Fall is here (supposedly)

It's late September and still blazingly hot....predicted high of 106 today. I wish it would cool off; I'm ready to get some serious work done in the garden!

The picture above shows several fairly healthy summer squash we planted in July. None of the bush beans planted at the same time survived. No squash yet; they have just started to bloom and we'll have to wait and see how the pollination goes. We're still picking several Japanese eggplant and Armenian cucumbers each week. This week I planted two trays of snow peas, spinach, and four kinds of lettuce indoors. Maybe by the time they are ready to transplant it will have cooled down enough for them to survive. I also put out some broccoli and cauliflower transplants. This year I'm trying them in the raised beds instead of in our designated garden area. I haven't had too much luck with these in the past, and think it might be that flowering plants don't get enough sun in that area in the winter.

The peach and nectarine trees look terrible; the plum trees look okay, and the pear and apple trees look fine. We lost one of our newly planted peach trees this summer; you can see it in the foreground. I'm more worried about our mature peach tree by the gazebo- I'd hate to lose it. I'm not sure if it is salt burn or an iron deficiency, or a combination of both, but its leaves are really yellow. (Our deciduous trees don't tend to lose their leaves until sometime in December) It's getting deeply watered once a week, which is supposed to mitigate the salt problem. I gave it a dose of liquid iron supplement this weekend.

There's a nice second crop of zinnias that came up from the seeds of the ones that bloomed in June. An orange variety has been blooming nonstop since spring, and there's a fair amount of color from vinca and portulaca. Three of the older hibiscus planted around the pool may not make it, though. I'm not sure, but I think the drip system that goes to them was malfunctioning and I didn't notice they were in distress until it was too late. However, when I started cutting back the dead branches, I found green wood farther down the plant, so it's possible they could come back.

Mike finished installing the French drain and is now in the process of leveling the area where the new patio will go. He's debating about whether it is necessary to take out the dead, thoroughly scalped remnants of Bermuda grass first, or just put the sand base down on top of it. I don't think it will revive, but as it decomposes, it might cause the patio pavers to sink unevenly.

Patio Progress

Most of the Bermuda grass appears to be dead, so Mike has moved onto the next step- putting in a French drain where the patio will meet the extended raised beds.

I moved onto weeding another raised bed, the one nearest the pool where we planted asparagus plus blueberry and blackberry bushes, rose bushes, and assorted annuals. It's a difficult spot to get into as it's bordered on one side by a thevetia hedge, and there is also a fairly large colony of ants that does not like to be disturbed. I haven't attempted to get rid of it, because (a) I don't like putting poison down where there are things growing I plan to eat and (b) according to the insect experts in my Master Gardener class, ants are beneficial for our heavy clay soils. The lecturer (an entomologist from U of A) cited a study of alfalfa fields that were infested with fire ants. The alfalfa plants nearest the anthills were healthier and produced more than the ones in ant-free areas. However, getting several ant bites on my hands and feet every time I attempt to get some of the bermuda grass and spurge out of the bed does not make for a pleasant experience.

I haven't seen the mother hummingbird yet, but now there are three eggs in the nest!

It's fall, although you wouldn't believe it by the temperature

Fall planting season is officially upon us, but we're in the middle of a heat wave (110 yesterday) and it's still too hot to work in the garden for very long. I worked on getting the bermuda grass out of a couple of the raised beds today, and scattered seeds of larkspur and snapdragon. I'm harvesting a lot of Japanese eggplant and Armenian cucumbers, and that's about it. We didn't get one bean from the lovely tent of pole bean vines- I think that I planted them too late. Likewise the corn was a waste of space and water- poor pollination and some kind of giant black mutated kernels. I won't bother trying corn again.

The only fall veggies I have planted to date are yellow squash and bush beans, which according to my Master Gardener chart, should be planted in August. A disappointing number of beans are up, probably because I used an old seed packet, but there are about a dozen squash plants scattered in the raised beds. We'll see how they produce- this is the first time I've actually tried them in the fall.

Home Depot had a good price on flowering hanging baskets, so I replaced three of the baskets hanging from the gazebo, which were looking pretty sad. I decided to leave the fourth one in place, because when I took it down, there was a hummingbird nest with two tiny eggs! I can put up with ratty-looking annuals for a few more weeks.

We're in the middle of another big project....taking out a 10-foot wide section of lawn on the north side of the house and putting in a pavestone patio, and enlarging the raised beds so they abut the patio. You can see the location above delineated by the two-by-fours and dead Bermuda grass. (Killing the grass was the first step) When completed, it should be a nice shady place to enjoy the garden, with a view of the raised beds and pond waterfall. Mike is doing most of the work...too hot for me to stay out there more than 5 minutes at a time! I don't see how he stands it, but he says it doesn't bother him.

Weeds and things

Today's Master Gardener class was on weeds, which was actually quite interesting. For example, I learned that many of our most pervasive and obnoxious weeds are of European origin, and that we can blame the fall of Constantinople in 1453 for their arrival here. Seriously. When the Ottoman Empire captured Constantinople and controlled the Black Sea, it became very expensive for Europeans to trade with India, China, and other Asian countries. Enter Christopher Columbus and his search for a western route to the Orient. The wooden ships of the time needed ballast to provide stabilization on the ocean, and if they offloaded cargo on one side of the Atlantic, they needed something to replace its weight. The cheapest and easiest thing to do was to fill barrels with local dirt....and the weed seeds, fungi, bacteria, and other inhabitants of the soil came along for the ride.

I also now can identify and call some weeds by their proper names before attempting to kill them. The tall ones with leaves that look sort of like giant dandelions? Prickly lettuce, also called compass plant because the leaves grow north and south. The low-growing stuff with many small leaves that exudes a sticky sap (which is poisonous, by the way, and could cause eye damage if you rub your eye while weeding) Spurge. The feathery ones that like to hide and grow in shrub plantings, and that have a tap root that goes down to China? Desert broom, which unlike most things that are growing unwanted in my backyard, is actually a native plant.

I'm certain I will have plenty of practice naming weeds in the next few days. We got quite a bit of rain the last few days. Monsoon rains in the desert are always needed and provide a bit of cooling respite from the 100-plus normal temperatures for this time of the year. But, in addition to making our flowers, vegetables, and trees happy, they also cause weed seeds that were hiding dormant in our yard to sprout and proliferate.

It's hot!

The garden is a mess after being neglected while we were on vacation for two weeks. The intense heat and an irrigation malfunction affecting the raised beds did not help matters much. They look pretty sad. The "old" vegetable garden wasn't affected so much as its watering system was on a different line. We picked a bumper crop of tomatoes before we left and have at least that many green ones maturing now. No beans yet but the vines continue to grow up the trellis and look healthy. The volunteer sugar snap peas, not unexpectedly, died from the heat. I also picked a couple of giant Armenian cucumbers.

I'm trying to catch up weeding, deadheading, and pulling out spent annuals in the raised beds. The irrigation malfunction caused water to just seep from the sprayers, so I have a nice healthy crop of bermuda grass and a purslane-type weed growing in some spots, while other things are dead. I cut the allyssum way back and most of it is still green underneath, so it will probably come back. If not, it dropped lots of seeds for new plants. I can't find the Japanese eggplant- maybe it will appear once I get all the weeds and grass out, and remove some zinnias that are past their prime. I think we've lost one of the new fruit trees we planted this spring, a peach. We have really had a difficult time with stone fruits- it is hard to get the watering right with our heavy clay soil.

I was accepted to the Master Gardener program and have been to two classes so far. The first was on basic botany and I was surprised how much I remembered about cellular structure and photosynthesis from my college botany classes, which were in 1970. Fortunately the lecture did not include the Krebs citric acid cycle nor having to draw any three-dimensional chemical formulas. The second was on soil and fertilization and reminded me more of my chemistry classes. We have a huge stack of books with reading assignments each week. Some of it is pretty technical, but it's kind of fun for a geek like me. The most practical thing I have learned so far is that it's OK to put oleander and thevetia leaves in the compost bin....the toxins are broken down by the composting process. Considering how messy those are, that is certainly a good thing to know...both in terms of not sending more trash to the landfill than necessary, and in saving money because the more compost we can make, the less we have to buy!

June Harvest

Today I'm eating nectarines from a dwarf tree we planted a couple of years ago. This is the first edible fruit we've gotten from the tree, and it's pretty good. We picked two bunches of red seedless grapes from the arbor in front of the pool equipment, and they were actually grape-sized rather than the match head sized ones we've gotten from the older vines under the lemon tree. There are lots of tomatoes, but they probably won't last long in the summer heat. We also have several smallish bell peppers. No snapbeans, butterbeans, or corn yet...I probably planted those too late. The snapbeans are about halfway up the trellis now; I'm waiting to post a picture when they reach the top and/or start producing. I cleaned out the withered nasturtiums around the pool today, and found a volunteer leaf lettuce plant that decided to grow there. I'll leave it alone and see what happens, as I am doing with the volunteer snap peas.

The zinnias look really good, and there are a lot of interesting blooms in the "hummingbird and butterfly mix) that I haven't identified. It's always fun to plant a mix like that and see the different things that come up. I pulled up the hollyhocks which are done for the season, and Mike ran them through the new shredder. It's a budget version we found at Harbor Freight tools that was suggested in a Phoenix Permaculture Guild post. We were disappointed in how it did when we tried to shred the pea vines and bolted lettuce, but it did a nice job on the hollyhock canes, and popped all the seeds out of the cases. We're trying to compost yard waste more seriously this year- it seems a shame to send all we produce to a landfill and then go to Home Depot and buy several dozen bags of mulch.

Memorial Day Weekend Project

Here's a photo of our latest project, a raised bed surrounding a grape arbor. We had originally built a small wall of stuccoed cinder blocks to hide the pool equipment. Later we found a bench with a metal arbor that we though would look nice in front of the wall, which was kind of boring to look at. We'd had several plants die in that location because of the heavy clay soil, so we decided to try grapes planted in large wooden boxes with the bottoms cut out, long planter boxes on top of the wall, and a hanging basket at the apex of the arch. The planter boxes and hanging basket were unsuccessful, but the grapes really took off. Since we never used the bench for sitting anyway, we decided to take out the bench, remove the boxes around the grapes, and raise the whole area. We planted a rosebush in the center, with verbena and vinca surrounding it.

I think life is a bit like gardening. There are many things you can't control- like our heavy clay soil and the Arizona summer heat, and there are many things you try that don't work the way you hoped they would. But you work to change the things you can, you learn from your mistakes, and you keep trying new things.

Another run to Home Depot

It's getting hot already....96 degrees and it isn't even noon yet. This morning I planted some vinca (Home Depot had another 89-cent sale on six-packs) under the thinned-out orange tree. I bought 10 six packs and probably should have gotten three times that number. Oh well, what is a day without a run to Home Depot? I think we have some Home Depot stock, or at least I hope we do.

Summer changes in the garden

I pruned the orange tree today...removed some of the lower limbs which were hanging down to the ground. It looks more like a tree than a giant bush now, I should be able to plant something under it (haven't decided what yet) and we should still get plenty of oranges. The grapefruit tree looks like a bush too, but I am more reluctant to prune it as it seems more fragile than the other citrus trees and I would hate to accidentally kill it since my mother enjoys grapefruit so much. She still takes a big boxful back on the airplane, even though she has to pay extra to do so.

The first zinnia opened up today, and the orange daylily has also started blooming. The Confederate Jasmine behind the patio pond is still blooming, and the two Carolina Jessamine have started to come back, even the one I thought was probably dead. The birds have pretty well finished off the last of the peaches, but I enjoyed the first apricot a few days ago. There is apparently one plum this year at the very top of our Santa Rosa plum tree, which is wedged in between two rosebushes. Whose bright idea was that? Although we have had the tree for several years, we have never seen any plums. It may have helped that we put in another plum this year which will help pollinate it.

We are still struggling to the get the irrigation system right. There was a big puddle in one spot this morning, and other places aren't getting enough. I thought one day without watering had killed the parsley and mint I planted under the almond tree, but it seemed to bounce back after getting watered. I changed the system to come on every day. Supposedly you are not supposed to do that, but I haven't found any other way to keep things alive.

More garden wanderings

Pole beans are coming up nicely. We're trying a different support system this year- an A-frame trellis that will hopefully be sturdier than the rebar-and-string supports we tried with the snap peas. Speaking of which, there are about a dozen volunteer snap pea plants coming up. It isn't the right time of the year for them, but I'm leaving them alone to see what they will do. There are also melon seedlings coming up under the lemon tree, and lots of green tomatoes. The nasturtium border looks pretty ratty, but I decided to leave it in place and see if it works to shade the landscaping bricks so that the tomatoes and other vegetables don't suffer as much from reflected heat. (This was a tip I learned in a gardening seminar we took through Phoenix Permaculture Association)

I pulled out the sweet peas that were under the peach tree yesterday, which have pretty well stopped blooming and are dying back anyway. These are volunteers that have self-seeded every spring for several years, and it isn't even the best place for them. There isn't much for them to climb on, other than the peach tree, and they block the entrance to the gazebo. I think I'll save some of the seeds and put them in the pots under the old gazebo off our back patio- see if they will grow up the metal supports.

The grape vines on the arch behind the pool have really taken off...one of the vines has reached the top of the arbor already. They seem to be doing much better than the older vines along the fence behind the lemon tree, perhaps because they get more sun.

On sharing and thinning

In past years, we have attempted to shield our peach tree from the birds with netting, in various configurations and with varying degrees of success. Usually what happens is the birds manage to find their way under the netting anyway, get trapped, and then we make a general snarled mess of the netting trying to release them. Also, it is rather troublesome to get under the netting ourselves in order to pick peaches, so we are derived of some of the spontaneity of plucking and enjoying a ripe peach when wandering through the garden. This year we decided to forgo the netting and share with the birds. I think I've enjoyed more fresh peaches this year than when I tried to keep the bird from enjoying them also. They are extremely ripe and juicy now, and in a few days will turn mushy, so I picked a big bowlful and refrigerated them in order to prolong their peak flavor for a little longer, and I'm letting the birds enjoy the rest. There are enough to share, and I have further been rewarded by visits from some attractive and interesting songbirds. I'm not enough of a birdwatcher to know what kinds they are, but they are not pigeons or grackles, which is what I seem to see the most of around here. Apparently pigeons and grackles don't like fruit, for the only birds I've seen eating it are much smaller and generally much better behaved.

I thinned the apple tree today and tried to be a little more aggressive than we were with the peach tree. Even though it is a little late for thinning to affect fruit size, it should be better for the tree. If we don't thin it, there are so many apples that they weigh the branches down and sometimes even break them.

There's a lesson in this somewhere....about not being greedy and trying to hang onto so much for yourself when you can't possibly use all that you have...and about how sometimes it is better to thin out your excesses, so that they don't weigh you down. Or something like that.

Annual Update

Surprisingly, some of the cool season-annuals are hanging in there in spite of 100 degree afternoons. I planted marigold, allysum, petunia, snapdragon, and stock in late March when Home Depot and Lowe's were having some kind of price war on spring annuals- 99-cent six-packs! The marigolds are the ones that are struggling the most, even though they supposedly like warmer weather, but I have never had much luck with marigold transplants. It's overseeded with warmer season plants- lots of zinnias coming up that should be in bloom soon, and a mystery "hummingbird/butterfly" mix. And hopefully marigolds- when I deadhead the transplanted marigolds, I scatter the seeds in bare spots. You can't see them, but there are herbs planted in there along with the flowers- chives, oregano, basil, rosemary, and lavender- and a Japanese eggplant!

Peach season is here!

There's far too much depressing stuff on the news today. It made me think of an old Vietnam-era protest song:

Blow up your TV,
Throw away your paper,
Move to the country,
Build you a home.
Plant a little garden,
Eat a lot of peaches,
Try to find Jesus on your own.
Well, we live in the suburbs, not the country, but there are few things more sublime than eating a fresh peach, just plucked from the tree and warm from the sun. Too bad prime peach season only lasts for a few weeks and it's a race between the birds and me to see who can eat them first.

This year we tried thinning the peaches the way you are supposed to do, although we probably were not aggressive enough. Most are pretty small, slightly larger than a golf ball but not as big as a tennis ball. But they are certainly delicious!

Of pruning and life

I've been doing a lot of relentless pruning this week. The Carolina Jessamine that we planted on the block wall behind one of our ponds seven years ago hasn't looked so good lately. There was more dead undergrowth than green vines, and fewer blossoms. I'd pruned one of them almost to the ground- the one on the end that is easiest to get to- a few weeks ago and it is happily putting out new green shoots. So I finally decided to attack the other two, which required straddling the pond rather precariously, and taking the tangled mess out chunk by chunk. The wall looks bare now, but I think it was the best course of action in the long run.

I also took out a lot of Mexican primroses that were growing behind the lower pond and into the hibiscus bushes. They are in full bloom now and beautiful, especially since the hibiscuses aren't blooming very much yet. However, they were already encroaching on one of the new raised beds, so I felt I needed to take them out before they dropped seeds, or I'd face the same problem I have in one of the older beds.

While I was working, I thought a lot about pruning and life and the fact that I have no contract next year. Maybe a little (or a lot) of pruning is necessary to bring out the best in people- a chance to get rid of what is unsatisfying and unproductive, like my overgrown Carolina Jessamine, or deceptively easy and attractive, like the invasive Mexican primrose. Maybe.

Resilience

I found this viola growing in the unwatered, unfertilized gravel part of our yard, which is regularly treated with a pre-emergent herbicide. I didn't plant violas this year; they don't usually do very well for me, and besides this is the wrong time of the year for them. In the Phoenix area, they should be planted in late fall for early spring blooming. I don't know where it came from, or how it managed to take root in the gravel, much less bloom, but it did.

Partly because I just watched "The Pursuit of Happyness" for the first time, I started thinking about resilience. Why is it that some people, who seemingly have all the cards stacked against them, are able to overcome such incredible hardship and not only survive, but thrive? Other people, who are dealt a pretty good hand in life, crumple and fall at the first ill wind that blows their way. It's not that adversity causes resilience, or being born with a silver spoon in one's mouth causes failure. If you could graph human lives as a set of Cartesian coordinates, where the x axis denotes easy vs hard circumstances/events, and the y axis denotes success/happiness with failure/despondency, there would be plenty of people in all four quadrants. I'd expect people to be in quadrants I and III; it's the ones in quadrants II and IV that I wonder about.

There are plants I've carefully researched, planted in a well-tilled area with all the weeds removed, watered and fertilized and mulched, and they never do much. Then there are plants like the viola, growing up through the gravel, and blooming against all odds. There is much that is mysterious about life, whether it be plants or people.

Under my own vine and fig tree

It has been unusually cool today, and I have the day off, so I spent the morning pulling weeds in the gazebo area, mostly Mexican primrose that would otherwise take over the planet. I was feeling sluggish and "blah" until I did; it's amazing how a little time outdoors can lift the spirits, particularly when the temperature is pleasant and I'm actually making progress on something.

Some of the annuals (petunias, stock, nasturtiums) are beginning to look pretty scraggly, and the seedlings that will hopefully replace them are coming up. Honeysuckle and snail vine have replaced the lilac vine in blooming behind the gazebo, and it looks like the jasmine will bloom soon. I could really smell the honeysuckle while I was weeding. The Mexican primroses are beautiful now; I only wish they were more easily confined. As you can see in the picture above, they are growing into the lawn and up the hibiscus plants.

I saw one fig on the tiny tree we planted a few months ago and moved twice, and there appear to be what pass for blooms on the grapevine arbor. It made me think of Micah's vision that "they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid."

Backyard wanderings and musings

Enjoyed my backyard walk today, although I'm feeling rather morose in general about many things. Lots of zinnias coming up in the raised beds; most other things unrecognizable. Spent some time deadheading marigolds and snapdragons and scattering their seeds, in hopes that they will grow.

Roses are in full glory now; mostly Queen Elizabeth and Iceberg. The Black Cherry looks really good; Mr. Lincoln and Peace aren't doing much yet. Won't be long before the heat gets them, though.

Speaking of full glory, the invasive Mexican primroses look wonderful now. This includes the ones in the lawn and growing up the hibiscus, thevitia, and other places they do not belong. Too bad they won't (a) stay where I put them and (b) bloom for more than a few weeks in the year.

Grapevines over the arbor trellis may actually make it into an arbor this year. We're trying to prune the older ones, on the fence behind the lemon tree in hopes of actually getting edible fruit this year.

Hollyhocks are blooming; mostly yellow, some tinged with pink. No Punnet square representation here. I guess if I want red ones again I need to purchase new seed.

Romaine lettuce is still edible; everything else has gone to seed. We've picked a few strawberries, mostly from the hanging basket thing...those in the ground have been eaten by various nonvertebrate species. Peaches are golf ball size and although we aggressively thinned this year, probably too many for the tree. Apricots and nectarines are much smaller; a little more than marble sized for the most part. There are some mystery plants growing in the vegetable garden area that I haven't identified as yet.

One of the plumeria looks like it may actually put forth leaves. The other one has a dead-looking top that I cut off, hoping to inspire growth on some of the lower nodes. There are blossoms (I think) on the avocado tree that we are trying this year. The Carolina Jessamine I cut back is vigorously regrowing; that was obviously the correct thing to do and I should attack the others when I get the time and energy to do so.

Irrigation adventures and something else we wish we hadn't planted

We've spent the last couple of days working on (and being frustrated by) the irrigation system. When we first moved here, the landscape designer we consulted suggested that we run one line for trees, one line for shrubs, and one line for pots. This system would work well if we didn't also have to consider watering needs of annuals, perennials, and vegetables.
In an attempt to coordinate watering depth needs, we're trying the following this year:

Program A is for pots, and runs for 5 minutes once a day in winter, up to 3 times a day in the heat of the summer. We've found some mini-sprayers that generally work well, but need to be replaced periodically as the holes get clogged with mineral deposits.
Program B is for shrubs, including roses, and runs 2 gph drips for 2 hours, once a week in winter, increasing to 3 times a week in summer.
Program C is for vegetables and annuals/perennials, and runs for 10-15 minutes daily to weekly, depending on the temperature and whether there are new seedlings or established plants. We haven't found an ideal delivery system yet; we've tried various kinds of sprayers and soaker hose, none of which have watered as evenly as we would like. This year we're trying a couple of new things. For the raised beds, we've added a conversion kit to our existing lawn sprinklers that has a kind of mini-bubbler, and in the vegetable garden, we're trying a different kind of soaker hose.
Program D is for established trees, which need to be watered for more hours less frequently.

Once we figured out how to program this into the irrigation timer, we also needed to make changes to our existing system. We didn't get as far as we would have liked in this process, because we also had to trace down the source of several leaks in the current system which were putting large quantities of water where we did not want it...wasting water and money!

Another distraction/complication.... the water leveler in one of our ponds stopped working, and upon investigation we found that it was clogged by umbrella plant that had outgrown its pot and wrapped its tentacles around the float valve. Umbrella plant is an attractive pond plant, but is very difficult to keep in check. It outgrows its pots and puts down dense mats of roots that must be periodically trimmed. Unfortunately we did not do that as frequently as it is apparently needed, so dealing with the problem involved a wrestling the heavy pots, a power saw to cut the roots, accompanied by some mild cursing.

Garden wanderings

I find great pleasure in wandering through our backyard after work with a glass of wine, looking to see what's new. It's still relatively pleasant, although the temperature has gotten up into the 80s already, and it's pretty windy today.

I love strawberries, but we've been pretty unsuccessful with them so far. We have them planted in three new places this year that have lots of shade so hopefully they will survive the summer- under the orange tree, behind the gazebo, and in a hanging "as seen on TV" contraption on the east side of the house. The ones under the orange tree haven't done much, and I wonder if it is too shady. Dollarweed and nut sedge, unfortunately, are thriving there. The ones behind the gazebo look okay and have a few green strawberries. The problem there is the Mexican primrose that would take over if it could. The ones in the hanging basket seem to be doing the best. No competition, maybe?

The daylilies I dug up from under the orange tree, where they did nothing, and moved to one of the new raised beds, apparently survived the process, because they are putting up new shoots. There are lots of seedlings coming up in the beds at well, at yet unidentifiable. Hopefully they are the seeds I broadcast, and not more of the cursed Mexican primrose. More hollyhocks are blooming, although so far they are all yellow ones. Yellow must be dominant over pink. (I started with mixed colors several years ago) Nasturtiums still look great- some are climbing the trellises intended for vines. (as are the Mexican primroses). The roses aren't as showy this year as some years in the past, probably because we didn't prune them back in January as we usually do.

Tomato and pepper transplants aren't doing much. The grapes are taking off and we are trying to do a better job of pruning them this year, so that hopefully will have grapes larger than a match head. It looks like the two planted on an arched trellis in front of our hide-the-pool-equipment wall may actually cover the trellis this year as intended.

Things I wish I hadn't planted

There are two plants I wish I had not planted: Mexican petunia (Ruellia brittoniana) and Mexican primrose (Oenothera caespitosa) Although they are attractive (when blooming) and drought-tolerant plants, they are very invasive and difficult to eradicate from places I would prefer that they not be.

I originally planted Mexican primrose on a mound in our front yard, which is desert landscaped with gravel and scattered plants on drip irrigation. The mound had been suggested by a landscape designer we consulted when we first moved here and faced a large barren lot. I don't particularly like looking at colored gravel, and I thought the mound was boring, so I planted this pretty pink flower with the idea that it would spread and cover the mound with blooms. Big mistake.

First of all, it has been a battle to get it to cover the mound as planned. It would prefer to reseed itself in random areas of the yard where it is indistinguishable from weeds when it is not blooming. This resulted in several calls to our concerned HOA, which threatened fines if we did not remove the weeds from the gravel. It has also spread to our backyard, where it chokes out other things I'd rather have growing there. I pull it out on a daily basis and add it to the compost pile, but sometimes think it is winning the battle. It is a Hydra plant....pull up one, and several more arise to take its place.

Second, it doesn't have a particularly long blooming period. It is also susceptible to a beetle which eats holes in the leaves, leaving it alive but very tattered and weedy-looking with no blooms. Of course, the beetle prefers to attack just prior to the plant's limited flowering period so that we have the worst of both worlds: a ratty looking plant and no blooms.

Easter Sunday 2010

This is the time of the year that makes me glad to be in Arizona. I'd rather be in my backyard than any where else on Earth. It's not too hot yet, the smell of citrus blossoms is intoxicating, and it's probably the best time of the year for roses; snapdragons, petunias, stock, nasturtiums, and alyssum are also in full bloom. Water lilies have emerged from their dormancy; the ponds are covered with lily pads and blooms. Hollyhocks are already five-six feet high and a few have bloomed already. I broadcast several packets of "butterfly and hummingbird mix" in our new raised beds, which are sprouting; it will be interesting to see what comes up.

We're still enjoying oranges, pink grapefruit, and lemons from last year's flowering. The tangerines, although prolific, were disappointing. They were more sour than lemons; apparently the sour orange rootstock surreptitiously took over the tree at some point. We have dozens of walnut-sized peaches and a few marble-sized apricots. Apple, pear, and nectarine are just starting to bloom, and the grapes are starting to bud. This year, as part of the raised bed project, we planted additional fruit trees: different varieties of peach and pear; tangelo, Bears lime, mandarin orange, fig, and almond. We'll have to see how many of them make it through the first year. We also planted a couple of asparagus plants, and a blackberry and blueberry bush.

Yesterday I pulled out the last of the sugar snap peas and most of the lettuce and spinach, which was going to seed. We've put in tomato and pepper plants, but not much else in terms of hot-weather crops. I'm thinking of attempting corn this year. Hopefully the HOA will not object.