The Garden of June Rains

We got quite a bit of rain yesterday. The Bay Area got more rain in June this year than it did in January. That hasn't happened since the Gold Rush. To commemorate, this morning the kitties got some supervised release.



The garden has gotten away from me. Ahem. I'm removing plants now, and doing lots of pruning. I'm not going to buy any plants in 2011.



Haha--just kidding. I'm sure I'll buy something. No plans to do so right now, however.



The buckeye didn't bloom this year, again. It has never bloomed. I see young buckeyes blooming all over the place...but not in my garden. I think it's because I've over-amended the soil with mulch and compost, so plants grows more leaves than flowers. Well, I'm done with that. Hopefully all this lush growth is depleting the soil and making everyone a little bit less...complacent.



Well, leaves are okay. I'm quite fond of branches and stems too.



Some clematises are on the way out. I have a couple vines making new buds right now. More on those later.



We have the last of the foxglove. Where I can, I'm letting them make seed. Unfortunately, the tall, expiring spikes tend to lean into the paths. That was fun for a while, but I'm over it. Snip, snip.



Dahlias are just coming in. Except for one plant, I grew all my dahlias from seed. In pots last year, this year most of them have been moved into the ground.



The garden has four passionflowers. Two are blooming: Passiflora sanguineolenta,



and P. citrina.



Meanwhile, the compost bin is getting a lot of action.

Second Spring

Warm weather and recent rain (half-inch yesterday, 2.5" from last week, not to mention the 120 gallons of supplemental watering I did using water from the rain barrels) have set off a growth spurt in the garden and polished everything to a clean green.











Tibouchina urvilleana seems particularly delighted.





Also fuchsia







And believe it or not, Rosa 'Honey Bouquet' has a dozen buds on it!



The mystery bulb I was having problems identifying on Bloom Day is a Nerine. Duh!



Spring wildflower seedlings are coming up everywhere





The LBBs still visit every day.



In fact they come several times a day.





The tomato plants are gone, but I'm leaving up the cages for visitors who need a perch.



There are some beautiful green leaves













But the buckeye's bare branches attest to the fact that this is not spring.



And the grape leaves are very clear about it.

The rain! The rain!

Our first substantial rainfall of the new season arrived this morning at 4 a.m. when remnants of Typhoon Melor blew in from Japan. Some parts of the Bay Area got 1 foot of rain, but San Francisco got much less than that.

My garden received 2.5", and the rain barrels filled up with 240 gallons of free water. What did I do but run right down and use 60 gallons of it for some directed deep soaking. Two inches of rain does not soak down very far. Move the top layer, and the ground beneath it is quite dry.

But when that top soil layer is thoroughly wetted, additional water penetrates deeply. I take advantage of that all winter long by using the rain barrels to supplement the actual rainfall. As far as the plants in my garden are concerned, every year is an El Niño.

I keep track of the rainfall on a piece of paper tacked on the wall in the garage.



We're a couple weeks ahead of where we were this time last year.

Along with the rain, strong winds bent the garden out of shape. I'll have to do some pruning and editing in the next few days.



In the meantime, I planted out more bulbs today, including recently obtained Dichelostemma and Watsonia.

On my way back inside, a single bright red grape leaf stopped me in my tracks.



It was already dark so the picture is blurry. Well my dad always says the best pictures are taken with the mind.

As nice as that idea is, it's still nice to have actual pictures you feel good about. It's been hard to do that with Miss Patty. Today I succeeded!

We had thunder and lightning this morning

And a little bit of rain.



Not enough to soak anything, but enough to notice.





Today is all overcast and cool, but summer is not over for another month.



I take this picture a lot. You know, I didn't intend to have purely yellow sunflowers. I bought 'Claret' seeds, but everything came up yellow. Argh!



When fall comes, I have lots of seedlings to plant out and/or give away... Nassella cernua, more of that purple columbine, Eriogonum grande, etc.



More Dahlia 'Bishops Children'. Some Verbascum and foxglove. Fuchsia. A few native trees I won't be able to keep, like Cercocarpus betuloides and Fraxinus dipetala. Those I will donate or give away.

I have a flat of Coyote Mint (Monardella villosa) I'd like to see blooming next summer.



Cantua buxifolia 'Hot Pants' will be a featured specimen here where the bamboo was, if everything works out.



And it will be interesting to see what this Echium pininana does. Will it flower next year, or not for awhile? I grew five of them from seed, and then I bought another packet of seed. No germination yet from the second packet. Frustrating.




ADDED: I wasn't going to post this part, because it's kind of whiny. But I suffer so much from raccoons, I deserve some sympathy. This is the kind of thing I've been waking up to a lot lately.

Please note that my fondness for you as a commenter is directly proportional to the quality and amount of your sympathy for me.