First, I am not anxious for the weather to turn cold. I’ll gladly suffer through the high nineties rather than the chill of winter, but beyond the cold I prefer the fullness of the garden today rather than the comparative emptiness of the winter months. Funny, every year I wander the garden in February trying to figure how I can fill the gaping holes. Today, I wonder how I can keep everything chopped back and happy instead of neighbors flopping over one another.

In any case, how marvelous to be working in the garden this evening, not dripping in sweat. I sweated through the first half of the project to rip out the long established plants just below the deck to make room for its demolition and building the new sunroom. Barbara convinced me to hold off on carting heavy stone steps and wall stones to the back to stash for some future project. Now, with temperatures twenty degrees cooler, I’m happy to move them. Well, I’d just as soon have someone else do the heavy lifting, but it will sure be a lot easier when it’s not so hot.

Along with cooler weather, we got a bunch of rain over the weekend. Many suffering plants had hardly a drop of moisture in a month, and rain has been slack since mid spring. I don’t know how much rain fell, but it was plenty, and while much of this kind of rain runs off there was enough that wilting plants revived overnight. Still, I’d be happy with more.

At least, I’m not walking through the garden wondering how much longer one plant or another will survive. Remarkably, few plants showed signs of stress during our drought, but now my garden wandering is much happier, focusing on flowers and not on what might go wrong.

A few plant deliveries have arrived and a few more are scheduled for next week. There are some fill-ins for open spaces in the rock garden (above). A few rock garden plants didn’t make it. I assume our combined heat and humidity doomed them since many will take high temperatures in their native habitat, but these are areas that typically cool down overnight. There are multiple factors that determine plant success, and clearly the overly warm nighttime temperatures that accompany humidity can be a problem.

There’s still much I need to figure out in the rock garden, and while a few plants that perished might get a second try, my summer travels inspired me to try others. Most of the rock garden has been very successful, but now I need to tweak the few weak spots. These are mostly very small plants at the start, so they need a bit of care after planting that I’m not particularly good at. Planting in autumn should be ideal, and then we’ll see if I’ve stretched anything too far to make it through the winter.

I’ve ordered a few unusual plants for the new area by the sunroom. The plan is to make this a favored part of the garden, and with the first plantings along the edge (while still leaving room for the construction) I’m happy with the start. Once deliveries are made there are a few details to work out. Do I plant zone 8 cold hardy plants or hold them in the greenhouse or indoors for the winter?

It’s usually a bad idea to plant marginally cold hardy plants in the autumn when they can’t establish a root system before the cold. I’m usually tempted to plant them and do something to protect them if an oddball cold spell is forecast. Years ago, I would never consider such a thing, but recent mild winters are changing how and what I plant.

As always, I’m in a hurry for the newly planted area to fill in. If asked, I’d say the process should take three years, but that doesn’t work for me. Yes, it will be five years before the ‘Moonrise’ Japanese maple makes a big impact, but it’s pretty good size from the start so it doesn’t look awkward. There are a few new geraniums that I haven’t tried before that should jump in growth in the spring, and I’m anxious to see how beesia (Beesia deltophylla, above) grows as a ground cover beneath the maple. I’ve admired it in a few gardens I’ve seen, and wondered why it’s not more commonly available. I’ll soon find out.