Rhett doesn’t usually garden with me. But today I was clearing out the Mondo grass bed in the middle of my yard and he sat with me. Then he decided to come up and flop on the Mondo grass. He’s not the main reason it’s so patchy, but he’s a contributor.

A bit later, he came up to me and looked me right in the face and sniffed me. I think he gets concerned when I get really sweaty. 

“You’re stinky. Perhaps you should come in now?”

Every time I see this I start swearing like the Dad in “A Christmas Story”.

Every time.

This got caught 1 day before the bag ban was enacted. 1 DAY!

It’s the mowing time of year. So that’s what I did on my lunch break. I actually saw my lizard friend today. I’m aware she’s there most of the time. Lots of rustling in the bushes, but she doesn’t usually come out. I guess the lawn mower freaked her out.

Big lizard. Hopefully living in the flower bed with Spanish daggers will keep her safe from cats. Damn cats eating my lizards. Although I can’t be too down on them. Because I’m pretty sure they’re the vector for getting this sedge into my backyard.

It’s really starting to spread back there. I have some out of focus pictures of my octillo. 

Admit it. Part of the reason you come here is to find out how badly the pictures I take today are going to be. How about this fantastic picture of the ground with out-of-focus Shrimp plant?

This would kind of be an impressive photo if I was trying to get a nice picture of the bedstraw.

But finally a decent picture of my nicely mowed lawn and the giant oak tree that is the main reason we bought this house.

Here’s hoping for a deluge tonight!

So I’m just going for broke on posting lately. But I really enjoyed Pam’s post today. And when horrible things happen in the world I really enjoy my garden. And maybe I should be inside writing. Trying to make sense of it. But I don’t have as much as a political fire as I used to.

And gardening is one place that is my solace from politics. Even though I have tons of thoughts about organic gardening, and land use, and pesticides, and social justice. I get a lot of peace from my garden and maybe there’ll be a time for ranting about my thoughts. But I’m just enjoying the peace.

So here’s one of my favorite foliage plants. 

Horseherb. I let it spread in my beds. It creates such a nice soft bed of green. I’ll probably pull it out eventually, but it’s such a nice filler. It feels cool and southern. Fecund and gothic*. It reminds me of sitting under a tree on a hot afternoon. And that kind of peace is something that seems really attractive right now.

* Speaking of Gothic I was talking to KathyAnnie about her style and she said Gothic. I love the idea of having a Gothic gardening style. I highly recommend it for those of you complaining about having too much shade. EMBRACE THE DARKNESS. Roses, and vines, and tortured, twisting trees…

This is my first bloom day. That should tell you something about my ability to deal with scheduled events. I usually fail.

Perhaps I need to set a bunch of google reminders to get me to remember.

I usually do that by setting an email reminder 1 day before an event, 1 hour before the event, and a popup 5 minutes before the event. That mostly gets me places.

If these pictures look a lot nicer, I’m using the Cymera app on my phone now. It seems to be helping a lot. But doesn’t keep me from taking bad pictures like this one.

Wrong focus! * sigh *

Me Manic? Perhaps. 3 posts in one day. Whatever.

I went out gardening which I really needed. All my free time has been filled with BuyPlayTix and my theater company’s next play “The Brothers Merlin”. So I made time today.

Do you have that problem where you don’t really intend to do a project and then it just sort of happens? I went out today to weed the front yard. I got sidetracked cutting some suckers off a stump. Then I remembered I had borrowed one of my father-in-law’s (many) chainsaws.

So I cut down the stump. Several moved stones, divided Mondo grass, and mulch smoothing later and voila! The after. 

I apologize again, wholeheartedly, for the lack of before shots.

I was just supposed to be weeding today,

And mostly the weeding went normally. Until I got by the rose buses. I was about to pull a weed out when I noticed it was a rose bush. Where I had pulled out a dead rose bush the year before. Huh.

It’s a bit hard to see, but if you look in between the two bigger rosebushes there’s a tiny rosebush. It is way too evenly spaced to have occured naturally.

It’s a Jesus rose bush! Back from the dead. And not even one my mother gave me.

I also attempted to transplant some ice plant babies.

Go babies go!

Man, I’ve been meaning to do a blog post for so long. I have a backlog on my camera. One thing that’s happened since the recent rain is *KA POW*

I have never seen a feather grass this tall. It’s huge!I expect it start shambling around the yard ala Uncle Fester. 

Perhaps I should buy it a pair of glasses and a nice brown derby.

And on a similar day I found this fantastic little guy. I love moths. The hummingbird moths have been all over the dianthus, but I can’t get a picture of them. Too hummingbird like. And as you know by now, my photography skills are substandard. It’s genetic. Just be glad the thing I’m describing is in the picture.

Isn’t this lady cool though? She looks almost Plasticine.

I think my favorite part of having a xeric yard is suddenly becoming aware of all these super-cool bugs, animals, and birds I had no clue existed.

So I was dividing some Liripoe the other day. Also because of the rain. It had suddenly become like 52 plants in a 4” square area. I think it looks pretty nice.

Anyway I pulled out some feather grass that was in this side of the bed and transporting it to the middle of the bed where nothing was growing and *clink*. What the? *scraaaaape *. My trowel hit brick. So apparently part of the reason the tree doesn’t grow so well in the flowerbed is this:

I haven’t fully unearthed it. Had to get the monkeys to bed. I guess this was a plant stand?

It’s now a plant stand. At least until I pull those bricks out. Always something interesting to dig out of this garden.

Most of it brick.

And finally a not so great picture of the pomegranate tree in my neighbors yard. It may be in their yard, but most of the beauty comes arching over the fence into my lovely sunshine. I could definitely see adding another one of these. The fruit and blooms are spectacular.

Back to the weeding today. And trying to figure out what to do about my Lantana… man my Lantanta is ugly right now. I’ll snap a picture as long as you don’t judge me.