Return to Blogging

After a break of over two years, I am going to resume blogging about my garden.  I should note that this post was written in 2018 but not posted until now. During the time that I wasn't blogging, lots of things happened in the garden - most of them not good. A number of my plants died or suffered due to the drought. I had the erroneous idea that native plants would be able to withstand drought conditions. I failed to recognize that even tough native plants can die from a lack of water. Two of the plants that died were large shrubs - a Fremontodendron 'Pacific Sunset' and a Garrya elliptica. My Lyonothamnus floribundus survived but the uppermost branches are dead and leafless. A number of smaller plants also died.

On the other hand, the majority of my plants survived and are doing well. We had better rain in 2017 which helped a lot. One could argue that both the Fremontodentron and the Garrya were out of place in my garden, coming from areas quite different from Encinitas. The plants that are truly native to north coastal San Diego County have continued to perform well. They are now waking up after their long summer nap.

I'm going to start with the most dramatic example, a Mammillaria dioica that I got from Recon nursery a few years ago. It seems very happy in this location. I don't give it any summer water. We had a good rain a couple of weeks ago, and this is the result.