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Monday, October 8, 2007

First Yummy Pomegranate

Can you believe that I ate my first pomegranate of the year and I forgot to take a picture of it first? I have been watching that pomegranate grow all year. It could have ripened a little longer, the seeds were only pink instead of red. I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Free Water From Mother Nature

Just a little free water from above. I don't remember the weatherman mentioning rain this weekend. This storm is coming from the south, part of the hurricanes down by Mexico. It was a short but substantial little microburst. A lot of water came down. I'm sure my plants will be happy afer they recover from the beating.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Willow and Caterpillars


Caterpillars attacked my Willow tree last week. One caterpillar took up residence on each branch and chewed all of the leaves at the tip, then spun a cocoon and turned in to a moth. I was worried about the damage they were doing but they were gone in a week and each chewed branch started to sprout new shoots.

This tree has tripled in size. Now that the caterpillars nibbled on it I hope it will fill out. I am really happy with how fast it is growing. Too bad it has to hibernate this winter. I need more green.


Saturday, September 1, 2007

My Verbenas are Blending


My purple verbena was planted when the house was built. It is a hardy plant but it needs to be cut back once or twice a year when it get leggy and brown. After a year or so I noticed white Verbena mingling with my purple. I don't know where they came from because I have not seen white Verbena in the neighborhood. Maybe it was just in the plant's genes. This year I noticed light purple Verbena too. It looks like the purple and the white cross-pollinated. Now I have 3 colors of pretty Verbena.

Friday, August 24, 2007

What's Blooming Now


Red Bird of Paradise-Fiiiiinalllly blooming!
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This is my favorite Lantana-yellow and pink

My Desert Willow is STILL blooming

This Gazania sprung up for free. A pretty weed.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Moths, Moths and more Moths




I looked out the back door the other day as the sun was setting and I saw a bunch of little hummingbird type things buzzing around my flowers. Looking closer I saw that they were moths. I had never seen such a thing. They had very long tongues and were sticking them in to each Lantana flower. I tried to take pictures but I didn't have my camera set for close-ups so the pictures are blurry. I found one from wikipedia that is clear.moth with flowers

This explains why there was a tomato hornworm living on my Lantana last year. He was a big guy. One of the biggest I've seen. I put him in a jar for a while but he didn't look happy so I let him go. The hornworms turn in to these hawk or sphinx moths. Fascinating.

Saturday, August 4, 2007

My Texas Ranger


I did 2 things wrong with my Texas Ranger. I put my patio too close to it even thought I knew it was going to grow much bigger and I left the drip system too close to it's truck so that the roots didn't spread out. This is a low water plant so I can probably take the drip off of it altogether.

We had a big storm last Tuesday and my poor Texas Ranger fell over. Luckily I found it while the ground was still very wet so I propped it up with a rock close to its trunk. Once the ground dries out it cements the plant in place so if you don't put it upright fast, it will be permanently lopsided.



I was thrilled to see that it finally bloomed. I had read that it blooms when the air is humid but it has been humid for 3 weeks! I went out to look at it every couple of days to see if it looked like it was thinking about blooming. Then, on the day of the storm, when I find it laying on its side, I see it covered with flower buds. I am glad it survived the storm so that I could see it's beautiful flowers.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

It's Green Again


Thanks to the summer Monsoons my yard is green and I have shut off my drip system for now. The Lantana with its pink flowers is growing like crazy. I even trimmed it back once this year.

My 3 tranplanted Photinia shrubs might actually survive. Two of them look good. One of them looks like it has a few new green shoots. It just might make it.

The temperature has been around 98. That is much cooler than the 112 degrees of June. The plants are definitely loving it.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

My Pomegranate Tree


This is my Pomegranate tree. It is 2 years old. Well, I bought it as a one gallon plant two years ago so I suppose it is more than two years old really. It gave me 2 pomegranates last year. The tree cost $15. So each pomegranate was $7.50. this year the pomegranates will be free! Make sense?

Friday, July 13, 2007

Lovely Verbena


This Purple Verbena is great stuff. It blooms almost all year. It does need to be trimmed after months of blooming as the flower stalks turn brown and scraggly.

I haven't had as much luck with the Hybrid Verbena (the pink one). I don't know why. Maybe it is not as heat tolerant as the regular kind. This pink one is still holding on. It is the last of some flower plants I got for my birthday last year. A Marigold is growing up in front of it now. Maybe it will like the shade.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Oleander Blossoms


A lot of people don't like Oleanders. They send up a lot of suckers, they shed, and they can be poisonous if eaten and send out toxic smoke if burned. I happen to think their flowers are pretty and I appreciate that they are a hardy, low water, easy to grow plant in the desert. They do need some water though. They will die without any water. When I lived in Yuma, AZ the drip system next to my house broke and the Oleanders died from lack of water.

They grow easily from seed. I grew this one from seeds collected from a neighbor's plant. I especially like Oleanders when they are trained as a tree as opposed to a bush. I hope to train this one in to a tree but it takes many years for the branches to become woody enough to support the weight.

In the mean time I will enjoy the flowers of my Oleader while I wait for it to grow up and screen my neighbor's yard.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Sad Little Photinia Transplants


Here's a picture of my Photinia that I transplanted. One is doing well, the other two are getting more and more brown everyday. I went to a nursery today to see how much baby Photinia cost. The 5 gallon pot was $15 and the 1 gallon was $5. I think I will buy one replacement if the other 2 die. They grow fast and 2 will make a better screen than one. The question is whether I should buy the big or the small container. I am leaning toward the small container. The difference in the 2 sizes only looks to be about 6 months. I have heard that smaller plants recover from tranplant shock quicker and can actually outgrow larger nursery stock.

Friday, July 6, 2007

Rain Today!

Yea! It rained today. This means I won't have to hand water my struggling plants every morning anymore. Maybe some of them will even perk up. The temperature is cooler too. Only 100 down from 112 this week.

The wind blew all the blossoms off of my Desert Willow but it has more buds. It's not finished blooming yet.

One of my transplanted Photinia has new growth. Unfortunately, the other 2 are looking more and more brown despite my watering. I guess I should be glad even one survived. Now what should I put in those spaces if the other 2 die? I wonder how much baby Photinia cost. I think I like them there. They are good screening plants. I shouldn't even be thinking about new plants right now. Just because the temperature dipped 12 degrees doesn't mean its planting weather.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Still Alive So Far




This is my list of things that have grown despite my 'help'.
This is my Ash Tree on the left. It is about 3 years old grown from a seed. It will get really tall and I might regret planting it so close to the wall.

On the top is my baby $6 Willow Tree. It has doubled its size in a month despite the heat. In the middle is a picture of the pretty Willow blossoms. I just love them.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Rain, Rain, Please Come Today!

I am still watering my sad looking transplanted shrubs. The rain always seems to be a week away. The weather channel says it might rain on Saturday.

When I went out to water this morning I saw the first bloom on my baby Desert Willow. It is so pretty. I will take a picture tomorrow if I remember. That is one tough tree. I think I did everything wrong when I planted it. It was over 100 degrees at the time, I didn't dig the hole big enough, I pulled the tree out of the pot and the root ball broke. The leaves began to curl for the first few days. I thought it was a goner for sure. But a week later the leaves uncurled and it began to grow. Now it is twice the size and there are many blooms. I am very happy with my $6 tree.

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Casualties of the Summer Sun

Well, I think my strawberry plant isn't going to make it. I am only able to water it twice a week which was fine for a while but now it is 107 and it can't take it anymore. I was hoping it would last until the monsoon started, then it would get watered more often. I can see the rain clouds starting to build up but I don't think it will rain for another week or so. I only have 3 leaves left on my strawberry. Poor thing.

Surprisingly, my tomato which grew back from severe frost bite last winter, is thriving and looking better than ever. The zucchini are dead but the melons are still hanging on.

Next year I definitely need to plan for some shade.

Prickly Propagation

I got a free purple prickly pear cactus today.

Do you know you can cut off one of the pads and plant it? It will grow roots quite quickly. I have lots of green prickly pear but a friend of mine gave me a purple one.

Yea, free plants. I love it.

Plant ID Link

I really like this site for plant identification in Arizona.
http://www.desert-tropicals.com/

It has a lot of common landscape plants for the desert along with many wildflowers and cactus.

Not every plant has a picture but there is a lot of information like watering needs, propagation and planting zones. It's one of the site that was most useful to me when I was picking plants for my yard.

Cheap Trees

Did you know that your electric company sells cheap trees for homeowners? Tucson Electric Power sells Mesquite or Desert Willow trees for $6 each through the Trees For Tucson Program. I got a Desert Willow last month. It was about 4 feet tall and I did everything wrong when I planted it. It fell out of the pot and the dirt fell off the root ball. Plus my hole wasn't big enough. Despite my ineptness the little tree has recovered and is growing vigorously. The last tree I had in that spot cost me $35 from a local nursery. Lets hope I have better luck with my cheap tree. http://www.tucsonaz.gov/tcb/tft/

Free Plants From Friends

A great way to get plants is to let people know you are looking for them. I was offered 3 Photinia shrubs and 2 Honeysuckle today. They were planted when the house was build and out-grew their space.

The only problem is its about 105 degrees outside and I can't seem to get motivated to plant them. I hope they don't die before I get them in to the ground.

Also, be on the lookout for seeds. Plants like Gazania, Marigold, red and yellow bird of paradise, sages and many more send out a ton of seeds in public places like parking lots and parks.

Here's Some Local Links That I Found to be Helpful

Southwest Gardening Sites http://ag.arizona.edu/gardening/azsites.html

Tucson Gardener http://www.tucsongardener.com/index.html

Tucson Home and Garden http://www.tucsonhomeandgardenspot.com/pages/links

Tucson Botanical Gardens http://www.tucsonbotanical.org/

Cochise County Desert Gardening http://ag.arizona.edu/cochise/mg/desertgardening.htm

U of A Cooperative Extension http://cals.arizona.edu/pima/gardening/gardening.html

Tucson Organic Gardeners http://iwhome.com/nonprofits/TOG/