One Jooly morning...

The Japanese blood grass is finally showing its color, and the Sedum Neon is getting it's gold coat. The sun is really bringing on the other blooms as well. I'm especially happy with the Cupid's Dart (Catananche caerulea) I found in the 4" size and planted a drift. There is red yarrow behind, and also the plumes of Sea Lavender, which gets a bit overblown this time of year. I plant it for it's large leaves, and it comes back every time. Beyond this garden area is the stairway to the beach.

The Sun's Bounty

Thanks to a week of sun, the Verbena Bonarensis is finally blooming, and the Japanese Blood Grass is showing its color. The Verbena Bonarensis was planted to give some height, but also to not hide the alligator log behind it. The blood grass is the only thing that has never left my garden since I planted it in 2005. It sort of gets moved around, covered up, etc. but always comes back. I can't plant enough of it!

It's crab season! This is some of my yard art made from horse shoes and a shovel. Yep, we had crab salad for dinner, crab quiche for breakfast? crab melts for lunch? No, it's the 4th of July; give me a burger! We're having more sunshine and a bit warmer than Seattle area, so my yard will be blooming by the time we have our grandbabies play date on the 17th.

With so many gray days, I'm really appreciating the blue sky when I see what it does to the water. Here's the new pathway to my sitting rock. I've made it a little more "hide-a-way" too, so a good place to contemplate, or think of nothing at all! I made the fence from 2' stakes that have an aging color wash and inexpertly wired them together. So this one of the watercourses to catch runoff instead of the water washing away soil. At least that's the plan! And since it's flat, I'm hoping the path itself doesn't get washed away as well.

Great to have a sitting rock when grandkids visit and want to watch the fish jump. This was taken late last summer (2009) when the humpie salmon were running, and a neighbor took his racing boat out. We live in a boating community that has 2 canals accessing the Saratoga Passage.

Here's a close up of that Sedum Neon. It actually glows! The plant behind it in the pot is a Podocarpus alpinus blue gem, and is supposed to be a salt water tolerant evergreen shrub, but we'll just try one first...and it is underplanted with sun roses.

Winter storms

These are some pictures of a storm in January, 2010. As you can see, the waves are pretty powerful and can wash away plants quickly. I try to plant things that have deep roots, and reinforce with rocks and logs to keep the soil in place, but sometimes it isn't enough. After the storm, we shovel the dirt back on the berm and hope for the best. I've tried to channel the streams by reinforcing the sides of my walkways to the seawall, so the water flows down to our patio and out to the side lots, where it dissipates as soon as the tide goes out.