Waiting with Longing

The iris are blooming. It is the event that I wait for all year long. I am sure that I am waiting secretly for next years iris blooming even now. The lovely iris on the lower left were a gift and I planted them and waited over a year to see their color and they are delightful! It is called Jesse's Song.

These blue iris are called Full Tide and I hope they take the place over.

In addition to the iris blooming, the Carnation Poppies are starting to flower. I hope these take over too!

Here is a lovely iris that someone gave someone else who had them in a pot and they had never seen them bloom, but they didn't want them anymore because they didn't want to wait I suppose, so they gave them to me. They are fabulous! Right now I have yellow iris that someone gave me that I planted in the ground, that I have never seen, so I have a bit of ambivilence too I suppose. If they bloom this season all the better, but I might be in for another year.

All of my tomatoes are planted into the ground now. I had 35 tomatoes planted and so far I have lost 7 to the wind. It seems that the rolly pollies are nestling down in the moist dirt next to the stem and munching away at the stems below ground in the moist darkness until the stem is eaten through, so the wind blows and just picks up the top of the plant and blows it away! So I stuck the broken stem (lower leaves removed) into some moist potting mix, and place it into this terrarium and sprayed it with water in hope that it will grow new roots! This is a sweet 100 tomato and as I grow my tomatoes by seed, I cringed at the thought of having to buy a new tomato plant especially after I had given away about 50 plants because I didn't have any space for them all. So I looked up propagation boxes on the internet and now I am going to be sticking tomato cuttings until I get a handle on the damage that those evil rolly pollies have caused!

Thanks for coming by for a visit! To all of my gardening friends carry on and hurry back!

The Soft Spoken Tour

Here is a video of the iris in bloom in my garden. It was a lot of fun to walk around and tape it because of the newness of videoing the garden, and panning, and walking around while trying to avoid fall hazards.

It is also a perfect medium for personal introspection to listen to yourself as you candidly speaking to yourself, recording it for others.

I usually delete most of the photos of myself, because I think they don't accurately represent who I think I am, or at least not the me that happens to be operating the camera delete button. It is also true for recorded messages, apparently I also don't sound like myself either, so I am pleased that this seems to have passed the editing process, at least for now............

The inner "soft spoken tour guide" me, hopes you enjoy the show.

Thank you for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, carry on and hurry back.

Iris and Right Now

This post is really about Iris, but I have to live in the now, and now I am also blanching peas to freeze.

With each new bloom that appears in the garden, the Iris they just keep getting better and better. Puccini is blooming and it is Michael's favorite.

This is our first spring with strawberries. Definately a nice garden addition.

And this Red Delicious Apple is not supposed to do well in our region (although they did sell it at the nursery which is where I picked it up, go figure....) So time will tell. Hopefully we will get some apples. There are a rediculous amount of blossoms and bees. Isn't that a good sign?

Can I just smudge this color onto my face? California Poppy eye, check and lip color, with flowers behind the ears and I'll be ready to go. Oh yeah, Iris....

This was a gift from Julie my neighbor although I'm still thinking about eye color.

This is from Leslie (lip color) I have taken photos of these to take to the Iris Sale so hopefully the photos that they have available, will help me be able to identify this one. The previous Iris is an old-timey one so it's name is forever lost with the people that planted it up at Mount Charleston. You can tell by it's appearance that it is an older variety because of it's narrow falls.

This one is called White Fox and I purchased it from the Iris sale last June.

And this is an unknow Space Age variety because of it's horns (the beards that have an unusual flair) and you can see how they lift in the photo (the beard is the catepillar). I am still trying to identify the name of this one.

I feel like donning some dramatic eye color changing my name....

Thanks for visiting! To all of my gardening friends, carry on and hurry back!

Spring Garden Party 2009

We had a spring garden party on last weekend. Michael made the invitations using the iris photo from Gardens in Desert. The invitation said We're having a Pot Luck / Garden Party on May 2nd, Saturday at 4:00 p.m., Please feel free to bring any dish to pass and something to drink.

In keeping with the spring garden theme, I found this green tufted fabric perfect for the table cloth, with the tufts resembling little clumps of grass, the herb garden napkins were from a 2nd hand store that when opened became mini table cloths for the drinks, and the salads. We had a small crowd of 14 people in all, with barbequed chicken, cheese burgers, homemade patio salad, carrot cake, ham and cheese pinwheels, guacamole, chips, cupcakes and lemon bar squares. When the sun went down we cranked up the karaoke for a halarious singing marathon which lasted until we could no longer sing or stand.

October Storm iris purchased from the Las Vegas Iris Society opened just in time for the party.

Irene Lantana was flowering over by the peach tree.

The cannas filled the sunning bed with green.

And in addition to everything else that was in bloom, the iceplant from a cutting last fall opened it's first flower.

We had a great time and will have another party later in the year.

What a Wonderful Surprise

In excitement for the iris to bloom, we watched as the tips appeared and revealed in suprise the first hint of yellow. This iris purchased from the iris sale last year, was to be Hula Hands, Red with white on the top (standard), with white and dotted purple below (fall). I am delighted that instead I purchased this one because it was my favorite yellow iris in the show this year.

The cactus are in bloom. I photographed this bee inside the flower and during the photograph he did about 5 somersaults in the pollen. I walked away as he somersaulted himself silly.

I love cactus. This is the first cactus in the cactus garden. The orange flowering aloe frost bit by the snow this winter is starting to come back. The purple wandering jew is a great plant for any location and is starting to take off. More on the wandering jew later.

I purchased a couple of bags of cedar mulch for the planting beds before making a full commitment, in order to make sure that the mulch would not blow all over the yard because of our windy hillside. This is cedar mulch and so far I love it and it really does retain moisture, alot more than I imagined. I purchased it from Growwell, in Las Vegas at the end of Cheyenne by Nellis. I wish I had learned this lesson years ago. Cedar mulch also is a natural insect repellent. Last October I met a scorpion in the hallway of our home, so I am all about that added benefit.

I have noticed about 9 ladybugs on the plants in the mulch today. I think my neighbor purchased the tub o' ladybugs at the nursery and they rode on the wind over here.

The yellow butterfly iris is in bloom in the front yard. I made mention of the white with yellow and purple last post, so here is the yellow, with spots of orange, brown, and black.

Dreaming Blue Iris

Here is a lovely blue iris spotted in my travels in Las Vegas. It is a phenomenal color and I would love to have one for Black Mountain Garden. I have logged the location in my garden diary, and have made a note to return to acquire the seed before the landscapers clean up the dried flower heads.

Here is a close up for it's name sake.

I visited a fellow blogger and they shared about composting in their gardening post. Last November we started composting everything from the kitchen. We compost everything possible and here's what I have to share so far,

I use the produce bags from the vegetables as they are used up. The bags sit on the counter from 1 to 3 days or until it is full. The landscaping pots from mid-sided trees make great starter compost containers for the garden, expecially if you have space constraints. At my last place, I used the landscapers large wooden tree boxes that somewhat taper to the ground, and they worked great in the space and looked neat as well all lined up in sentry.

I could go big and import leaves, and nursery waste, it is just a matter of time. I am at the tipping point. For now I just have this much baking. I leave the pots under the apple tree for the tea to leach out when the pots are watered. Another note, we throw the coffee filters in too and they work their way out because they don't seem to break down, and grabbing them when they are dry is less messy.

The daisy is loving the temperature, and it reached 90 degrees today. There are now flowers on the starts taken from this wonderful daisy back in January.

I pulled starts from the underside of the plant and planted them directly into the soil, and watered them until they took. Signs that they were still alive were that they were still plyable, then one by one they started to lift themselves off of the ground and I knew they had taken, and the slightest new green appeared at the center. All together 2 1/2 months till flower.

Here is Hula Hands that opened completely today. Symba was faster than shutter spead as he crossed the garden.

New Iris for the Iris Bed

Here are the new iris for the iris bed from the show yesterday. It is nice to have a theme for a garden bed. This is a baking spot with afternoon shade but too hot for the shade loving plants.

The names and photographs of the iris were placed on placards, and was very clever. This one is Wild Wings and makes me look forward to next spring.

Symba likes this spot for the iris named Puccini already in bloom. Check out the amazing detail.

The orange catepillar is something that all 3 of the new iris have in common. My Hula Hands iris purchased last June bloomed this morning.

It is a kaleidoscope of color, and well worth the wait. Next there is this unknown one,

already showing excellent form and ready to bloom. We have the first bloom of the California Poppies that were sprinkled in a couple of the beds.

The bamboo poles and chopsticks have become permanent fixtures in a couple of beds. They are to keep Symba from scratching at the seedlings.

Adorning them with marbles makes them magical.