{"id":104624,"date":"2024-08-13T14:36:44","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T18:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=104624"},"modified":"2024-08-13T14:36:44","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T18:36:44","slug":"august-keeps-its-cool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=104624","title":{"rendered":"August keeps its cool"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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August means standing room only, playing all the cards, smoke ’em if you got ’em<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

August can be a rough month. In either of my gardens, I’ve never had to deal with summer rainfall, flooding, plants getting pummeled by rainstorms like some of the East Coast and South are suffering under. And coastal Los Angeles gets relatively mild heat compared to some of the numbers cities are posting this summer. But August was still a dreaded month in my Los Angeles garden, one of the world’s five Mediterranean climates zones. By August the soil no longer wants to play garden and seems determined to reassert its hydrophobic, summer-dry chaparral nature. By August, moody and beneficent early morning marine layers are pfffft, and all the pots and containers now feel tethered to the gardener with a ball and chain. No doubt I have too many Los Angeles Augusts to blame for the skin cancer recently removed. Ants in the house are a feature of August in LA, and now newcomer mosquitos are the latest summer harassment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here on the Oregon coast there’s none of that sense of a doomed, relentless march into the cotton-mouthed maw of August. Barring wildfires, as in 2021, August at the Oregon Coast, 45th parallel, is no sweat. It reminds me a lot of San Francisco summers, also cool, misty and rainless. But if you do hate overcast skies til early afternoon, a cool ocean that demands wetsuits for swimming, and feel the same way about 8-9 months of winter rain as an Oregon expat I recently met who fled to Arizona, the summer bargain might not be enough of a payoff for you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Silver Spike grass (Achnatherum calamagrostis) would be flattened in a rainy summer climate, fronted by Penstemon ‘Dark Towers’ still looking great when going to seed — photo by MB Maher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But gardens? Summer at the Oregon coast is easy on the garden. I’m finding that August skips along pretty much like July, temperature-wise, except August signals the summer annuals that now<\/em> is their moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cosmos ‘Apricotta’ in right foreground<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

August activated the cosmos and zinnias I sowed in April for a small cut flower garden. Every sign of plant life in April is hyper-celebrated, so of course I saved all<\/em> the seedlings. The cut flower 4X8′ area could only handle so many, but the cosmos slip into the main garden unobtrusively, billowing upward from a narrow, V-shaped footprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cosmos ‘Apricotta’ with Persicaria ‘Summer Dance,’ also new this summer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If August in my LA garden was a time to lie low and not make any sudden moves, on the Oregon coast fine tuning and planting continues into July and August, with the first frost in fall the hard backstop. I’ve been playing around with the dozens of cosmos, some planted into the garden, some plunged in pots. I love having new plants to mess with, new growth to watch for, deadheading to prolong bloom. The castor bean is still making size, and the amaranthus are just budding. The zinnias I’ve kept to the cutting garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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‘Apricotta’ is tall and billowy, 3-foot now, the darker ‘Xsenia’ a foot shorter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Cosmos ‘Xsenia’ working with shrubs and perennials<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Cosmos ‘Xsenia’ with Podocarpus macrophyllus ‘Mood Ring’ in foreground<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Cosmos ‘Rubenza’ sown in June opening fast on the heels of cosmos sown in April. Great velvety substance to the petals, long cuttable stems<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Dahlia brought back from Windcliff, a seedling of ‘Forncett’s Furnace’ Hinkley is calling ‘Windcliff Peach’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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planted spring 2024 Dahlia ‘Verrone’s Obsidian’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Dahlia ‘Camano Sitka’ reliably returns in spring — vigorous is an understatement, with very strong stems<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ricinus communis ‘New Zealand Purple’ — from weed status in my LA garden to coveted late summer annual in Oregon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Zinnia seed from Floret Farms and their pastel-centric breeding program. Flowering beginning in August from seed started in April, slow growth June and July then jumping into action now. This is either ‘Alpenglow’ or ‘Dawn Creek Pastels’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Joe-pye weed budding up, none the worse for the slug attacks that persisted through June then abated in July<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early’ — bought budded up. The trick will be getting it through slug season next spring. I hear it’s a favorite.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I’m hoping to check in on family and friends in LA this winter, help the garden recover from my extended absence, and maybe catch some of my aloes in bloom. Hope you’re finding something to enjoy this August!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August can be a rough month. In either of my gardens, I’ve never had to deal with summer rainfall, flooding, plants getting pummeled by rainstorms like some of the East Coast and South are suffering under. And coastal Los Angeles … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[2807,5119],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNJ2E-rdu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104624"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104624"}],"version-history":[{"count":110,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104735,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104624\/revisions\/104735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}