My Garden Diary

Spread some gypsum in front, over a patch of pink clover that has not been growing well. The soil there gets enough moisture, but it's heavy paste. The gypsum should improve the tilth of the clay.

Spread output from my office shredder as a mulch on the camellia bed. The bed is almost completely mulched now.

The pothos (Epipremnum pinnatum 'Aureum') cuttings (27—Aug) established a good root system. Roots were visible at the edges of the potting mix when I tapped it out of the plastic pot. I discarded the parent plant, which was quite badly rootbound. Then, I used the pot — which is in a macramé hanger in the breakfast room — and fresh potting mix to pot up the cuttings.

Flushed the drain lines for the surface drains in the back yard.

Gathered the tiny needles that have fallen from my neighbor's Italian cypress. In some places, the accumulation was 2-3 inches thick. Some of the needles were partially composted. I used them to mulch the part of the parkway where cinquefoil is struggling to get established.

The dwarf tangelo is severely infested with leaf miner, which is almost defoliating the tree. Although I've stopped feeding the other dwarf citrus until spring (because night frosts are only two months away), I fed the tangelo. Then I used a systemic insecticide as a soil drench. I hope the tree recovers before winter weather slows its growth.

Had the red fescue lawn mowed in back. I have this done every fall so that I can then rake leaves off it. Otherwise, the leaves accumulate and smother the grass. I had the service save some of the clippings for me, to add to my compost pile.

The sickly Phalaenopsis in my greenhouse window (1 Sep) finally died. I think I'll replace it, but I'll wait a while.

The climbing 'Fourth of July' rose in front finally decided to grow. Maybe, it's a result of increasing the amount of water it gets. I had to tie some of the shoots to the supporting wire.

Trimmed the red fescue (Festuca rubra) in the back lawn along the walkways adjacent to the circular and teardrop beds. I also trimmed it from around the plants growing near the edge of the lawn.

Trimmed the edge of the teardrop bed. Besides cutting and pulling out long shoots of pink clover, I also trimmed lower growth of the Cuphea hyssopifolia. I don't mind when the Cuphea grows out over the walkway, but I want some space between the decomposed granite and the lowest branches.

Baited and set the cage trap for squirrels. I'm finding a number of half-eaten fruit under the pineapple guava (Feijoa sellowiana). The fruit still on the bush are too high up for a raccoon to reach from the ground, and the branches are too thin to support the weight of a raccoon. Thus, I suspect squirrels, of which there are many in my neighborhood.

Trimmed the edges of the walkway in back between the lawn and the rose bed.

Several plants appear to have chlorosis. These include the tea tree in back, despite many applications of acidic fertilizers (e.g., 21 Aug, 11 Sep). Since this sometimes indicates a heavy soil that does not drain well, I gave all the affected plants a heavy dose of gypsum along with lighter amounts of sulfur and iron sulfate. I avoided the use of ammonium sulfate or any other form of nitrogen because new growth on the affected plants would be damaged by frost in about two months.

Pink clover can climb. At least, it's climbing from the rose bed onto the slough wall at the bottom of My Hill. It's also climbing into the Camellia sasanqua and other shrubs in that bed. I cleared the pink clover out of all those shrubs.

Swept a bucket of seeds from The Tree off the patio.

Divided another clump of bearded iris. This one is either 'Henry Shaw' (white) or 'Study in Midnight' (dark purple, almost black). The two grow adjacent to each other, and I can never remember which is which. As with the 'Wenatchie Skies' iris (14 Sep), I replanted three rhizomes and put aside the best of the remaining rhizomes to give away.

The tomato vine (3 Mar) turned yellow and stopped bearing. This is a sign of a disease, so I removed and trashed the plant.

In the rose bed, I want the pink clover to be the dominant ground cover. I dug up three clumps of cinquefoil from that bed and replanted them in the parkway in front.

Divided the clump of 'Wenatchie Skies' bearded iris growing in the back lawn near the patio (next to the gardenia). I have two other clumps to divide, but I was too tired to do them today.

With fall approaching, the prime time for planting is at hand. The air is beginning to cool but the soil remains warm. This promotes root growth while not stressing foliage. Rearranged and planted wax leaf begonias around the tangelo in back — to restore the pattern that I had before The Hill was repaired — and began to plant them along the brick walkway in front. This involved using rooted cuttings (10 Aug) and one store-bought plant. I took more cuttings.

Also planted the rooted cuttings of eugenia (Syzygium paniculatum, 10 Aug & 20 Apr) in front to extend the hedge along the east side of the lawn to the sidewalk.

Trimmed the Hahn's ivy (Hedera helix 'Hahn's') in front, both on the mailbox and around the Liquidambar tree.

Trimmed the pink clover that had grown out onto the walkway from the teardrop bed in back.

Weeded the walkway in back, between the circular and east beds. Larger weeds cannot get established in the walkways because there is ground cloth below the decomposed granite. But this area was infested with spotted spurge (Euphorbia maculata), which is shallow rooted.

Finished weeding the east bed itself. While the west, rose, and teardrop beds have dense ground covers — either cinquefoil (Potentilla neumanniana) or pink clover (Persicaria capitata) — that very effectively compete with weeds, the camellia, east, and circular beds have significant bare soil. I plan to mulch heavily with leaves in those latter beds to control weeds. The mulch will also keep the soil cool and conserve water.

Now, all beds in back and the entire front have been weeded. Only My Hill remains to be cleared, something I really don't want to do because of how steep it is.

I have several Philodendron growing together in water in a large glass bottle in an upstairs bathroom. Since they otherwise have no nutrients at all in the water, I occasionally top up the water with runoff from feeding the orchids. I may have overdone this since the water in the bottle is beginning to smell bad and many older leaves are yellowing. Today, I took two cuttings to root in plain water.

Two of the dwarf citrus in back — the 'Eureka' lemon and the 'Robertson' navel orange — are badly infested with leaf miner. A report by the University of California (Davis) on this pest suggests the use of imidacloprid (a systemic insecticide) as a soil drench, which I applied this afternoon. This chemical is apparently harmless to vertebrates. Neither the label nor the UCD report contain any warning against use of imidacloprid on fruit trees. Indeed, both list various fruit trees on which it can be used to control other insects. The label mentions the use of imidacloprid against flat-head borers but does not mention controlling those destructive pests on peach trees; I plan to call the manufacturer about this.