Sunday morning - Battling the hard, dry clay

I'm slowly putting all my plants in the ground that I got from the Wildflower Center last week. Already I'm mourning the loss of a black dalea - I placed it in a pot, and some animal (I'm guessing raccoon?) dug it up. I didn't realize it until yesterday, and I think it's too late to save it.

I planted the yellow bells (esperanza) and the big muhly in the front garden yesterday. I've put down some cardboard and mulch over the grass - I'm hoping to expand the bed in the front yard and remove grass while I'm at it.

Let's see... today I planted some indian grass in the back yard, a barbados cherry to help screen the air conditioning unit, the Mexican buckeye and one of the coral berries. Digging holes for the buckeye and coral berries was painful - the earth is so dry, the clumps of clay in our soil are hard as rocks. The forecast is calling for 100% chance of rain later in the week, and I can't even begin to express how excited I am. And nighttime temperatures are finally falling below 60.

I'll still need to plant the second coral berry and the kidneywood tree - but I think I'll have to save that for next weekend. Hopefully once we get some rain it'll be easier.

Here are some random pictures of my garden. The row of wax myrtles in my backyard that I pray someday will screen our view of the back of a grocery store. Still not sure I love the placement of the trees, but I guess I'm committed now:

Anacua, or sandpaper tree - this might be my single favorite tree in the whole garden because of its cool trunk and leaves that are rough as sandpaper. Also, I'm counting on this one to improve our backyard view as well because it is semi-evergreen. 

 I saw a black swallowtail in my flame acanthus as I returned from shopping this afternoon, but it flew away before I was able to get a shot. Happily, I spied one monarch over in the mistflower, which was soon joined by a friend.

The monarchs love my mistflower.