Cardinal Vine - Yard Update

We had a cold front move through yesterday, it's only 85 this afternoon with a nice breeze. Unfortunately that front only brought us about a tenth of an inch of rain, and within a 5 minute downpour on Sunday morning. It was 58 this morning, which was bordering on heavenly.

I took advantage of the cooler temps and cloudy skies this weekend to move a few plants around. My Chinese tallow tree, which was right off our back porch, has been languishing all summer, bordering on death. I moved it over to the south side of the yard, where it will no doubt get hammered by more sun than where it had been, but I was able to build a nice well around it for optimal watering. In it's place I moved my African sumac out from behind our arbor in the corner of the yard (where it was destined to grow into power lines).

I have probably jumped the gun in buying a few plants for the yard, as it's supposed to get up near 100 by the end of the week, but I found some bargains in the Target nursery, including two 1-gallon purple petunias for 99 cents apiece. I have a hanging basket for those. I also bought a 6 pack of gazanias for the stone planter in the middle of the yard, a Hawaiian blue eyes, and a couple of wedelias for ground cover.

Below are a few pictures of a favorite new annual vine of mine, the cardinal vine. The first two pictures are from Emily's mom's house, and the close up is of my vine, which is growing up into my mesquite tree. Next year I'm going to surround my mesquite with these guys so it's covered in red blooms. Very neat.

Quick Yard Update

Despite the never ending heat, the yard is still thriving. Emily's sister Beth took care of the grounds while we were gone the past two weeks, and things look perhaps better than when we left. The north side of the house is in perma-shade these days, which is great for those plants, including the creeping trumpet vine, pictured below. This vine continues to spread everywhere, and has been blooming for the past two months (since the monsoons started).

Another plant on the north side of the house that's in full bloom right now is this blue darkbeard (or bluebeard, I forget it's real name).

And finally, after struggling through the summer, I ramped up my watering on this jujube, and it's come back nicely, even putting out some fruit. Hopefully as the heat backs off, these will mature nicely. I got some free coffee grounds at Starbucks a few weeks ago, and applied them to the base of this tree to help it along.