No pictures today, not much else.

 Another off schedule day for me so didn't get to the garden until noon and someone said it was going to rain overnight. Too bad, my beds needed water today and 'rain' is a variable term for any moisture falling from the sky, measureable or not. So watering was done, by me and the gardeners for the lawns. Will see how wet the ground is tomorrow. 

I dug up the soil in the north bed, could not stand that flat soil any longer and almost took out one of the marigolds in the process. It survived I'm sure. I hope to have happy and healthy blooming plants in another month. In the meantime still need to make a decision on what else to plant in there between them. Will have to be something small, not a big root system, and might even have to move them to the front of the bed to make room for something bigger like a pepper or those beans I keep thinking about.

I did get a different picture of the iris that's done blooming due to the leaves having a certain bug on them.

Whitefly

 

Very annoying and I'm sure the manager doesn't really care but it matters to my gardener brain and makes me have an anxiety attack. Knowing how fast they can spread and that particular one can spread to anything... carried on the wind, it's a menace. I still have some Neem oil left and if I cared enough I'd take it down and spray it. But then the better product to put on it is insecticidal soap due to the powdery coating of the adults and juveniles tends to repel oil.

Something that surprised me was how fast the iris finished blooming. It's why you plant more than one and stagger the planting time. Interplant with other flowers so you've got something going on all the time. As people have asked in the past, 'what flower blooms all the time all year round?' My answer is universally frowned on, geraniums and even those won't have much in the way of flowers in the middle of our milder winter. The Mexican Heather seemed to bloom almost constantly but it can also be a pest. 

Oh something that caught my eye and I keep forgetting to take a picture of it is the camellia that's in full shade. There's a root sprout coming up next to the pavement and I've been meaning to ask if I can cut it out and put it in a pot or somewhere else. I don't have a pot to put it in so it's just the gardener in me not wanting to waste a plant.

Will have pictures tomorrow and more news that's not news in the garden.