August gardening on the West Coast

This is a Japanese anemone.  I have a few of these graceful plants in different areas of the garden.  This particular one is just behind the the boxwood at the front and the burning bush shrub at the side of Mrs. Pee's sidewalk.  Behind it is the Jackimani royal purple clematis.  They are both in bloom now.

There is also fireweed in bloom with the clematis and anemone.  At their feet and behind the clematis is bishops weed, that is in front of the chimney.  There are also some orange daylilies in this combination.    I might want to move the day lilies, some day.   I think the bright orange clashes with the other colors.

This is the Irish heather in bloom in the front garden, next to the grass path.  Behind this heather you see Ladies Mantle.  This plant seems to go with anything, and grow anywhere.  It is easy to remove, and not too invasive.  All the heathers in my garden are in bloom.

I have had this photo on my desktop all summer.  I finally took the time to look it up and found it is called Marsilea Mutica.  I had thought it was a clover, of course.  It is actually a fern.  It can grow in my pond.  The planting depth should be 6 to 18 inches, full sun to shade, recommended pot size 8 x 5.  It is US hardiness zone 6 - 11, so we should be okay.  I think we are in US hardiness zone 8.
I am getting a few new plants on my wish list.  This one, a maltese cross (lychnis).  I get along fairly well with the lychnis plants.  :)  The photo of the water plant was taken out at Glendale Gardens.  It has been ages since I was out there!
A couple of nights ago, I was looking at my videos.  I noticed the one of my waterfall that I had not loaded to u tube.  So, now it is on you tube and I have been able to add it to the bottom of my blog, if you care to scroll down.  My new camera is suppose to do even better videos, in hd.  Have not had time to try it yet.   The reason I was looking at my videos is because I want to be able to  use my new hd screen for movies and videos.  I want to learn how to find movies and how to watch TV on this screen.  According to Trevor, my techie, I can use both of my screens.  I like this one for my photos, and everything.  The new one is a wide screen and I am having a hard time getting used to its resolution for surfing web pages and for viewing photos.  So, in this regard, I now have a new little desk with the new screen on it behind me.  I can swing around in my chair and take my wireless mouse and keyboard to the other screen.  I hope they are now far enough apart so that they do not interfere with each other.  I will get Trevor to come and hook them up, properly, soon.  I am hopeless at hardware connections.
Yesterday I walked from my doctor's office on Blanshard to Chinatown, probably about a mile.  Then in the afternoon, I managed to get the seven, new,  round stepping stones laid into the path in the back garden.  It looks pretty good.  I shall add some pea gravel between the stepping stones, and add Corsican mint to grow.  I only want the Corsican mint along the stepping stones.  It looks really good on the other end of this path.  I must keep the blue eyed grass under control.  It seeds around far too much. While getting some clay soil from under the deck, I managed to hit a wasps' nest and got two bites.  Dammit.  The bites are still itchy and bit swollen.  Thank heavens I am not one of the people who is terribly allergic to bee stings!
Today, my walk was to the 7 - 11 to get my winning lottery ticket, of course.  They are doing some work on Roy Road, so I did not come home via Roy Rd.  It was another lovely day, today.  I have watered around the back, in the woodland, and along the driveway.  The front garden will have to wait for another day.
We are eating the few little tomatoes form the plant on the deck.  I use parsley also.  The plums are ripening.  The figs are still green, but there are some big ones.  The grape is loaded this year. The apples should be good too.  The red currant needs to be picked and made into currant jelly.  It is so good, when take the time to make it!
Pat finished putting my new little desk together last night and I spent this morning moving things around. By this evening, I feel quite comfortable in my new computer space.  I am working on tweaking more photos for the 170 photo album for June for my old web page.  The Gardening Page has a few more albums to go, yet! 

Panama Hill Park

Yesterday I walked an extra half mile to the Pond in Panama Hill Park.  As the sign says this is an environmentally sensitive area.  The evergreen trees they planted are getting taller and the grasses are filling in around the pond edges.  It has been awhile since I walked here.  The meadows in the park look very nice at this time of the year.   There were very few ducks and I saw only two dragon flies. There is a well used path that goes right along side of the pond, so I cannot see this pond getting very many water birds in it. 

This is the stone path in the front garden now.  The Irish heather looks very good, and the ornamental oregano on the path edge has been performing beautifully for the last month or two, with its lovely delicate pink blossoms. 

This morning I did a bit more work on the cement blocks that I have put around the water meter .. I dug out the plants that were growing up between the blocks and moved them to other areas around the garden.  These plants are tough, and floppy.  They have fuzzy grey green leaves and blue flowers.  They look good when there is a big clump of them.  I shall try to grow them with the montebresias that are a bright red.  We are having a nice soft rain now, and the garden is looking better already for having received some moisture.
I noticed that I now have 3 lilies up in the little rockery in the front garden.  They should be very nice next year.  The path is quite clean and free of weeds.  I would like to get that sicilian mint growing between the stones, now that they are free of clover and other weeds.  The violets are still popping up everywhere and I shall have to keep after them to get rid of them.  With the improvement of the clay soil the violets are much easier to pull out and get the whole root out now.  The moss garden needs weeding.  I managed to get a bit of weeding and deadheading done in the woodland garden and it looks not too bad.  The irises will need more weeding and a mulch of compost added.  Hopefully, they will bloom next year.  When they bloom I should thin them out so I get bigger plants growing.
Last night I made up 3 kinds of soup - cabbage/ham cream soup, borscht and carrot/ginger.  I have some of each for our lunches and one of each frozen for future lunches.  We are no longer buying canned soup, as it is just too salty.  Most of my soups are made with chicken stock.  I made up some fish stock a few days ago and did up a big pot of seafood chowder with it.  We have about 3 meals of that frozen.  So, I now have a good supply of frozen soups and a few other things I can just take out of the freezer and heat for a good meal. 

A few summer flowers

The heathers are in bloom. The roses are still blooming, of course. This is one of David Austin's English roses called Gertrude Jekyll. I don't know which clematis this one is, as I have planted many varieties over the years. The little white snap dragon is perennial and is one of my treasured rock garden plants. I have moved it into a pot with better alpine gardening soil and it has recovered and is growing and blooming very nicely. The rose of sharon bushes are in bloom and finally look good. They do better when pruned lightly, so I shall pay more attention to pruning them and my other shrubs. The heathers are always a lot better when sheared properly also.

The grape is growing again so I need to get some wire to string along the garage again to begin training one of the shoots. I think I should prune the magnolia also. It is blooming again and the new growth is very nice compared to the old leaves.