Giant Cactus Came Tumbling Down

My giant prickly pear cactus used to make a nice screen in front of the mobile home. It grew and grew and when it finally rained, it swelled up and fell over. Poor thing. I feel so exposed! How am I supposed to hide from the neighbors if my cactus falls down?

The Sun, A Blessing And A Curse

Look at the handle on my poor watering can! The sun has eaten it! It certainly doesn't take long for anything plastic to disintegrate. I need a new water bucket. The last one was plastic. The next one will be galvanized metal, definitely!

It's Been A While...

I'm renting out my house and I have moved out to my RV which sits on a couple of cactus filled acres. Not much will grow out here that isn't extremely tough and prickly. I brought a few pots from my house and they are spending the winter in the greenhouse. Last year I planted some seeds in the giant bathtub pot but when the summer came, it got so hot in there that I tried to transplant the poor things in to pots and put them outside. That didn't work very well either. The few things that did survive the heat eventually succumbed to hungry varmits.

Today I planted some beans and sunflowers. Those are the only seeds that I had besides ornamental flowers. I don't want to plant too many things this year because I don't have a protected spot for them yet. My strawberry is stil growing as well as a honeysuckle, yellow and red bird of paradise, and a baby fairy duster.

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.

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.

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.

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.