A year ago, I summarized current projects in my garden, including planting a butterfly garden, acquiring a dwarf avocado tree and adding exotic plants to the garden. That column can be reviewed from the Sentinel’s archive: tinyurl.com/4d2see7f.

Now, a year later, this column presents another review of projects in my garden, including updates of last year’s projects. This serves as an indicator of progress and a marker of my garden’s current condition, for my reference. It also encourages you to survey your garden and make notes for further planning.

Today’s image gallery features plants that are blooming now in my garden.

Updates of last year’s projects

We began our butterfly garden with selected California native annual plants to quickly fill the open 270-square-foot area and planned to replace them over a few months with perennial plants. We have installed several small perennials, while the annuals have re-seeded more vigorously than expected. The bed is now fuller than intended, so we will continue to replace annuals with perennials, always with plants with blossoms that appeal to local butterflies.

The bed is now dominated by a stand of Hooker’s evening primrose (Oenothera elata), a tall perennial plant.

Another of last year’s projects is the addition of a dwarf avocado called ‘Little Cado’(Persea americana ‘Wurtz Little Cado’). We planted it in a large container with a buried water reservoir, intending it to grow larger as we became familiar with cultivation. This process is working well, and the small tree is looking fine. Avocados require regular access to moisture, so we intend to install this specimen in the ground where we can provide regular irrigation automatically.The garden has an irrigation system that we no longer use, relying instead on established Mediterranean region plants that are accustomed to our summer-dry climate. To ensure that this avocado tree is well-watered, we are considering a Rachio Smart Hose Timer. This device attaches to a hose outlet and manages scheduled irrigation for a limited area, such as our one avocado tree. This device functions like a small irrigation system. We have not yet tried it, so this is not an endorsement. Interested gardeners can search for it on Amazon.

This year’s current projects

We have recently converted a small fishpond into a small water garden. We had been feeding a dozen or more small fish daily, and they had grown to about 6 inches long and were acting content. The sudden disappearance of the fish motivated the conversion project. We don’t know which wildlife consumed our fish; it might have been clever raccoons or herons. In any case, replacing the fish would amount to opening a snack bar, so cleaning the pond and installing water plants was a better option.

Our local garden centers carry common pond plants such as water hyacinths and water poppies, which spread rapidly and attract wildlife that find them edible. We chose a mail-order bundle four water lilies (Nymphaeaceae) with varied colors and without cultivar names. Also, we installed a Louisiana iris provided by a friend.

Louisiana irises are members of the iris series hexagona. Our cultivar is named ‘Plantation Belle’ so we could research it on the American Iris Society’s Iris Encyclopedia. It is a hybrid introduced in 1995 and described as having “Midseason bloom. Iridescent lilac violet self, falls with large light line signal; style arms greenish and lighter lilac.” We are anticipating its bloom next March!

Other current projects include weekly deadheading hybrid tea roses while enjoying the generous clusters of white blooms of our large rambler rose (R. mulliganii). We will soon deadhead the dried blossoms of a group of warm climate lilacs (Descanso hybrids of Syringa vulgaris, including ‘Angel White,’ ‘California Rose’ and ‘Lavender Lady’).

We have recently cut back our flower of the Incas (Cantua buxifolia), soon after its spectacular blossoms dried. This plant sends up long, sprawling stems, creating a prominent but imposing presence in the garden. Size management can be accomplished by pruning the stems after bloom, since it blossoms on new wood.

One more project to indicate for future planning. We have been enjoying a cluster of giant sea squills (Drimia maritima). The plants grow from bulbs 12 inches wide or more, produce 12 to 18-inch-long by 4-inch-wide glaucus blue-green strap-shaped leaves, followed by 4 to 5-foot-tall flower stalks with an inflorescence of pink-tinged white flowers. The attractive foliage emerges in late fall and lasts into summer, then the leaves diminish. In late summer and early fall, the flower stalks rise. This cycle provides a slow-motion drama each year in the garden.

These plants have been growing in our garden for several years. We relocated them two years ago to provide more space and installed the huge bulbs with their tops an inch above ground, as recommended.

This year, surprisingly, the foliage is not only drying up but also falling over, raising concerns that the flower stalks will not rise vertically. Our chosen course of action is “wait and see.” This column will include the stunning inflorescences in the next months.

This week in the garden

Gardeners could survey their garden annually, at any convenient time of the year. Another approach would be to conduct quarterly surveys, perhaps at significant dates such as the first day of each season. The current astronomical cycle begins today with the summer solstice, June 20. Gardeners can plan for the autumnal equinox, Sept. 22, the winter solstice Dec. 21 and the vernal equinox, March 20.

To note: astronomical seasons are determined by the Earth’s position and orbital movement, particularly the solstices and equinoxes. Meteorological seasons, on the other hand, are defined by temperature cycles and the calendar, typically grouping into three-month-long seasons, beginning on the first days of March, June, September and December. Gardeners are interested in both the sun’s position and temperatures, so they can use either of these seasonal schedules to plan quarterly surveys of the garden.

Enjoy your garden!

Tom Karwin is a past president of Friends of the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum and the Monterey Bay Iris Society, a past president and lifetime member of the Monterey Bay Area Cactus and Succulent Society, a Lifetime UC Master Gardener (certified 1999-2009), past board member of the Santa Cruz Hostel Society and active with the Pacific Horticultural Society and other garden-related societies. To view photos from his garden, visit facebook.com/ongardeningcom- 566511763375123. To review the archive of recent On Gardening columns, visit santacruzsentinel.com and search “Karwin.” Go to ongardening.com to review columns from 2012-2020 (and soon) from 2025. Send comments or questions by email to gardening@karwin.com.