The road less blogged about

Since many edible plants are giving up for the summer, I thought I'd post some pictures of other things in our yard. Above is a photo of our second pond, or really the first one Mike built when we realized that the little prefabricated plastic one was too small for our liking. Below is a picture of this area as it appeared in 2003, with only the small prefabricated pond. We built it by removing dirt and plants from the raised bed between the patio and the block wall, and lining the hole with rubber pond liner. If you look closely, you can see  two newly planted one-gallon thevetia plants on either side.

Below is how the area looks today. The thevetia have grown into trees, and we added a prefabricated gazebo. It's much shadier and cooler (and also messier because thevetia are very messy trees!) but a very enjoyable place to sit and listen to the sound of trickling water, watch goldfish swim or birds at play, and smell rose, citrus, or plumeria blossoms.

Small accomplishments, small annoyances

My gardening goal for today was to weed this bed on the east side of our upper pond. It has two tiers, a narrow upper one near the pond, and a larger lower one formerly occupied by a thevetia which had crowded everything else out and killed a nectarine tree with its shade. We now have three fruit trees in this area...a Santa Rosa plum in the narrow upper bed where the thevetia originally was planted, and two supposedly desert-tolerant cherry trees in the larger lower bed.  Earlier in the spring, there were snapdragons, nasturtiums, and stock blooming around the base of the trees.

 Marigolds, zinnias, and sweet potato vines are now beginning to replace the faltering spring flowers, but there are other things attempting to get a foothold here that I don't want, primarily Bermuda grass and Mexican petunia (Ruellia brittonia) We will probably never get rid of all the Bermuda grass, because there used to be a lawn here, but I brought the Mexican petunia invasion on myself. Pro tip: don't plant desert-tolerant plants like Mexican petunia or Mexican primrose anywhere they have free access to water.They will be exceeding fruitful and multiply, crowd out more desirable plants, and they're impossible to eradicate entirely.

While weeding, I found something else I could do without in this bed: a colony of angry ants, unhappy that I was disturbing their home with my trowel. I try to be as pesticide-free as I can with our garden, and I know that ants are helpful in breaking up and aerating our clay soil, but I do not like it when they bite my hands and feet. And did I mention that at this time of year it's usually approaching 100 degrees by 10 AM? Time for a blogging-cum-water-in-the-air-conditioning break.

High-density fruit tree planting

Our latest experiment is in high-density fruit tree planting, as popularized by Dave Wilson. These are Minnie Lee and Lee Royal cherries, which have just now started appearing in nurseries, although they've been available through Phoenix Permaculture Guild for several years. They have a chilling requirement of only 200-300 hours, much less that most cherries. I figured that even if they didn't set fruit, their flowers would be attractive. We purchased ours at Summer Winds and planted them about two feet apart, slightly angled away from each other, in this small bed at the side of our upper pond. Previously, we had a nectarine in this spot, but it died last year, probably because it was crowded out by the overgrown thevetia I removed last week.

The thevetia is out

We finished taking out the thevetia today, and this is its root. Now to start looking for fruit trees to put in its place! I missed the window for ordering the desert-adapted cherry trees from Phoenix Permaculture Guild this year, so we'll have to check various nurseries. If we can't find any relatively soon, we'll put in another early-bearing peach and possibly another kind of plum. Our April/May bearing peach tree is declining, and although our Santa Rosa plum seems healthy enough, we have yet to get any edible fruit from it. Or maybe try this idea using fig trees, which would provide a nice tropical look around the pond.

It's tree-chopping time

I hope Mike was serious when he said he'd be okay with taking out this thevetia so we can put in a couple more fruit trees. If not, it will have to live with a very short haircut for a while.

Revamped pond

Here are two views of the reimagined upper pond and streambed. This one is the view from the gazebo with the new spillway. In the original design, there were plantings of plumbago which blocked the view of the pond when we were sitting in the gazebo. The additional spillway gives us a better view and also allows us to  better hear the sounds of the flowing water. The two trees are an early-fruiting peach on the left and a dwarf nectarine on the right. We're in the process of adding water plants to the new stream bed now- watercress, yerba mansa, and other small plants. Hopefully I will be able to keep the "evil four leaf clovers" at bay! The second view is from the side patio of our house. The bare tree on the left is an apricot, and the one on the right is an Asian pear. The green one in the background is Thevetia peruviana (yellow oleander). Mike loves these treelike shrubs as much as he hates bouganvillea, but I'd like to take this one out and plant more fruit trees. There's a kind of cherry that can supposedly be grown in the desert, but you need two varieties (Minnie Royal and Royal Lee) and I think this would be a good location for them. We planted three varieties of strawberry in the bare-looking raised bed in front of the pond, and a few of them have started to come up.

Pond remodel progress

Here is the original (but remodeled) spillway into the streambed. The plants Paul gave us have really taken off, particularly the watercress. We're still working on the second (new) spillway which comes off the gazebo side of the pond.

The tree on the left side is a dwarf nectarine and the one on the right is an Asian pear. At the base of the pear is a plumbago and some invincible Mexican petunias that return like zombies no matter what I do to them. The dead branches in the upper center right belong to a thevetia which was frost damaged this winter. We haven't cut them off yet because (a) it would be a hassle, requiring the use of a ladder on an uneven surface and (b) Mike keeps hoping it will continue to green up.  The marigold in the foreground came from seeds I snagged while deadheading elsewhere and then played Johnny Appleseed in various locations in the yard.

What a difference a week makes!

I've been gone for a week visiting my family in Alabama, and there have been quite a few changes in just a week. Things are finally waking up! There are blossoms on the apricot, apple, nectarine, almond, pear, and plum trees, and leaves on the crape myrtle. The roses have leafed out and should begin blooming in a couple of weeks. The three tomato plants I thought were dead have put out new growth, nasturtiums are blooming and some of the other annuals won't be far behind. Hollyhock plants are about two feet high. Even the grass is beginning to green up somewhat.

No beans or squash yet; I think that last cold snap hit at the wrong time for successful germination so I'll need to replant. The potato bush has come back nicely from the frost and the plumbago and snail vine are showing growth at the roots. The thevetia hedge hasn't really come back yet, although it's beginning to show signs of life. We pruned back the hibiscus and bougainvillea even further and never did find green wood, so it will be a long time before they come back.

We had Paul from The Pond Gnome over yesterday for a consultation and got some good ideas for projects to improve our ponds and streambed. We used flagstones to line the pond banks and streambed, and a lot of them have deteriorated. He suggested replacing them with rip rap, which will give us the same red rocks look and be more stable, and also replacing some of our pond plants with less invasive species.

Herbs and things

Lowe's had a sale on vegetable and herb pots, so I thought it would be a good time to clean out the Swiss chard and Chinese greens from this area and plant a herb garden in front of the roses in this bed. I planted oregano, parsley, basil, cilantro, and catnip. I thought this would be a good location for these as it is convenient to the kitchen, and will make an attractive foreground planting for the roses. There are also three tomato plants in this bed, and asparagus behind the roses.

The thevetia hedge between this bed and the pool area still hasn't started to leaf out after it took heavy frost damage this winter, so we may have to trim it back further. It's still alive, though, because when scratched with a fingernail we can see green wood.

The tomatoes in this bed look fine, but something happened to to the three I put in a different location. They turned black and wilted overnight...they look like they have been sprayed with Roundup, but we haven't used any in this area.

Boring but necessary tasks

Today's gardening efforts were primarily devoted to getting weeds out of the raised bed containing rose bushes and pruning the thevetia hedge which separates the pool area of the yard from the garden area. Not very exciting, but necessary. It's not really the right time to prune, but the hedge had gotten so tall that it was blocking light and growth from the lime and tangerine trees we planted a few years ago. The tangerine tree is about four feet high, the lime tree about six feet high, and the thevetias were about 10 feet high.