Too hot

The promised photo of the little pot of sedums:


To add to the bat knitting list: Wa na na na na na na na
Bat Shawl! in the current issue of The AntiCraft.

The short crape myrtle festival report: I went early. It was hot. I picked up two 'Silver Scrolls' heuchera and two little ivies to put in the pots by the front door, a couple more Labrador violets (because they were there and cheap), and three little creeping speedwells (Veronica prostrata) to help provide a little groundcover in a sunny spot. I also hit the local Home Depot for some mulch and a couple stepping stones.

This is what I did Sunday morning, with speedwells, mulch, and stones:



Doesn't look like very much, does it? For the record, I started that little project at 7:30 am, and had accomplished what you see there by 8:30. Then I put my sprinkler on it, went inside, stripped off my clothes and sat in a cold shower for 30 minutes.

In a perfect universe, there'd have been a couple more speedwells to put in there, but 3 was what I could get, so that's that. As hot and awful as it was, even between 7:30 and 8:30 in the morning, I'm not sure I could have planted more than three anyway.

This particular little arrangement is just off the paved front walk -- in the beauteous nature of houses of the 1970s, the front walk is a bit of concrete that runs straight out from the front door, makes a 90^o turn left, and goes straight to the door of the car. Because that's where you're going to walk, right?

Since (shockingly) sometimes I do not walk straight out of my house and get into the car, I put a couple of paving stones and the associated planting near that 90^o turn. The straight-ahead route is also the dog's chosen path to go out into the yard, and the Viking has been known to use it as well.

Next weekend I will probably go get a few more of the same pavers for the walkway alongside the driveway that I keep saying I'm going to create, and maybe a couple more bags of mulch for the same thing. Whether the landscape cloth is laid, the stones placed, and the mulch spread will depend on the weather, of course, because I am not doing all of that if it's hot and awful again.