Playing with Jack

Looking at a thistle that just showed up in the garden, I can appreciate the difference in it's form, and only try to convey what it is like to live in a harsh climate, where the landscapes that everyone has in their frontyards consist of about a dozen or so varieties, and that is the same dozen or so varieties that is in front yards for miles and miles, and repeated all across the valley. We don''t get to see a vast variety of form. My husband took me to Wisconsin to visit his family, and we stopped at a nursery and stayed there for about 3 hours, maybe not, but it was awesome, with some memory lane, mixed in with some pondering of new varients. (Is that...? Could that be...? That looks like...) I don't care to bother with the latin names, but it is fun to remember their common names from places I've lived over 26 years ago.

Which brings us to the plant sale that was held yesterday at Acacia Park. There were workshops to attend, and the plants that were available were selected because of their adaptability to the Mojave Desert.

Here is Mary's cache and these items will be planted in her backyard. These have "heat lovers" written all over them! This reminds me of Arizona.

Here's a gardening workshop that Don presented.

Here is Beth speaking about Backyard Habitats. She pointed out which plants to feed tortoise, and there were about 6 tortoise owners there. They are little gobblers too, btw. A fasinating note about tortoise, Don (in the previous picture), said that you cannot allow a tortoise to see outside of your yard, through a gate off in the distance, because they will afix out there, and that it will become an obsession and they will become exhausted by their attempts to escape, lured by the distance. Isn't that wild?

I came home with a couple of gems from the plant sale. Here is one, and they are like little clowns or something. Crazy little Jack in the Boxes.... (aren't Jack in the Boxes toys wacky? Remember those? Too funny!). Butterflies like these, so they might go in the sunning bed. It eludes me what this is called.

Another item is White Rain Lily. This is going under the Eucalytus so that it gets partial shade. I hope it spreads all over.

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

Just a Tear Away

When it was extremely hot, in the 110's, I noticed the iceplant had taken a turn for the worse. I had planted two, each nestled at the base of shrubs, on the downhill sides, and I was feeling pretty confident that the moisture in those areas would be sufficient to sustain the iceplants and that all would be well. That was a year ago, and things change and the iceplants were no longer happy. So I gave them each their own emitters, and they did stop their demise, but they looked pretty rough, so I clipped them back.

Here is a start from the iceplant from a few weeks ago and it is taking hold.

So here we have a starter bed of the purple flowering iceplant, and I have alot more cuttings, but my only delimma is that now I need to get away from propagations because unless they are in the ground next to an emitter, they will require hand watering and I prefer to think that I will be curled up in front of a fire, and not sprinkling water on iceplants in starter pots in fridged weather. Wouldn't a little greenhouse be nice?

Today is 9/11 and I am at a loss for words to describe how I feel, except that I am just a tear away.

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

Times Up

Here is an update on the radishes. They are little and I had to pick them because they are far beyond the 21 dtm (days to maturity) stated on the package, and it's been more like 30. When I decided to construct the raised bed, it was the peak of summer and this spot had always been an oven as I recalled. Now, the sun is lower in the sky and there is shade cast a few feet from the wall which covers the bed completely from 9:00 am until 5:00 pm as we move into fall. There is a desire for people to want to use shade cloth in the desert. I believe you would experience diminished results similar to what I am experiencing with my radishes.

So here are the radishes that have been planted in full sun. I will keep you posted on the actually dtm so that we use this to continue the topic of the shade cloth delimma . (btw, the radishes tasted fine, but I wouldn't recommend them with coffee!)

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

Coming Into Focus

Fuzzy little peaches, fuzzy photo. With the camera out of focus, I contemplate whether the subject would make a good painting composition. Painter's eye so to speak, but then everything seems a little out of focus, because these are the reading glasses I wore when I was doing sprinkler repair at a friend's house. Her front yard was washing into the street. Sounded kind of intriquing to me so I had to check it out. She said her husband hates gardening! Hates it with a passion! Rather harsh descriptive words but other than that, he's a nice guy. I was working in the dirt in the front yard, happy as a lark replacing fittings. I had to turn on the hose so that I could wash off the slippery mud for my next move. I turn on the hose, (remember the lark), then turn off the hose, and at that moment all of the water pressure remaining in that hose sprays me right in the face! It's some antisyphon contraption! Jesus! Let me add that you have to lean way in, and reach behind a bush to get to the spigot, to receive your blast in the face. So now it all comes into focus! Maybe Jimmy didn't always hate gardening. He was conditioned to hate gardening. This can be fixed! The river is fixed, next it's the spigot, then it's restorative gardening for Jimmy.

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

Lil Bit of Trouble

In a conversation with a very knowledgable garden expert, whom we shall call Leslie, I asked what she thought about New Zealand Spinach. I had just ordered it online from Botanical Interests, (there's a link located under Essentials on the sidebar) and I thought it was awesome that as a spinach, it actually thrives here in our environment. She shared with me that it can be extremely invasive, and practically overran one of her raised beds until she finally got rid of it, and was not feeling the love for New Zealand Spinach. Oh, oh! I say that because I have recently unleached it's potential in my new 17 1/2 foot raised bed and this could be a problem. You can see it in the picture. It looks so harmless. Who would think that it is trouble in the making. I laugh almost invitingly at my predicament, someday cursing that there is too much spinach and trying to get to the root of it. (Now if this were mint, my demeanor would be totally different. I have slayed the mint dragon once, and even the scales that fell off turned into mint. It was a nightmare!) So I will eventually relocate this pretty green jewel into one of the traveling pots but for now it's like holding a little piece of Kriptonite. Kind of bedazzling.

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

Vegetable Knot Gardens

I have been waiting a whole week to plant today. I planted all of the tubs,

and this one received the little bonsai sunflower!

While planting the tubs, and looking into the circular shape, I just couldn't allow myself to sow seeds randomly. There was a strong pull to plant everything in rings and all I could think about was designs like fireworks and synchronized swimmers. After everything was planted then it was time to draw the layout, of the vegetable knot gardens.

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

Spiders on the Patio

I love to propagate plants for plant exchanges and giveaways. Do you have a place where you grow items that you have propagated until they are ready to give away? I use the shaded area of my patio to raise starter plants. I'll need to get more starter pots. The aloe, yucca and hens and chicks have pups that can be potted up. On a similar note, while adding line to the drip irrigation, I unearthed a Grape Hyacinth. The bulb fell into a half dozen babies. Talk about cute. They could be relocated to new locations, but not just then. I couldn't allow myself to be distracted. Task for another day.

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