July 18, 2024
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Last week we had a surprise rain shower — what joy! Afterward I walked through the garden, imagining the plants were feeling the joy too.
In the side garden, the string lights on the fence came on as daylight faded away. Golden thryallis makes a bushy, flowering hedge by the gate, and ‘Winter Gem’ boxwood balls and ‘Everillo’ sedge add interest along the path. This secluded, shady space is a favorite lounging spot for the neighborhood deer, especially during fawn season.
At other times of the year, it’s a good lounging spot for me and a friend, thanks to a hanging chair and bench.
This is my happiest ‘Everillo’ sedge — it’s huge! It’s surrounded by a Mediterranean fan palm, prostrate Japanese plum yew, and a squid agave in a carved-limestone planter.
In the hellstrip, ‘Bright Edge’ yucca in a steel pipe planter — one of three — stands tall enough to create a little screening.
Texas sotol makes a sunburst of toothy foliage.
‘Amistad’ salvia adds royal-purple flowers that hummingbirds adore.
In the driveway bed, golden thryallis makes a friendly screen to hide neighboring cars.
In the gravel courtyard by the front door, a whale’s tongue agave displays cupped, pale-blue leaves tipped with brown spines. The rutting deer went after it last fall, so I’ll need to devise protection for it by September. Behind it, a flowering ‘Brakelights’ hesperaloe has escaped deer-noshing thanks to its elevated position in a steel pipe. Texas sotol grows in back, slightly elevated in an old tractor rim, with an Anacacho orchid tree that’s leaning and needs pruning.
Overhead view of the whale’s tongue agave. What a beautiful plant.
You can never have too many! I’ve got another whale’s tongue agave in the stock-tank planter in the circle garden. The woolly stemodia that surrounds it was looking gorgeous all summer, but all of a sudden it’s showing some stress, with thin, browning patches. Hopefully it will recover.
There’s always something to puzzle over, am I right?
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Digging Deeper
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