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Off Topic Area => Random Musings => Topic started by: Enchantra on November 02, 2014, 02:46:51 PM
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Last night we went to Home Depot and bought trees. One Palo Verde and one Chilean Mesquite. Both are members of the Legume family and thrive in our poor desert soils without to much fuss.
Today Peter and I spent about 3-4 hours outside digging two large holes, amending the soil and planting these two beauties along with attempting to till the area by the front door for the herb garden.
The Palo Verde which gets yellow flowers on it in the Spring has green bark and tend to be multi-trunked. We put that one up closer to the house (It's about 15 feet from the house, at least 15 feet from the walkway and 20 feet from the driveway), and the Mesquite went to the Northeast corner of the front yard down in an area where water collects in rainstorms and about 15-20 feet in from the road. It's also a good 30-40 feet away from the Septic area which is uphill from the tree.
Both trees will get canopies on them in the 20-25 ft wide range, and will not impede on the house where they are planted but will provide some shade and protection. I plan on laying down some gravel and putting in a sitting area between the Palo Verde and the house.
Digging these holes was a lesson in patience. Took another trip to Home Depot this morning and got a digging bar. If you have ever had to dig into rock hard soil you will know the benefit of these things. They weigh about 30 lbs, but they power through hard soil. Each hole was dug about three feet wide and three feet deep, so we needed something that could get through the rock, clay, sand and silt mixture they call soil here.
Took a second trip to Home Depot this afternoon and got mulch to help hold the moisture in the soil till these trees get established and to get the tree supports and tie backs. Once these trees are established their water needs are minimal since a Palo Verde is a native tree to this part of the world, and mesquite trees are also Native to the desert. I'll be removing the mulch probably sometime next year and leveling things out and covering the area with gravel instead. The mulch is temporary and what is left of it next year will go straight to the compost heap.
So our landscaping is slowly, piece by piece taking shape...
Just waiting on hearing back from our wall guy when he wants to meet with us and the neighbors to solidify wall plans, and to see where we are in the permitting process with Maricopa County.
Currently I hurt all over - I need to get back into shape!
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Nice!
That Mesquite will come in handy for future barbecues! :blob1:
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Yes it will. :D
But for now it grows out. If I need to do any formative pruning I'll give the pieces to my Hubby for the BBQ. :icon_sunny:
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looking good Amanda, next tree you should get is a "moringa"; native to Africa but can be found in the states now, you can eat every part of it and is very healthy/nutricious and hardly needs any water.
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My dream is to get Frankincense and Myrrh trees for a garden in the back yard. They won't take freezing temps however so if I were to get these trees I would have to find a way to keep them protected in the winter if the temperatures were going to fall below a certain point at night. So until I have a good plan in place I won't be buying them.
I do have a dwarf persimmon and a Negronne dwarf fig for the eastern side yard along with a Gogi berry and a seaberry Male (The female never survived shipment, will be ordering a new one). Seaberries are used in China and in African countries to help reclaim desert/arid land as they tolerate alkaline and salty soils and extreme drought/heat. That said they also produce tart berries good for preserves and supposedly fresh eating.
The rest of my landscaping outside of edibles is going to be all cactus and succulents and the random Mesquite tree. My goal is to turn the entire back yard bit by bit into a desert garden oasis minus the palm trees and water hogging plants.
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Amanda,
The guy we had come out to spray our trees this spring (they had borers and other little nasties), said to string Christmas lights in the trees (obviously not the LED ones that don't throw heat) to keep them from freezing. We were commiserating about how all the blooms on the fruit trees got killed after a really cold night. Sounded like it might be feasible, but who knows?
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Robin,
Interesting. They would definitely have to be the old time variety, just not sure where I'd be able to get those massive bulbs anymore. Even the tiny non-LED ones aren't hot enough to keep the surrounding air warm. When I was a kid my folks had these massive lights for the tree, those things would BURN if you touched them. As those strands started burning out they replaced them with much friendlier tiny bulbed lights.
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Pretty sure he was talking about the small lights, not the big bulbs. I think he said he used them on his trees. They still give off enough heat to keep things from forming frost, which is what really kills things. I might do my apricot trees and see if it works. Can't hurt and it would be really nice to have apricots next year. :dontknow:
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Having apricots would be a really good thing. Apricot preserves are delicious. Oh and Apricots boiled with rum make excellent preserves in jars. :toothy12: :toothy10: :toothy10:
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where do you live that the apricots get frosted out Hummingbird? Here in Kamloops they are like weeds, but seem to take a break every so often and there is no crop. Our first frost is late Oct. and last is late April normally but winters get down to -30C occasionally.
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Apricot trees? That sounds like Heaven!
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Hummingbirdstones is about two hours North of where I am down here in the AZ Desert. However she is living in a region that gets colder than me. However she has some great mountain views and is closer to the Grand Canyon. :thumbsup:
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Apricot trees? That sounds like Heaven!
when I bought my property it was infested with them; there are about three different varieties but they are like maple and just spring up everywhere, seven years later and the pits in the ground are still sprouting where there used to be trees.
I just wish my cherry trees were as prolific, I get good crops but had to take one; three ft. diameter at the base, down because it got rotten inside. I keep threatening to plant a peach tree but my neighbour has one and I get all I want from it.
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Lucky.
I have a bush cherry experiment I'm trying. Not sure it will work. Cherries are one of those things folks say you cannot grow down here because our winters aren't cold enough. For $10 I thought I would give it a shot and got three bare root plants. All thrived, end of summer I lost one but the other two are still ticking. I'm just going to wait and see what happens. If I lose them all or never get a single Cherry I'm only out $10 and some time. I'm on the hunt for fruit varieties that have been bred to like out lack of winter down here. Hubby wants an Apple and a Mandarin Orange tree. I want a plum and Apricot tree if I can find suitable varieties.
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We're in North Central Arizona - just north of Prescott. Pretty much 2 hours or less from everywhere, except far south AZ. We're technically "High Desert" -- being about a mile high in altitude.
We have apricot, pear, peach, plum and apple trees. They were all on the sickly side when we bought this place last spring, having been neglected for I don't know how long. Last year we had plums and pears. The apricot trees only produced a few fruit, but they were absolutely delicious! This year the apple trees did well, but the rest of the trees bloomed too early because we had a really mild winter and got nailed by a late spring cold spell. :( We also have Chinese Mulberry which is a really weird tree that we are clueless about how to care for.
We've been slowly pruning and nursing everything back to hopefully healthy trees. There were cherry trees here, but the couple in the back were dead when we got here as well as the three on the north part of the property that got toasted in a fire that happened a couple of years ago.
Oh yeah, we also have what we think is a lemon tree growing in the green house. The guy who owned this place before the losers who bought it from him was an ardent gardener and had 3 citrus trees growing in the green house (lemon, orange and grapefruit, we believe). The only one in there was dead, we thought. It had no growth last year at all, and then all of the sudden one day we noticed new growth coming from the bottom of the trunk. Now there's a few branches, almost to the roof of the greenhouse. Unfortunately, it probably won't survive the winter, since I refuse to heat the greenhouse. There is a heater hooked up in there, but I'd be terrified of even turning it on without having it totally checked out first. It'll be interesting to see how long it will last, though.
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Robin..
As long as the greenhouse is sealed to the outside so the cold winds cannot get to the Citrus, your "lemon" should be fine. I know you get colder than me. But greenhouses - even unheated ones will with some sunshine in winter stay above freezing so in theory it should be fine. If the citrus was grafted what is growing is the rootstock and not what the original tree might have been. I would keep it watered and see what happens.
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That's the best you can do with anything you want to get through the winter, try to get them in the best health possible and hope for the best. There's just nothing you can do with the bigger trees and the variable weather so as long as the winter doesn't kill them, there's allways next years crop :) I think Amanda may be right about the root stock coming up but who knows what the lemon was grafted on; probably some sort of citrus.
I live in a valley bottom at about 4500ft. so when the cold sets in it just hunkers down for two or three weeks till there is some wind to move it along.
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Pretty sure it's root stock, but looks like lemon leaves, so who knows? We get below freezing quite a bit in the January and February overnight, so we'll see what happens. I know that guy used to joke to the neighbors when he would give them oranges that each one cost him $100. :icon_sunny:
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$100 oranges...Wow...
I would guess he was big on heating and lighting his greenhouse...
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I know that guy used to joke to the neighbors when he would give them oranges that each one cost him $100. :icon_sunny:
very similar to the rockhounding I do, by the time I go out and find material, slab it, and turn it into a cab or something, the investment in time and money is a similar return; but I enjoy it so that is what is the value to me :)
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Amanda, If you want to have success with fruit trees look for those that were bred for Israel, I suggest Desert Gold peach as it is very prolific, hard to find but so good for here in the Valley. For apricot try to find a Blenheim and then plant a Santa Rosa plum near by, it help production. Apple varieties good for the area are( if I remember right) Golden Dorset and Anna, their pollen complements each other. For raspberries try Babba berries and plant them on the east side of the house, mine produced very well for me. Strawberries grow well but need protection from the afternoon sun. Sweet potatoes do well as do regular potatoes, plant sweet potatoes from slips you start in late April and regular potatoes in late January from eyes you sprout on the counter. Grapes are easy to start from cuttings but we have these lovely little critters called Grape Leaf Skeletonizers and as the name implies they turn all the leaves on you grape vine into skeletons. Fig trees do well here but some varieties are salt sensitive, Brown Turkey and Black Mission do good here. Compost everything you can to enrich your soil, stay away for pine product as they generally increase the salt in your soil which already has too much.
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Thanks Jerry.
Yeah I like peaches and apricots so I was looking for types that would work. I think one of these days while Peter is at work I am going to hit a local nursery (Not HD or Lowes) and see what they have. Depending on what they have I just may buy it then and there and bring it home in my car. Yes I do lug things in my car. I used to bring home 10ft tall trees to my Father in the back of my little Kia...It's called no more than 40MPH and your four way flashers on!
Mmm plums peaches and Apricots. Yum! Peach preserves smothered on fresh baked bread. We are talking my language!
I already have a compost going to! :headbang: It's in a large pot, but once I get Peter to build me a bin, it's going straight into the bin! :icon_sunny:
I already have a fig. It's a dwarf Negronne. Already producing tons of figs even though it wasn't supposed to for another few years! I must be doing something right!
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Funny, there's no lights in the green house. Just the heater that's mounted near the ceiling and runs on natural gas. I'm definitely not determined to have citrus trees in this climate, so if it grows, it grows -- if it croaks, it croaks. :dontknow:
The norm around here, from what I've heard is that we get fruit on the trees about one in every three years when frost doesn't kill off the blossoms. I'm hoping this coming spring is one of those years. :headbang:
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Well Robin I hope that is the case for you. Here's to hoping! :occasion14:
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It seems like just a short time ago most nurseries had true bare root trees but now everything come in these little plastic sacks packed in sawdust. Besides that all of the old time family nurseries are closed, Harper's, Baker's, etc., just a few years ago they were places of local knowledge but the matriarchs and patriarchs of those companies are dead and gone and the children have sold the properties to the highest bidders to settle the estates, sad really. The best bet is to see if you can order those cultivars of trees through the internet. Once in a great while you will find them at the big box home improvement stores.
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Well there are a few nurseries around the area down here. One just up Elsworth road who's name I cannot remember, and one back up in Chandler called Moon Valley. I will probably give these places a shot since they are locally owed operations.
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Of course I have today's update.
Starting to put down compost to till into the awful soil we have around here. Forming my herb garden in the entry area where it holds water a bit longer and it's sheltered from the hot summer sun. Herbs that call for full sun back east can only take a few hours of the full sun here in AZ before it starts taking it's toll. I figure I need at a minimum at least another 15 cubic feet of compost to work into this area over and above what I have put down already. What you see in the pictures is just soil leftover in pots from growing other things and a whole pot of organic compost I made from letting kitchen scraps rot all year in a pot!
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Moon Valley has mostly imported trees, try Whitfields for locally grown trees, they started growing trees here back in the '40s so they kinda know what does and doesn't do well here.
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Thanks for the tip Jerry, I'll look for a Whitfields.
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Do you mean Whitfill?
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So I had a productive day.
I spent about three hours this afternoon outside working on various projects.
Yesterday I had bought a red pot and some small cactus and succulents to create a home for the Gnome that showed up on my doorstep mysteriously several weeks ago. Well he has a proper home now and sits in the pot right where the front sidewalk meets the driveway. Once I get my order of gravel in, the pot will be surrounded by gravel and it will look neat and tidy there.
I purchased a dwarf pomegranate yesterday and it was half dead. But at $10 I couldn't go wrong. I trimmed off the dead stuff, and up potted it into a larger pot with better soil. Should be fine. Once it is in better health I will plant it out into the landscape.
I managed to get all the herbs planted in the herb garden area as well. Now all I need is my order of stone so I can lay down my stone mulch and the area will be complete. The only thing not planted yet is the African Iris back by the one boulder that I bought because of the flower color - a creamy white with a purple center. The care tag said a part sun area. That works for this spot.
I also up potted several mesquite trees into larger pots that I had started from seed this past summer. I did not want the roots to start circling in the small 3 inch pots I had started them in.
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That looks like the travel gnome; maybe it's a hint from the neighbours LOL
Looking good out there though; you're going to have to give us a house tour LOL
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Actually my neighbors are out of town right now. So who knows?
So far I have no beefs with my neighbors, they all seem pretty nice. Our next door neighbors are maybe a hair older than Peter and I with no kids. The neighbors with the mini horse and goats down at the end of the culdesac are probably early 50's, a couple kids still at home but look to be leaving the nest soon. All decent people.
I cleaned out all the icicle radishes from a pot of squash today. Since the squash plant had died, and Peter hates radishes I saw no point keeping the radishes around, so I took them and the greens down to the neighbor with goats. You'd swear I fed those goats crack. They were fighting over the stuff! My neighbor was laughing as she had never seen her two goats behave like that! So I made a couple new four legged friends today.
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The cactus in your red pot should handle the winters just fine but that euphorbia is pretty frost tender, there are members of the family that are more tolerant of the cold than that one. The one cactus on the left is very interesting. An interesting addition to the landscape is agaves, there are so many different types that you can just go kinda nuts with them, fun plants to collect.
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Looking really good Amanda :headbang:
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The cactus in your red pot should handle the winters just fine but that euphorbia is pretty frost tender, there are members of the family that are more tolerant of the cold than that one. The one cactus on the left is very interesting. An interesting addition to the landscape is agaves, there are so many different types that you can just go kinda nuts with them, fun plants to collect.
Yeah I was wondering about that euphorbia. I think if we are expecting some serious cold I will just move the pot into the garage - which means about three feet!
I do have one agave - which I planted today that Eric gave me at my housewarming party. Very beautiful small agave he said is a Shark Skin Agave. I will probably get some more as time goes on. Right now I'm waiting to landscape the sides and the other side of the driveway till after I see where our new fence will go through and where the gates are going to either side as well. I don't want to plant something and have to then move it because it's in the driving path going up to the RV gate we are having put into the front wall.
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remember citrus.
Lime, lemons & oranges.
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remember citrus.
Lime, lemons & oranges.
They are on the list for planting on the East side of the house after our block wall fence is built.
Peter wants a Mandarin Orange and an Apple.
I want Plums and Apricots.
I already have the fig tree and the persimmon tree.
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So of all the places to hit caliche....
We hit it digging our fake stream bed out. Never hit an ounce of it digging holes for trees.
We need to dig six inches down to hollow out the fake drainage streambed and hit the caliche three inches down. :BangHead:
Right now we have water soaking into it to attempt loosening it up a bit. The tiller makes a decent dent in it, but only can get through about an inch at a time. I'm going to try the 35 lb digging bar next. If neither of those work I'm going to inquire with my one neighbor at the end of the culdesac and see if he has a pickaxe.
At least we think it's caliche, it's in a very strange spot to be caliche as it's on the man made slope on the yard. It could be hard packed soil from construction equipment but dang this stuff is like concrete so I really want to think it's caliche. It even has that off-white color of caliche...
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Got the tiller and the digging bar through the caliche, our river bed is fully dug out now! Took Peter and I about an hour but we got through it.
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Gina and I finished the herb garden back on Saturday. We hauled some rear end and rocked it all in. I watered everything well yesterday which washed off the stone and when wet the pea gravel is multicolored! The "Apache Brown" rip rap rock is also a multitude of colors. As I was watering some of the rocks started showing their true colors. Absolutely gorgeous!
Now to just do the other side of the entry and finish the fake river. It's a work in progress!
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We got the fake stream bed all laid out today!
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Wow nice!
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I'm hoping to lay the pond area this weekend while I still have Peter home before he heads back into work. It was nice having someone much stronger than me to haul rock. Oh and remember how rickety my wheelbarrow is? Peter used it today and said something to the effect of, "This thing is crap!" So I think we will be buying a new one soon! :toothy12: :laughing6:
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Oh, that is so lovely. We need one for a French drain, but haven't gotten there yet. Grass grows EVERYWHERE, so we really aren't sure it would work here anyway.
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Ice: Dig out the area where you want the fake stream bed, line it with landscape fabric to prevent weed growth, and lay your rocks down on top of it - it will keep grass from growing in the stream bed as well. That is what we did, because despite this being a desert you would be surprised the weeds that thrive in this climate given the slightest few drops of water!
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I'm hoping to lay the pond area this weekend while I still have Peter home before he heads back into work. It was nice having someone much stronger than me to haul rock. Oh and remember how rickety my wheelbarrow is? Peter used it today and said something to the effect of, "This thing is crap!" So I think we will be buying a new one soon! :toothy12: :laughing6:
I'll come help you finish next weekend and use your new wheelbarrow. :icon_tongue:
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LOL!! GINA!!!!
That is if we manage to go out and actually get the new wheelbarrow!
Peter tilled up on the other side of the sidewalk this morning and tomorrow both of us are going to be working on that area.
We'll see how much progress we make in that time.
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Well? How much progress did you make?
So, next weekend, we go out and buy a new wheelbarrow, then we break it in. :icon_sunny:
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Well? How much progress did you make?
So, next weekend, we go out and buy a new wheelbarrow, then we break it in. :icon_sunny:
We bought the new wheelbarrow - it can hold 300lbs.
As long as I can get some more work done before the rain I MIGHT get the wheelbarrow broken in tomorrow as I finish off the other side of the entry way.
Also my neighbors down the road offered the services of the missionaries from their Church. I have a lot of rock to move. I might take them up on that offer.
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I will come over Friday and Saturday if you want. I need 1 day of rest (and will probably be broken by Sunday... 300 lbs ????(http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh240/MrsWTownsend/smilies/faint2.gif) (http://s257.photobucket.com/user/MrsWTownsend/media/smilies/faint2.gif.html) ).
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That works Gina! Though you don't have to come both days and you certainly don't need to put all 300 lbs in the wheelbarrow! :toothy12:
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Well the garden at the other side of the entry is now 3/4 rocked in. I am also sorely out of commission for a day or so unless my muscles stop screaming. I overdid it. My back, stomach and left hip are NOT happy with me. I have to remind myself I'm not in my twenties anymore. :sad5:
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I know what you mean, I'm 60 and keep trying to work like I did when I was in my 30's and sometimes my back locks up on me.
I've heard a hot bath with epson salts relaxes the muscles but I've yet to try it.
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I did the ibuprofen and hot shower route last night. Worked alright and loosened things up a bit. Still sore today but not as bad as it could have been.
I was going to lay more rock today but first the Husband said, "No you are going to rest today," and then The Good Lord sent us rain - enough of it that there is no way I could work outside without looking like an adobe brick by the time I got done. Of course it's still raining outside. I should go do a rain dance instead, because this is the desert, and rain is not a bad thing.
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Need more rain and snow in the watershed, optional to have rain down here though it is nice. :hello2: It is strange that most of the winter weeds here are exotics, that is imports from somewhere else in the world. The vast majority of the grasses that are short day are from somewhere else, the broad leafed weeds come from afar too. One grass I really hate has those sticky seed heads, it was brought here to provide fodder for range cattle but they don't like it, won't eat it, not even the rabbits will eat this stuff. Then there is Johnson Grass, it scavenges arsenic out of the soil, has these rhizomes like Bermuda grass that are near impossible to kill off and here again nothing eats it. Then we have Pig Weed, it too scavenges arsenic out of the soil and if livestock eat enough of it they curl up and die. Bull Heads, Goat Heads, Puncture Vine, whatever you want to call it is one nasty weed to run afoul of, hard on the feet or bicycle tire, grows well here. I know it anathema to you but after a rain is a good time to apply a per-emergent herbicide, just saying. :dontknow:
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Weeds are of course the only thing I dislike about it raining here in the desert. Once things dry out I'm going to have to get out there with a hoe and attempt uprooting anything green that is sprouting before it becomes huge.
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Put them in the compost pile to make the soil better. :icon_thumleft:
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Put them in the compost pile to make the soil better. :icon_thumleft:
That's about all they're good for! :headbang:
Granted I have no compost bin yet. But I imagine I could start a pile someplace.
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It needs to dry out dangit!
I still cannot move rock today, the ground is still to wet for me to risk hauling a wheelbarrow of rock over it. :sad5:
I want to at least get two things done out front before I head North to Vancouver for Christmas - the garden at the side of the entry done, and the "pond" water catchment area rocked in. The wet ground is delaying progress.
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Well to dark right now to take a picture.
However I got the other side of the entry gardens done. It's all rocked in and xeriscaped.
I also hurt like no tomorrow. Time for ibuprofen.
I prepped the fish for dinner, now Peter is making sushi for dinner, which means I don't have to cook! Woohoo! :blob1:
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Doing your yard is good exercise.
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Doing your yard is good exercise.
Damn straight!
I ache from the good workout yesterday!
So here are the pictures from doing what I did yesterday, continuing with Xeriscaping and edibles and medicinals.
Entry is now for the most part, other than some minor details, DONE.
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looking good :headbang: After the plants flesh out and get some stature, it will look like you meant to do it that way LOL
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Lloyd, gardening in the desert is a whole different ball of wax. To even be able to plant anything in this area we had to till it, remove the bazillion rocks, remove the leftover tile scraps and other detritus the builders left behind in the dirt, and then add in four large bales of compost and three bags of organic potting soil and till all that in. Then I sculpted the soil, planted the plants, laid down the underlayment in the areas where I wanted it, and then laid the stone.
Anyways, time to go make dinner. Hubby will be hungry when he gets home...
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just joking Amanda; I wasn't belittleing the look or the work you put in. I know how much work it is, you guys are doing a good job making your piece of "paradise" :headbang:
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I knew you were joking Lloyd. :headbang:
The paradise will be better as soon as I can get the wall in place and done. We're having contractor issues, and hopefully that will be resolved soon. We had a contractor all picked out for the wall and back patio. He seemed excited to have the work. I notified him he had the job. A few weeks passed and nothing from him. Contacted him and he made some excuse about trying to get lot drawings for our place from the builder with the drainage drawn up so he could submit for the permit from the county. Three weeks ago after a lot of phone messages I finally heard from him. He wanted to do a contract signing. I dropped him an email letting him know the times we were available along with our neighbors who are also having a wall put in. He never responded. A week ago today I called him and left a message asking him what was going on. I have not heard back. I used to work for a contractor back east - you don't pull this kind of crap with customers because this is how you lose customers. He was notified back in SEPTEMBER that he had the job. It's now December. Screw him.
Apparently our neighbor was tired of the crap too. He got someone else in and that person is starting work soon and our neighbor gave his contractor my contact information and it sounds like this guy is going to guarantee his work for longer than the other guy was, and come in more reasonable on price. I'm hoping to hear from the guy tomorrow. Our neighbor has friends at the County level that can get a permit through in a matter of days instead of the normal one month or more waiting period. If we can get this fence/wall started when we get back from Vancouver it will be great.
The real kicker here is the wall guy we had initially chosen to do the work was the one recommended by the builder because it is the same company that does all the walls around the properties when they put in whole subdivisions down here. You would think this guy would be all over a job that would get a $22,000 check handed to him! It's not small change and we're fencing in an acre. Anyways he is history. You don't want to at least return our calls, screw you. We'll give the money to someone willing to do the work and polite enough to give us the common courtesy of a return phonecall.
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I've been wondering how you are going to keep re-fortifying the dirt with the cover thingy on it, but then I remembered the fish soup/ cow poop concoction... I guess that will be horse poop fish soup now. :)
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Yes Gina, there will be lots of fish emulsion being used and also granulated organic fertilizer. Most of these plants when I planted them I put a palm full of ironite in the hole as well, especially the bouganvilla, which has a higher iron requirement for growth.
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Bougainvillea seem to do better in poor soil, if the soil is too "good" they tend to produce a lot of nice green growth which the cutter bees love but don't produce much of the vibrant bracts that we love for their color. When I lived in town and had enriched my soil to grow all kinds of stuff I planted some Bougainvillea and all I got was green growth.
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I would say my garden soil in the front is half native soil and half compost. We shall see how it affects things. The bouganvilla is variegated and the leaves emerge deep pink and slowly turn to white and green. Even without flowers it's pretty.
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I have had this one that I have been trying to kill for years, it was here when I bought the house, and finally I just had it dug up. I was so tired of getting scratched up when I walked by. Anyway, when it was out of the ground the roots hadn't broken out of the original planting hole. It would wilt to nothing in the summer but boy would that thing bloom like crazy. I took and planted this decrepit thing at my neighbors house in some nice soil and all she got was mountains of green vibrant growth, she had it taken out by her landscaper. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be nice to some plants. :nono:
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So I have updates!
This past week we had missionaries from our neighbor's Church out to help me lay some rock. We are finally progressing someplace...
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So I have updates!
This past week we had missionaries from our neighbor's Church out to help me lay some rock. We are finally progressing someplace...
Dang!!! I keep telling them I'm not interested when they show up at my door; great idea Amanda!!!!!
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It looks nice!
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I Love to see what you are working on your landscaping:) I like to see and think about different parts of the country and what grows there.
I enjoyed seeing your trees Amanda:)
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Dang!!! I keep telling them I'm not interested when they show up at my door; great idea Amanda!!!!!
Well the neighbors said that their Missionaries have a certain amount of community service/outreach they have to do. This includes helping folks who need everything from lawns mowed, hay stacked, animals fed to landscaping and serving soup at kitchens. So my neighbors offered the services of the Missionaries at their Church. Since my Husband is Non-practicing Mormon, it really didn't bother me. I just fed them a nice lunch. Very respectable and STRONG young men! I find it's much easier to deal with folks when you're nice to them, and then of course they will lay rock for you! :headbang:
Now I just need to go out and get a nice Saguaro or Boojum Tree to put in the front yard about six feet back from the mailbox. I want something tall there, and both will get tall. Of course pending I cannot get either of those I'll plant another tree instead like a Texas Ebony! I'll grab the neighbor's strong and very good looking young son to dig the hole for me. He works for cookies. :icon_sunny:
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I Love to see what you are working on your landscaping:) I like to see and think about different parts of the country and what grows there.
I enjoyed seeing your trees Amanda:)
Thanks Sara! It's no where's close to done yet! I still have a lot of rock to lay, cactus to plant as well!
Mind you I haven't even begun the gardens in the back of the house yet since that all hinges on the patio getting installed soon.
Which reminds me I have some phonecalls to make tomorrow, the latest contractor hasn't even bothered to get us a quote. The first contractor we picked to install the patio and the wall just stopped returning phonecalls and emails after we hand picked him from numerous quotes. Apparently he must not need the business? This new guy was quoting both us and our next door neighbor, which in theory should save the guy on mobilization costs for his work crew if they can do both residences at once installing walls and patios. The quote from this guy is now almost a week and a half overdue from the date he said he'd have it to me. We're having some weird luck with contractors around here. I gave the guy everything he needed to quote us - the old quote from the other guy with all the measurements on it, and a copy of the site plan showing all the setbacks. All he has to do is give me his pricing to do the same scope of work. It's not rocket science.
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That looks great!!!
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Looking really good Amanda. :coffee2:
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Here's the new items that got planted into the Landscape on Sunday.
There is actually a small saguaro in there.
My Parents gave us money for our anniversary for something for our landscaping, and this worked perfectly.
We went to a local nursery just a couple miles from us that is family owned and operated.
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Interesting selection of plants, some get very large you understand, don't plant them all that close together. There are some that will be more upright and some that spread out, the prickly pear are spreaders, the desert spoon will soon become a large spherical plant that will annually shoot up a seed head and the Ceres Monstrous can take one of two forms, an upright version or a kinda sprawling long armed cactus. The other plant looks kinda like an agave but I just can't quite remember which one. Have fun with planting them.
:icon_thumright:
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Jerry,
Here's some photos of the plantings along with my new amaryllis gardens. I actually planted all the cactus back on Sunday afternoon after I snapped the photo of the collection of them.
I tried to keep in mind mature size of the cactus when I planted them.
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Seeing your little Golden Barrel there reminds me when we moved in at our current house, I bought 6 tiny GBs that were barely an 1-1/2" in dia. for fifty cents each, they are now these huge things that are now touching each other. Every year after they got to be around 6" in dia. I saying to myself, "you know you need to move those", well now they are way too big for me to move and a well qualified cactus nursery wants $50 each to move or they will take them out for free. Yeah, I'm sure as now rather than $0.50 they are worth about $500 planted by these guys and I get the pleasure of giving the cactus to them, such a deal. I used to love my agave collection, around 50 different types, but then came the Agave Weevil, close kin to the Bole Weevil, the feed on the base and pups of the agave and slowly kill it, I only have a few left so in the last ten years or so I have decided to only grow what already grows here as a native, I have a lot less death and a lot less work to do. :notworthy:
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I've seen how big barrel cactus get so this guy got planted alone with a few feet between him and anything else, he can take some time and grow as big as he wants! :headbang:
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New Babies!
I got in a shipment of trees and perennials I had ordered a while back. The tall guy is a Willow Leafed Peppermint Eucalyptus.
The little guys are all perennials such as Salvia, Rosemary, Penstemon, and California Fuschia, which will all grow well here.
I planted them all up into bigger pots tonight so they are no longer confined to their tiny black pots they came in.
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Had some more babies arrive today bare root from California. Planted them up and shot some pictures. Once all the grading and gardens are ready to receive plants these guys will be going in the ground or decorative landscape pots in a permanent location.
Mammilaria Gracilis fragilis.
Echinocereus Rubinospinus.
Third picture shows a large boojum tree, a smaller boojum tree in a tiny square pot, an Adenium obesum and Adenium swazicum. (These last two will require winter protection since they will not take freezing temperatures. For now they will be in easy to cover or move pots.)
Fourth picture is a closeup of the large boojum tree. Note the spines. This is going in it's own special garden at least six feet off the driveway on the west side of the house.
Last picture is a Cholla that I got last week at the Botanical Gardens Plant sale. It was bare root. I made sure it went into a pot today so it will survive till I get a chance to get it planted into an area along the inside of our wall. Right now I'm waiting for our property to get graded before I can plant a lot of things out in the gardens or along the fence.
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Very cool plants Amanda :icon_thumleft:
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I feel sorry for the poor sap that decides to try and scale your fence. You won't need the house alarm, you will hear the blood curdling screams.
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Honestly I won't feel sorry for anyone trying to scale my fence to get into my yard who is aiming on breaking into my house. If a person is stupid enough to be scaling fences in hopes of breaking into a home, they can face the consequences of their actions. Once I know this cactus is happy, I'm taking cuttings from it and rooting them. Think I'll root enough to put one between each fence pylon. Inbetween I'll fill with prickly pear.
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A new Garden I put in today to the right side of the driveway if you are facing the house...
I laid down all the rock, put in about half the soil and then grabbed Peter and he helped me fill it in with soil the rest of the way.
I then planted it up with a bunch of plants I already had here, some of which had been in a planting nook in the front rocks. That nook now has different occupants as witnessed in the photos below.
Tonight I went out and watered it all and took pictures as the sun set. I also laid down more cayenne pepper to keep the critters from using my plants as lunch.