A Hidden Gem

I was cruising through the City's website and found this hidden gem.  Water-wise Gardening in Camarillo.  You've got to check it out!

Time for Power!

It's been over 6 weeks since my last entry!  Bloggers should post regularly and gardeners should tend to their gardens regularly and I haven't done either.  I went to the Stampin' Up! convention in Salt Lake City.  The grand-kids came for a few days and then we took them for a vacation in Indio. (HOT!!!)  Then it's really been too hot here to want to work outdoors.  I bought the new My Digital Studio 2+ and have been working on that.  I love it! 

But my garden has been calling me too.  So today it was time to get the biggest bang for my buck.  No time for plucking weeds today!  I got out the power tools. 

The biggest eyesore today was our xeriscape area on the other side of the driveway.  This patch gets almost no water, so I've put in plants that thrive with neglect.  It's predominately Statice and Sage with a few Aloes tucked in the middle.   The sage grows very quickly and can get "leggy."  If you regularly trim it back, it stays nice and bushy, but I don't seem to get around to it very often.  If you cut it back all the way, it looks naked, with just a few sticks poking out with few or no leaves.  I learned a trick from watching the gardeners which I've put to use now that I'm the gardener.

The trick is to cut the bottom and sides of the sage and then let that grow back a bit and then cut off the top.  That leaves part of the plant looking OK all the time.  So I brought out the Hedge Hog to cut back the sage. While I was at it, I cut off a few of the dried flowers from the Statice.  I should really be clipping the dead parts off.  I did that to one plant, but I didn't have time to do it right for all of them.  So I tidied them all up a bit.  I raked up the big stuff. then I got out the Leaf Hog to vacuum up some leaves and lots of dried Statice flowers.  Time to call it a day!

Perhaps tomorrow I'll get back to the daily weeding and deadheading.