How does my garden grow - 2.0

It's been a while since I wrote about our new planting bed. Life has been a bit hectic lately so I haven't spent much time enjoying it let alone writing about it. 

This morning I didn't feel like doing any of the things I needed to do so I took a cup of tea outside to our new sitting area. It was still shady and there was a lovely cool breeze. 

Even with the occasional sounds of hammering from workmen rebuilding the burned out house down the street and the rumble of a "souped-up" car in the distance, after a few minutes listening to the birds and feeling the cool breeze I started to relax. A squirrel scampered up my neighbor Bobbie's nearby oak tree and another neighbor from down the street drove by and waved. I started to feel happy.  

The salvia is looking really beautiful

salvia greggii coral

The zexmania flowers are kind of cute though the plant seems a bit sparse. I wonder if it is getting too much shade. I just read that can make it leggy.

Zexmania

Unfortunately after a little while I started to notice problems. 

The "pious" castle artemesia (or is it "powis"?) has nearly buried the gulf coast penstemon on its right. (it's crowding other plants around it too.)

The artemisia is the silvery plant just in front of my feet. The penstemon is just visible between the artemisia and the iris leaves on the right. I had a photo of a penstemon in bloom in a previous post. See below.

gulf coast penstemon in bloom

I also noticed some "volunteer" oak babies (aka weeds).

One of the oak babies in front of another penstemon

It broke off when I tried pulling it so I went and got a tool to dig with. Much to my delight the rest of it came out after a little digging. The other one didn't come out despite digging. But it probably will grow up again and give me another chance!

After that I started noticing other weeds. Most of them came out whole. I love it when that happens! It's one of the beauties of pulling weeds when they are small.(And having well tilled soil--thanks, John!)

I'll try to get to pruning--the artemisia and a few other things--in the near future and let you know how it goes. 

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To see the first "How does my garden grow" for comparison go here.