Cathie's Garden

I needed to run out to Cathie's house on another errand, but a side perk of that is that I knew she has a very nice garden. This was the first time we'd actually met, although we've been conversing via Facebook. She took one of my least attractive house plants before I went hiking. It's still really leggy, but it's very happy.

She has a whole patch of red Crocosmia. I tried to grow this once with no succes. It looks best in a mass planting like this one.

She also has a few stands of hollyhocks. I prefer these, the old-fashioned single ones. For a while the double ones were hugely popular, but I'm glad to see more of this kind now.

The deck planters are phenomenal! They are mostly Coleus and Bidens 'Stellar Blanco.' (white star). I thought at first they were Bacopa, but the leaves aren't right. You don't want to run into the wild Bidens species in the fall. They are the classic "stick-tights" with the two prongs like devil's-horns! I think the other flowers are a petunia.

I loved the hot color palette of her front bed. And what I really like is the little solar fountain she has in the birdbath. She says the birds love the splashing. You can barely see it squirting in the picture, but it sent water almost 2 feet in the air. I think my bath is too small for this, but it's definitely cool!

She must spend every minute gardening. She also has a pristine vegetable garden, all fenced about 10 feet tall. This is only maybe a quarter of it.

Now for my favorites. She is actually growing a lemon tree. I had no idea you could get away with that here. These are the flowers. Behind these, there were very (very) tiny lemons forming on the faded blossoms. Actually you can see one just to the right and below the center.

This plant was new to me, or at least I never noticed it enough to learn the name. It's a Petunia relative, Calibrachoa from central South America. The red and yellow together is stunning! This planting can also be seen in the picture with the birdbath.

Last night, my brain was just racing with ideas for my current project. I decided it was stupid to lie still and try to remember everything I was thinking of, so I got up and turned the comupter back on. Worked until 5 am. Slept until 10:30. That was fine, since we were having a thunderstorm anyway!

I also got a calendar widget installed on my desktop. That was WAY more difficult than it should have been. The Google one is apparently no longer available. I finally found one I like, although I haven't managed to customize the categories yet. I can only take so much frustration in one day.

See Margaret's Garden