The past week or so at Casa CC - 7/27/2019

We have basked in a few days of "reasonable" temperatures and humidities after a mini-heat wave that moved on to afflict those in the Old World. I survived the horrible heat by not attempting to do any yard work and cutting down on errands. Since I was getting no yard work done, I finally got back to working on Bogie's quilt on which I had not worked since March. I am now working on getting the borders made and sewn on.

Measuring for border strips

In Spring of 2002, I purchased and planted a dwarf crepe myrtle from my favored nursery. That fall, I found a couple of crepe myrtles on sale at our local Walmart. They were not dwarf, but I placed them (in relationship to the dwarf crepe myrtle) to provide a fill toward the garage/house. All were supposed to be fuchsia.

Three crepe myrtles aligned - June 2006 (The photo is poor, but the good one is off in color and I can't seem to remedy it.)

 

It turned out that one of the Walmart-sourced plants (the one that I had planted between the other two bushes) was actually from at least two root stocks. It isn't visible in the above photo, but one or two of the sproutings from the roots produced white blossoms. A few years ago, I decided that I really liked the white. I began trimming out the fuchsia-blossomed sprouts. This year, I am amazed to see that I achieved my goal. All of the sproutings now produce white blossoms. Unfortunately, the extreme heat faded the fuchsia blossoms on the bush farthest from the camera in the photo, below.

Yesterday and today I've been moving more masonry around. Years ago I had lined the approach end of our driveway, on the side away from the house, with concrete blocks. As the Blue Chip Junipers have taken over and spread to cover them, I saw no reason for that placement. I'm using them to emplace a couple more stone "fences" along the planting beds to that side of the driveway. I had brought a bunch of stone over from our previous home; but, did not have enough to put as many "fences" as I wanted separating those planting beds.

New masonry  "fence" for Planting Bed #6

I'll close by sharing a video that featured on Ronni Bennett's blog, Time Goes By, this morning. It tells the story of a grueling experience inflicted upon a United States Marine pilot, Lt Col William Rankin.

 

Comments

[Ingineer66]

That is very cool on achieving your goal on the white one.

[bogie]

I like the white between the reds.

Wow, that pilot had a heck of a trip coming down - 40 minutes and 65 miles from the ejection point would have seemed an eternity even if he hadn't been battered so badly!

[Liz Hinds]

I don't think I'm familiar with crepe myrtle but they look very pretty.

[Cop Car]

Liz--The crepe myrtle is not native to Europe or the States. As crapemyrtletrails.com writes, "Lagerstroemia indica was the common crape myrtle species from which all varieties originated prior to 1960. Its name would suggest that it was native to India, but actually its home is China."

Note that some people spell "crepe" as "crape". My own observation is that those in the area of the States in which they were first abundantly planted, the South, spell it "crepe". With climate change, the zone in which crepe myrtle thrives moves northward. My mother tried to grow crepe myrtle at our house in Kansas City and was always disappointed that it winter-killed to ground level each winter. Since I first planted crepe myrtles (2002), I believe they've only been winter-killed to ground level once or twice. (Kansas City is approximately 75 miles north of us.)