Where in the World Will Uncle Jeff Live?: In the Heat of Summer

Now that the hot summer days have arrived and the spring wildflowers have almost finished going to seed, it seems a good time to review and assess the state of the landscaping.

Let's start out with what has worked.

By far, the area and plants that have thrived the best have been in my west parkway strip, which gets the least water (once every 10 days). This, despite the fact that they have had to face kids on bicycles and skateboards, deliberate defacing, and a city work crew plus tractor.

The wooly blue curls and the white sage on the north end have done particularly well:

All the blue sages have survived and are blossoming.

The only blue sage not doing well is the one the tractor decapitated, but even that one is still alive.

Also doing well: the side planter by the garage. This area gets lots of sun and little water, but the California fuschias are doing great:

The Fuschia-flowering gooseberry is summer deciduous, so the brown leaves are to be expected. I need to learn how to train it to grow upwards:

I've also been very pleased with the Indian mallows, which are thriving and blooming:

The pitcher sages are also very happy and getting pretty big:

The desert willow, which had been doing such a great imitation of death, has finally begun to spring to life. No blossoms (yet), but that may take another year.

The mountain lilacs have lost their spring blossoms, but are growing:

The manzanitas are also (slowly) growing. Both the shrub-sized ones on the parkway strip:

And the ground cover ones on the front yard:

The heuchera (the coral bells) are also quite happy (though no longer in bloom):

That now brings us to the plants are doing so-so.

Of these, perhaps the best are the coyote mint. Those that survived the winter floods are doing alright. The blooms of spring are fading, but they've been rather overshadowed by the wildflowers (now gone to seed).

The mountain columbine are all blooming now, but I don't care for them. They have too much of a weedy look to them, like some exotic dandelion:

The Canyon Island Silver Snowflake have definitely been struggling. This one was doing great up until a week ago:

The monkey flowers are another plant that was doing great until recently. This one still looks good.

But this one looks like it's dying:

They get the same amount of water but the first is in more shade.

I have a similar problem with my showy penstemon. Up until a week or so ago, the two of them were happy and thriving. Now only one is:

Its companion, just two feet to the left, is starting to die:

I've also had problems had problems with the San Diego canyon sunflower. A few have done well:

Most have not

The red buckwheat is making a comeback, but others are dying

For much of the spring, my margarita penstemons were happy and flowering. Now, most are dead. There used to be three in this shot. Now one is dead, one is dying, and only one is blooming:

The dangling tassels currants were one of my great success stories of the winter: they grew and were happy. Not any more.

This one died in the middle of spring:

And now I'm worried about this one.

I've also had problems with the hummingbird sages. Some, like the ones by the garage are doing fine. This one in the front yard is also doing well:

This one is dying:

And this one is dead:

You may have noticed in the first picture of the hummingbird sage that I've planted grass. Yes, after spending 10 months removing grass from the yards, I've put some new grass in. This is called UC Verde hybrid buffalo grass. It's very drought tolerant (just 10 minutes of water, once a week, in the summer), and is sterile (no grass pollen). I've put it just in the yard opposite my bedroom window, with the orange tree.