jumble

The pot is an example of fail.

And yet it looks nice and I like it. The tall canes failed. The draping vines lived awhile then died. The hostas supposedly easiest of all never thrived, so two more fails. Two contrasting coleuses survived, it is a disappointment but when it comes to gardens doing what they will disappointments turn out okay. Caladium roots were stuck in late in the season, they pulled through again. The heart-shaped leaf plants with no flowers are the most colorful and interesting and useful of all. 

Everything in the airy baskets on the railing are played out. Petunias from Home Depot are lousy with aphids sucking the life out of blooms on the vines they moved on to infect. This is the third year Home Depot petunia plants specifically led to aphid infection. Sprays kill the whole deal. They're lost at that point. Most are snipped out. 

At the end of a main road Alameda that runs through the center of town must turn when it reaches Green Mountain the place where we learned how to hang glide on one side and on the other side leading directly to Morrison that is right there at Dinosaur ridge. At Green Mountain before the Alameda ends is a park for hikers who don't mind dry Western heat. There are yucca plants at the entrance to the park, I stopped and looked inside the yucca and noticed they're loaded with ladybird bugs. And I mean loaded. Apparently the yuccas are infected with aphids as well. I have never seen that many ladybird bugs but I know right where to go if I ever decide I need a couple thousand or so. I must think of something else and all this new dirt must go. When the project is taken down all the dirt will go too. Because of those aphids. 

The original plantings are gone and the vines crossed over to each others's container and beyond. The jumble of vines and leaf structures that do their thing at the end of the season are better than the flowers I planned in the same dirt. This mess would appeal to Japanese aesthetic greatly because it really does look utterly natural. It sort of is. I like it a lot, so much more so than rigidly forced arrangements in containers conforming to standard composition elements, tall, broad, low, deep, light, large small, etc. Although overcrowded and layered pouring out overflowing opulent floral abundance is very nice too.