first flax

For a week and more, a scarlet flax (linum grandiflorum rubrum) has been open beside the drive. The godzilla, moreover, is still blooming, though only because I haven't quite finished demolishing it; I'm planning that for next weekend. The teucrium is doing very nicely, as is the solanum; the plumbago are looking a bit scruffy, especially the southern one, which needs either more nitrogen or a funeral. The catharanthus behind the house are also still in bloom, despite a frost a couple of nights ago. Did I mention that I've shorn all the perovskia?

There is still no sign of gophers.

I spent this morning doing a little weeding and a lot of thinning, mostly of gilia and clarkia in the front lawn. Then I transplanted various things into the back garden. Under the south wall of the house I put some anagallis and an osteospermum; under the fence I'll try some phacelia campanularia. I've had mixed success transplanting these in the past, but now there are enough of them growing in the East Zone that I can afford to take risks. I also shifted one ipheion a few metres eastwards to make their distribution a little more uniform. A week or two ago I sowed my third installment of snap peas.

I can see a few, very few, Johnny-jump-up seedlings, one probable nemophila, and any amount of ipomopsis. I've been sowing some red yarrow in the front corner, and have decided not to tolerate eschscholzia there. While taking out those and some other weeds, I uprooted one gaura entirely, but no matter; it had siblings. The 'Red Elf' escallonia by the front gate looks healthy, with new bright green leaves; it's hard to tell what the loropetalum is doing. The new grevillea and berberis have at least not died yet. The alstroemeria by the back gate now has two stalks in bloom, and the one behind the house is pushing up some good shoots. There are still some 'Ziva' open at the SE corner and west edge, and today I saw a shoot of a spring daffodil. The zillions of leonotis seedlings are still there in the Zone, and the two that I transplanted to the back of the house look healthy; the bigger leonotis in the corner lawn has also survived the frost (so far) thanks to a hefty mulch. The cistus are looking bigger and stronger than before.

The plum tree needs pruning and I still have no idea how to do this, any more than I did last year or the year before. Somehow I'll manage.

And then there were ... ?

Ten days ago I dug out some tunnels under the corner lawn until I reached a Y junction, then set two gopher traps in the tunnels I hadn't dug. An hour or two later, I found a little rodent dead on the walkway by the lemon tree, looking as if a cat had surprised it. Two days later I took out the traps, expecting that they would both be empty. One of them was. Since then, I haven't seen any more mounds or signs of tunnelling. So perhaps the garden is safe for planting again.

In celebration whereof I've planted three shrubs today. One was a Berberis thunbergii var. atropurpurea (please pardon my spelling) in place of the Camellia sasanqua, which looked pretty dead. The second was a Grevillea lavandulacea "Penola" in the place to which I had tried to transplant my previous Grevillea. The third is an unidentified Ceanothus hybrid in the place where the C. thyrsiflorus "Skylark" was also looking very dead.

Of the new daylilies, one, "New Testament", has bloomed, though the flowers did not look good. That could have been because of the lateness of the season: I hear that pink daylilies need a lot of sun to look their best. Besides that, the Godzilla still has two flowers, and the Solanum and Plumbago are still looking great. The original Epilobium looked dead and I've taken it out, but one of its children has bloomed prettily. The "Ziva" in the south-east corner are nearly over; those along the western edge are doing nicely. The Teucrium fruticans looks wonderful. The Perovskia don't, and I am progressively trimming them back, though the Godzilla keeps me busy that way. There are more morning glory seedlings than anyone could count, and plenty of sweet peas; my first planting of snap peas is well above ground.