 
have to, or you can plan new combinations for next year in advance.

I find trying to grow perennials etc through summer just goes against 
Nature. It can be done but the results always suffer from the impact 
of all those long months of living under the stress of super high 
dehydration/ expiration rates, day and night temps that are 
un-natural for the plants, soil temps that are way too high even with 
mulching and frequent watering etc.

Now that I have accepted the limitations to growth imposed by my 
climate and environment I am having a ball experimenting with ways to 
use and combine what will grow here relatively easily. Try it.

regards

trevor n
-----------------
Trevor Nottle
Garden Writer, Historian,     
Lecturer and Consultant 
       
    'Walnut Hill'                          
     5 Walker St       
     Crafers SA 5152 
     AUSTRALIA

Phone: +618 83394210
Fax:   +618 83394210
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