Is it spring yet?

Panorama taken on the first day of spring

We've been working to get the backyard ready for my retiree lunch this weekend, and a possible Phoenix Home and Garden photo shoot, date TBD. It's an enjoyable time of the year to work outside as we find new surprises every day..

Grape arbor and "Orange Bells" Tecoma

"Queen Elizabeth" roses and nasturtiums

Mexican primrose, rosemary, and mint

Baby squash!

Water lily and iris

Roses and larkspur buds

Roses and orange blossoms (I forgot to prune this bush!)

Tomatoes!

Plumeria and water lilies

White water lilies in one of our ponds. I've seen white and yellow this year, but no pink. The pink one may have been damaged when we purged the cattails from this pond.

Yellow plumeria blossoms on the plant we moved from a broken pot to the ground

White plumeria blossoms on a tree that's still in a pot but is now about ten feet tall. If the experimental ground planting works, we will try moving this one out of its pot as well.

Water lilies in bloom

The water lilies have been blooming for a couple of weeks now. I've seen a yellow bloom in addition to the white ones seen here, but haven't seen the pink one yet. They do much better when I keep the cattails cleared out. Interestingly, algae ceases to be a problem once the water lilies emerge from dormancy.

The cattails and umbrella plant are supposed to stay confined to a container, but they keep escaping and if left to their own devices will totally take over the pond.

More listening to flowers

There is a time for everything,

    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

     a time to be born and a time to die,

    a time to plant and a time to uproot,

     a time to kill and a time to heal,

    a time to tear down and a time to build,

    a time to weep and a time to laugh,

    a time to mourn and a time to dance,

     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

     a time to search and a time to give up,

    a time to keep and a time to throw away,

    a time to tear and a time to mend,

    a time to be silent and a time to speak,

     a time to love and a time to hate,

    a time for war and a time for peace.

I have a love/hate relationship with social media. Most of the time I really enjoy Facebook; it allows me to keep up with friends old and new in ways that were never possible in the past. Among my Facebook friends, I have classmates I haven't seen since elementary school, friends (and a few former enemies) from high school, people I knew in college and seminary, former coworkers and church members, long-lost relatives, and many of my former students. It's usually fun to celebrate joys and sorrows with people I've known over the years; it's fun to see where life has led and is leading them; and it's interesting to be updated on their thoughts and what is important to them.

But some of the time, I'm saddened and bothered by what I read. People change, and grow apart, and sometimes you never really knew someone you thought you knew. I know some things about some of my Facebook friends that I wish I didn't know. (To be fair, some of them probably think the same about me!) When I see posts that are illogical,  intolerant, deliberately inflammatory, and/or designed to invoke fear and loathing of "the other", that's something I wish I didn't know about the person posting it. So, as I often do, I decided to walk away from the computer and work in our garden.

I started out deadheading coreopsis. Coreopsis is a large plant that thrives in our heat, and each plant has dozens of vibrantly yellow flowers on long stalks. Even after the flowers have faded and gone to seed, they're not unattractive, but I cut them off in order to extend the blooming period. I also throw the cutoff blossoms in places where I'd like for new plants to come up next spring. Since I hadn't deadheaded for several days, there was a lot of it to do, and as I cut back the stalks to a leafy part of the stem, I wondered if it would be a good idea to deadhead my Facebook friends list. There are people who I once knew who no longer bring joy to my life, and perhaps it is time to remove them.

Then I was surprised to see this yellow water lily. Possibly because of the aggressive way we went after the cattails that had taken over the pond, we haven't seen nearly as many blooms this year. Part of the reason we tried to remove the cattails was that the water lilies were being crowded out. However, since the cattail roots and the waterlily roots were intertwined, it was impossible to remove the cattails without disturbing the waterlily rhizomes. We've seen a few white blooms, but no pink, magenta, or yellow ones, and I wondered if those varieties were still alive. In the case of the waterlilies, the correct gardening technique as just to "let things lie".

Deadhead or let it be? That's always the question. There is a time for all things.

First water lily bloom of the year (but not the first gardening project)

The first water lily bloom of the year appeared  in what we call the Lower Pond, which we're in the process of remodeling. We originally lined the perimeter of the pond with red sandstone flagstones, thinking of how the color and style would blend in with other elements of our hardscape. The gravel covering nonplanted areas of the yard is red, the patio is composed of red patio pavers, and the raised beds for plantings utlilize reddish stacking blocks. However, it turned out not to be the best choice. It was crumbling in many places and did not sufficiently hide the rubber pond liner in others.

I'd met Paul (The Pond Gnome) in a Master Gardener class, and he was willing to come out for a consultation, which was money well spent. Not only did he have some great ideas, he later gave us a bunch of free plants! One of his suggestions was to replace the flagstones with rip rap, which could be piled up in and around the pond edges. We've only begun on this project, but are very pleased with the improvement so far. It looks more natural, while still blending in with the overall colors and design of the yard. I also think it will provide a much better habitat for aquatic plants than the pea-gravel-filled pond baskets we'd previously tried. The plants can spread their roots out among the submerged rocks, which will better anchor them and allow them to spread.

As you can probably see in the picture, we still are battling string algae to some extent. We've noticed that it goes away about the time the water lilies wake up, and have always thought it was because the lily pads were depriving the algae of either sunlight or nitrogen. However, Paul said the real reason was that beneficial algae-eating organisms wake up about the same time the water lilies do, and suggested an enzymatic treatment to speed the process.