Flower mash-up

I noticed that one of our older rosebushes has two kinds of roses blooming on the same bush. The cream colored rose is what I planted....I think it is the "Peace" cultivar, and this year there are also red roses growing from one of the spurs. I assume the red roses are from a rootstock onto which the cream roses were grafted.

To add to the flower mash-up, larkspur and coreopsis have come up on their own in the middle of the rosebush. So far the rose doesn't appear to be suffering, so I have left them alone. The larkspur probably won't last much longer, but coreopsis will keep growing through the summer and into late fall, and can get quite large. I might have to extract it from the rosebush at some point, which could be a painful undertaking.

Larkspur

Larkspur is one of those things I don't plant, but which surprises me by coming up all over the yard. Hummingbirds love its tubular flowers.

Nasturtiums in unusual places

One of the things I enjoy the most about or garden is taking a stroll and seeing what's new or surprising. I tend to be somewhat of a guided laissez-faire, serendipitous gardener. I let plants go to seed, wait to see where they come up, remove the ones that aren't where I want them, and fill in the bare spots with things I think will be attractive in those spots. 

Since I've been doing this for several years now, I often find plants growing in areas where I didn't plant them. This morning I spotted nasturtiums growing up a trellis intended for a snail vine, and nasturtiums springing from the rocks surrounding one of our ponds.

Nasturtiums and hollyhocks are the most prolific of my "let it be" plants, but this time of year I also find larkspur and lettuce in various locations. My most unusual discovery was a viola growing in the nonplanted, nonwatered gravel pathways.

Gardening is like a box of chocolates

Gardening is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you're going to get.

What is all this? I don't know yet. When seeds first come up, they all look pretty much alike. All seed plants produce either one (monocots, including corn and other grasslike plants) or two (dicots, including most other vegetables and flowers) embryonic leaves. It's not until the plant's first true leaves appear that you can begin to guess what the plant is, and that might be several days or even a couple of weeks.

When the true leaves appear, I'll be able to distinguish the smooth oval leaves of zinnias from the feathery leaves of larkspur. Telling a marigold from a tomato seeding, or a squash from a melon seedling, might take a little longer.

Knowing what was in this bed last year, I'm guessing that a fair number of these seedlings will turn out to be zinnias which I'll need to thin aggressively. There's some larkspur in this mix, too, and there are likely to be tomatoes considering how many wound up composting where they fell. And somewhere in there is the red okra I planted a couple of weeks ago.

Part of the fun for me is seeing what I wind up getting, and then trying to incorporate it into an attractive whole.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Larkspur, snapdragon, hollyhock, petunia, bachelor's button, and coreopsis. There are some nice yellow pear tomatoes setting fruit inside the tomato cage, too.

Larkspur

Larkspur has joined nasturtium, bachelor's button, and roses in blooming.

The snake in the garden

Here's another picture of our "lilies of the field" garden under the key lime tree. In addition to the nasturtiums, bachelor's button and larkspur are beginning to bloom.

All the citrus trees are in bloom now, and the smell is delightful. Unfortunately this week I have learned that for every gardening Eden, there is a snake determined to spoil the pleasure one can enjoy in it. The snake that is rearing its ugly head for me right now is seasonal allergies, something I'd previously thought myself immune to suffering. Ha!

Actually, allergies are not usually caused by citrus, or the other kind of things in my garden. Flowering plants like citrus and these nasturtiums are insect-pollinated rather than wind-pollinated, and usually the pollen grains produced by insect-pollinated plants are too large to be inhaled and cause trouble. It's more likely that my symptoms result from the neighbors' ash and mulberry trees, or from the current crop of spring weeds infesting every patch of ground in the Valley area.

Asian pear tree in bloom

Our Asian pear tree is loaded with blooms this year. Last year, it didn't produce a single pear. It is my understanding that some fruit trees bear heavy crops in alternate years. Maybe we will get some this year!

I noticed the first bachelor's button flowers open this morning, and a few of the larkspur as well. There are also blossoms on many of the citrus trees, and their fragrance is beginning to fill the air. We had a nice dinner last night of roasted asparagus and steamed sugar snap peas, and today I will need to pick them again.

We found the pond plants Paul gave us Saturday new homes in the streambed. The larger ones look a bit droopy, but the watercress wasn't fazed by its abrupt relocation.

Planting, interrupted

We've completed clearing out the raised beds, for the most part and for now. The grass may fade and the flower wither, but Mexican primrose is forever. Once it warms up, we will also be battling Bermuda grass invasions. We got some of our spring plantings completed before we were interrupted by rain, which is always nice, but it would have been nicer if it had waited until we'd finished planting and mulching. Some areas of the Valley actually got a light dusting of snow and/or hail, but not here. It really didn't get that cold, which is also a good thing.

The bed in the foreground, which adjoins a pavestone patio, will contain mostly flowers. Coreopsis, larkspur, and snapdragon seedlings are already coming up, and I added petunia transplants as a border on the patio side. I also planted one hill of yellow squash and one hill of zucchini in this bed.

I planted tomato transplants and bush beans in the left rear bed, and plan to border it with marigolds. In addition to my favorite Early Girl, Roma and Yellow Pear tomatoes, we're trying some new varieties that are supposed to be more heat tolerant- Phoenix, Solar Fire, and Summer Set. The new asparagus trench is in the rear of this bed. The right rear bed contains strawberries and a small fig tree.

For now, I'm waiting for things to dry out a little bit so that I can get back to planting!

Summer update, and some recipes

I'm back in the garden again, having gotten a green light from my chiropractor to resume (cautiously) my regular activities. I find there's nothing quite like digging out the Bermuda grass from the raised beds supposedly reserved for vegetables and flowers, to channel feeling of stress into something productive. I haven't been able to do that for a while, and I'm enjoying it- albeit in five minute intervals, because the temperatures here are above 100 degrees most of the time.

My current project involves planting things in the bare spaces left when I pulled out the broccoli, lettuce, spinach, nasturtiums, and larkspur. I seeded a border of sweet allysum around the perimeter of a couple of the raised beds, and I finally found some honeydew plants at Summer Winds nursery. It's rather late to plant them, even as transplants, but I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm trying a new planting method I observed in San Diego in a community garden...digging wells around the plants rather than planting them in the traditional mounds. Theoretically, that ought to help keep moisture around the plant's roots, which is always a challenge with new plantings in hot weather. I did mound up the soil a bit right around the stem of the plant, so water won't collect next to it. (not that there is much risk of that this time of year!)

We picked the last of the apricots and early peaches, and several varieties of tomatoes are doing very nicely. Our old standbys of cherry, Roma, and Early Girl tomatoes are already bearing, and some of the new ones we're trying this year have nice-sized green fruit. I found a delicious recipe for fish with roasted cherry tomatoes here and served it with roasted broccoli (my favorite recipe for that here) For dessert we had apricots in orange juice (recipe I used here) As you may guess, I enjoy trying new ways to prepare the food that comes out of our backyard as much as I enjoy experimenting with new things to grow and different ways to grow them.

Spring has sprung!

Now blooming in Arizona Backyard Eden:

Nasturtiums, Bachelor's Button, Larkspur, California Poppy, Gaillardia, Snapdragon, Allysum, Roses, Gladiola, Nectarine, Apple, Apricot, Pear, Plum. Cilantro

Now eating: Lettuce, Spinach, Sugar snap peas, Asparagus, Broccoli, Oranges, Grapefruit, Lemons

Now planting:Yellow squash, Zucchini ,Eggplant, Armenian cucumber. I've planted some directly in the ground, and some in peat pots to be transplanted later wherever I find room. No seedlings spotted yet.

We should have a bumper crop of peaches this year as we didn't get a late frost like we did last year; right now they are marble-size, so we're busy thinning them out. We're trying a couple of kinds of heirloom tomatoes this year in addition to the Roma, Early Girl, and cherry tomato staples. The other main garden task this year is trying to stay ahead of the weeds.

Of springtime and ashes

"What a wondrous time in spring, when all the trees are budding. The birds begin to sing; the flowers start their blooming. That's how it is with God's love, once you've experienced it. You want to sing; it's fresh like spring; you want to pass it on."

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, which I never have fully understood, perhaps because of my non-liturgical upbringing. Our pastor says Lent is her favorite season...I can't say that I feel the same way. Lent is sackcloth and ashes and repenting our sinful nature, which may be necessary, but is not enjoyable, and (I hope I don't get struck by lightning) seems somewhat masochistic to me. Maybe it works better in more temperate climates, where February is still winter, rather than in Phoenix, where it marks the beginning of spring.

Our earliest-bearing peach tree is setting fruit; a later bearing variety is covered in blossoms; and the apricot and almond trees are also beginning to blossom. I've already picked a nice batch of sugar snap peas and a few asparagus shoots (only because I only planted two plants....must remedy that!) and our second planting of lettuce is reaching harvest-size leaves. Pear, plum, fig, and apple have not yet blossomed, but have full buds I expect to see open any day now. Some of the nasturtiums are blooming (maybe I should pick a few and add to the lettuce for a salad tonight); lilac vines are blooming, and the air is becoming heady with the fragrance of citrus. Calla lilies, which I'd wondered if had survived, are emerging from the ground...larkspur and hollyhock are coming up everywhere, in unexpected locations. Even in the gravel part of the yard I'm seeing marigolds, hollyhocks, nasturtiums...to quote my favorite Jurassic Park quote, "life will find a way."

And, there are a few weeds that need to be pulled. There are always a few weeds to be pulled, and it's generally best to pull them early before they have a chance to grow to giant size and set seed. I can see that part of Lent. There are weeds to be pulled in our lives, and with weeds, it's generally best to pull them when they are small and manageable. But in my garden, and I think also in our lives, it's an ongoing process. And I don't want to concentrate so much on the weeds that I can't enjoy the flowers.