very HOT

... enough to crisp the petals on the daylilies. Well, 'Custard Candy' still does quite well, as does 'Ginger Bread Man'. The newer ones are a mixed bag: 'Scarlet Orbit' is quite wonderful, 'Quannah' pretty good, NT a disappointment, AAPlum quite gorgeous when backlit by the sun, and 'Cade Stewart' a little too soon to tell but perhaps good. Not sure yet about 'Velvet Rose'. Soon I'll take some out and order new ones. Not in that order.

In the southern Zone, some of the sweet peas are coming back, to my surprise. The new hibiscus has not bloomed again, or not that I could see. The gaillardia is still on the job; one of the ipomopsis behind the house has bloomed, a fairly pure yellow by comparison with the ones at the NW corner, which are mostly mixed pink and yellow. The leonotis all seem to be growing nicely. The plumbago are gradually adding blooms at higher altitudes.

The plum tree started bearing two or three days ago, helped by the heat, I imagine.

summer flowers

The perovskia are now clealry, if shyly, in bloom, and some of the ipomopsis are not shy at all. The teucrium is effectively over, and the berberis seems ... stuck. There's even a cobweb on it. The "Durban" canna is sending up one strong-looking stem, but there's no action from the other spring bulbs. The godzilla continues to sprawl, and I've hacked off some of its outlying stems. The lavender are still in bloom, as is the malacothamnus.

The hibsicus I bought last weekend must have been in bud, because it bloomed yesterday. The burgundy-red bloom was hard to spot against the maroon foliage! There's one sweet pea trying to grow in the southern Zone where snap peas used to be; I wonder how it will last with no water. The solanum looks very well, as do the clarkia, though a few of those are withering. Of the flax and eschscholzia a sturdy few linger on; I've been harvesting seed from the latter, and must do the same for the former.

The santolina has lots of its little yellow flowers, and is sprawling more than I like. The anagallis are sparse but visible. Under the south fence, one of the Stella d'Oro put up a single bloom a few days ago. The antirrhinum seems over, as is the alstroemeria under the back of the house.

new stuff

The lantana that I said was coming back to life was in fact doing nothing of the sort. I've torn it out and put in a convolvulus sabatius, which should harmonise better with the overhanging malacothamnus; a short distance uphill from that is a penstemon "Midnight". I also gambled on a hibiscus acetosella, which looks rather exotic: it's in one of the tubs in the southern Zone, where I can easily see it from the window.

I've terminated the snap peas, and done a quixotic pruning job on the sweet peas by the east fence. A few more daylilies are blooming, and many in bud.