The Sweet Smell of Rain: The Residents of the Rare and Unusual Border Let Loose!

Oh no it didn’t! Oh yes it did! Briefly. And there is a strong, albeit not guaranteed [and when it comes to rain, we really haven’t been guaranteed anything so far this year!] opportunity for more in the next 24 hours…

I’ve been trying, like everyone else to stay atop the watering situation which for many has gone from bad to worse! I am the first to say that my whole body cringes at the thought of my next water bill, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, I simply refuse to stand by and watch the ‘children’ suffer. Following the partial watering ban guidelines to the mark, I have thus far been able to keep the borders looking green for the most part. I noticed only this evening that my beloved Acer campestre ‘Carnival’ is showing signs of browning on some of his foliage. Methinks it has more to do with the hot blazing sun we’ve been privy to in the past week. Guess as a doting parent I need to up the SPF protection – leave the protective overzealous growth on Cotinus ‘Grace’ for the remainder of the season! Its just that she can get so out of control, like a giant Octopus whose tentacles obstruct any chance of entry to the Walk of Hidden Treasures!

I was up early this morning, wanting to get some potting up done – something that remains a relatively scarce occurrence for me. So many of my garden blogging friends extol the virtues of adding potted specimens to my postage stamp sized property, and while in the past I’ve added one or two, this morning I actually potted up three to add to the existing three. It surprises me that I’ve been so tardy as every additional pot means another new plant! [Yes, in this case I only plant one plant per pot – unlike the layering effect that constitutes my perennial borders!

Loree, whose awesome blog is Danger Garden, was the instrumental force in my deciding that I needed Agave parryi var. truncata, small though he is at the moment. Anything with foliage or flowers of such a stunning powdery blue….. even if I forget his spines at the most inopportune of moments!

Agapanthus ‘Back In Black’ joined the Zonal Denial retinue after gardening friend Paul mentioned that he successfully overwinters a collection in his Elora garden. A case of ‘If he can do it, so can I!’ with the twist being that I am not yet brave enough to leave mine in the ground just yet!

I am somewhat concerned that the foliage of Acanthus ‘Whitewater’ seems to have reverted back to plain green. I had to remove a few of the larger leaves that had browned in the heat, and its subsequent new growth sadly lacks the, well the lack of pigmentation! I hope that when it flowers, it will retain the unusual pink and white spikes that combined with the splashed foliage, make the post on this plant, the most visited on my entire blog!

Here’s some of the kids, specifically those that reside in the Rare and Unusual border cavorting and frolicking after the rain shower!

  The four photos above make up as close to a panoramic view as is permissible in a border that might be 5m in length by 1.5m deep! Of all the borders on the property it is also the best example of what close gardening friends refer to as ‘his bloody layering effect!’ when it comes to fitting as many plants as humanly possible into a rather small space. OG [Outlaw Gardener] refers to it as exuberance, a phrase I might just have to ‘borrow’ as a line of defense when future visitors are introduced to the property! Any guess as to how many plants actually reside here?