another one bites the ant

Last weekend I put down some gopher traps, without much optimism. This morning I lifted them up, and found that one of them had worked. Some ants had got there before I did, so no photos (and a pair of latex gloves).

Since my last, the daylilies have shut down except for "Happy Returns", and the oenothera are blooming much more sparsely. I've pulled out a good many flax and gilia and so on; some clarkia and even a few brave eschscholzia are still in bloom.

The penstemon and the berberis both seem to be sending up bright new shoots. The dry-climate plants, godzilla and malacothamnus, bloom on unperturbed by the weather; the solanum and plumbago also look good, except that the southern plumbago is almost all yellow again, depsite vast amounts of nitrogen last winter. I may take it out. The ceratostigma has started to bloom. I've demolished most of the sweet peas, including the one in the front walkway, partly because the dry summer did not seem to suit them, and partly because they were too much work for too few blooms. In the walkway I've put a volunteer morning glory in the vacant spot.

The achimenes that I planted in the front walkway in May are coming up in some fair number; of the babiana I see but two, which is two more than of the ixia that I also planted then. The "Durban" canna is growing well; the red ones in the back garden are blooming strongly. One of the nasturtiums that grew under the south fence after I dug the old ones out has bloomed already. Oh, and two of the white catharanthus are in bloom: one by the telephone pole, which is doing quite well, and one down on the street. The alstroemeria behind the house has had a last hurrah and I don't expect to see any more of it; the one by the gate is still sending up shoots, or was as of a week ago, and blooming. The dietes have been blooming wonderfully in this warmth.

Down on the corner lawn, the anagallis that I sheared a week or so ago are not coming back; the yarrow is still growing, but I have cut much of it back, and perhaps should water it.