Sage Gardens

We don’t have tree squirrels here in San Diego — just ground squirrels (and we have Dachshunds who do a fine job with those), but my friends back eat swear their huge pests. So it is with some amusement that I watched this video:

I wonder if I can do that for crows…

Question: how long does it take to go from verdant garden

to overgrown weedpatch?

Answer: about 28 days.

As promised my late summer garden skills (read: lazy) have ushered all of the gardens’ quick decent from lush landscapes to overgrown, weedy jungles. The worst part is that I do the same thing every year. I get a great start in March and things are absolutely gorgeous by June. Then I get sort of lazy and tired in July and August (it is hot, after all), and by September the whole thing has decayed into a weedy mess which I won’t do anything about until the following March.

Ah well…

It’s hot, I’m tired and I haven’t done much in the way of keeping up-to-date on the ol’ garden blog here. I must say, however, everything looks great! It’ll be a completely different story in a month when I’ve fallen off on my yardwork, everything’s gone to seed and weed, but right now, it’s gorgeous. Here’s a quick tour of the gardens in August — enjoy!

August, 2006

(Just click the photo or link above to get started)

One of the best unexpected surprises of building my garden pond last year was the large number and variety of dragonflies and damselflies that started visiting on a regular basis.

Aside from simply being colorful and fun to watch, they also have some of the best names in the animal kingdom. How can you not like creatures with monikers like Meadowhawk, Blue Dasher, and Widow Skimmer?

While they were gone for the winter months, the dragonflies recently made their return in force with more than a dozen hanging around the pond daily.

(Click for larger image)

My lousy photography skills make it nearly impossible to catch one of these guys in flight, but when they stop for a moment, I can snap their picture. Above is a Flame Skimmer (how cool is that name!?) that’s been hanging around the pond the past week or so.

You can read more on the Dragonflies and Damselflies of California right here.

The University of Puget Sound has a very good site dedicated to Dragonflies (including photos, habitat maps and other information) as well. You will find that right here.

Okay, so a few people have written to tell me that our new ChickenCam was placed too high up to clearly see all the good chicken action. So by popular demand I have moved the camera down into the yard where it’s a lot closer to the birds.

Now you’ll be able to see the chickens, ducks (and new ducklings) and Weedo the Goose much more clearly. Too clearly sometimes. In the past couple of days chickens have attacked the camera a number of times and knocked it over or re-aimed it at the orange tree directly above.

I guess that’s the price you pay to get up close and personal with the wildlife.

You can see ChickenCam Right here.

For a short interval — usually between mid-May and the end of the month, everything blooms all at once. We’re in the midst of that now. When you step out the front door, this is what you see:

(click image to enlarge)

Everything — poppies, roses, sage, lavender, sweet pea shrub, Pride of Madera, Butterfly Bush, Peruvian Lilly, and more — all showing off together. It only happens for a couple of weeks, so you have to enjoy it while it lasts.