Springtime in the Desert

"For behold, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone.
'The flowers have already appeared in the land;
The time has arrived for pruning the vines,
And the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land.
'The fig tree has ripened its figs,
And the vines in blossom have given forth their fragrance.
Arise, my darling, my beautiful one,
And come along!"

I've been rather busy during the month of March actually working in the garden and haven't bothered to write about it. This is the most enjoyable time of the year to do so- it hasn't gotten unbearably hot yet (okay, we've had one hundred-degree day so far, but it's cooled off since then) and I delight in seeing something new almost every day. I don't have a vegetable garden, a flower garden, or an herb garden...I have a gloriously eclectic mix of things that look good, smell good, or taste good all mixed together. Our several raised beds contain small fruit trees, herbs, vegetables, and flowers. Some of these were deliberately planted from nursery six-packs (love the price wars between Home Depot and Lowe's on these), some came from seed packets, both specific kinds, and packets of mixed seeds, and some reseeded from last year. I like a full garden, so when seed germination is sparse, I stick something else in the bare spots.

We've had a lot to do this spring, too, because of the unfortunate timing of two "once in a century" hard freezes this winter. The two ficus trees in our back yard were completely killed, while the older ones in our front yard were killed off to the ground. Bougainvillea, tecoma, hibiscus, all vines except honeysuckle were killed off to the ground, and thevetias took a pretty hard hit as well. So we've been doing lots more pruning, but most things (other than ficus and some of the hibiscus) are coming back.

We replaced the ficus in the back yard with a Bradford flowering pear and a Hong Kong orchid, and the ones in the front with Chinese elms. In place of the hibiscus around the pool, we planted Little John bottlebrush and Texas mountain laurel. These plants are a little more cold tolerant, and hopefully will survive the next freeze. Or at least, so I have been told.

One of our peach trees was in bloom at the time of the second frost, so not surprisingly it doesn't have the amount of fruit it normally does. Other trees (three kinds of pear, apple, Santa Rosa plum, nectarine, fig, and a later-fruiting variety of peach) flowered abundantly and appear to be setting a nice crop of fruit which we're trying to keep reasonably thinned out. I don't see anything that looks like almonds on the almond tree, but we only added it last summer. We're attempting a nursery-bought avocado tree in one of the raised beds this year; we have several grown from pits that have survived several years but never produced fruit. Of course, we have our usual bumper crop of lemons, oranges, and grapefruit. The lime trees (Key lime and Bearss) were frost-nipped but should survive, albeit with no fruit this year. There are dozens of grape clusters on our four vines, more than we've ever seen before, our relatively young blueberry bush is loaded with berries, and I saw a flower on our blackberry bush today.

As far as flowering plants go, roses are in full bloom, along with snapdragons and many kinds of wildflowers from a Southwestern mix packet- blanket flower, lupine, owl clover, Mexican poppy, and some kind of red flower I haven't seen before. The petunias and pansies I put in last fall are somewhat disappointing. Larkspur (from seed) is beginning to bloom, with poppies and coreopsis ready to flower any day now.

The sugar snap pea crop, which was abundant the past two years, was a disappointment this year. It's been replaced by snap beans, both bush and pole varieties. The two asparagus plants we put in last year have sent up dozens of tasty-looking shoots, which required an enormous amount of self-control to leave alone as recommended for the first season. After enjoying all the romaine and red leaf lettuce we wanted for several months, we'll have to go back to store-bought salads as it has started to bolt. We've put out transplants of several kinds of tomato, peppers, and a Japanese eggplant as well as starting Armenian cucumber, straight and crookneck squash, and honeydew melon plants from seed. The cold weather killed off the basil plant, so I replaced it, but other herbs planted last year- oregano, thyme, and mint- are thriving. We added a catnip plant this year- will see what the cats think of fresh vs. dried.

So...as I said, I've been busy. I won't mention weed-pulling...the regular garden-variety dandelion-type weeds, or the invasive Mexican primroses and petunias that I wish I'd never planted...but there is always something to see and/or do!