These are the flowers we had in the garden in mid-summer 2019, taken mainly on 16 January 2019. They're not all
overly pretty, but the purpose of the photos is to record what was in the garden at the
time.
One of the things that I discovered only slightly before these photos was that I wasn't
watering the garden enough. I had a similar problem last year, but I didn't recognize the
magnitude. I had had the sprinkler to run for 20 minutes per circuit, increasing to 30 in
hot weather. But now I'm up to an hour per circuit, and though it isn't obvious from the
photos, I think it's improving things.
Some things are just dead, though:
the Acer negundo that we coddled
this time last year, and one of the birches. The birch is trying to come back, but given that it
died in early spring when it was neither too cold, too hot nor too dry, I don't have much
hope. Even this time last year it was playing autumn:
The Paulownia kawakamii, on
the other hand, seems to be benefiting from the additional fertilizer, and it now growing a
little (though still far from the 3-5 m that it should be by this time). Here last year and
this year:
But the ones to the left of the big one have all died. This time lack of water can't be the issue.
They're in the overflow area from the tanks, so they may have been drowned. I don't see any
point in replacing them.
Last month's Kniphofia flower has
finished flowering and is in the process of maturing hundreds of seeds, but in its place no
less than 5 new flowers have popped up. Here four of them:
The Hibiscus rosa-sinensis
that I got from my uncle Max, and of which I have cloned many times, is currently not
flowering. It does that from time to time, and I'm not overly worried. The one that I
planted outside two months ago has recovered from the
shock and now looks about as good again as it did when I planted it. Then and now:
Some of
the flowers in the shade area are doing well. While we lost one of
the fuchsias that we bought two months
ago (proved not to be getting any water), the other one is looking quite happy, and compared
to this time last year the tree fern is also doing well: