Finding Beauty in the Brown

Winter in the desert... To many, it's bliss in comparison to cold snow and icy climates. It gets cold here too. This winter, the Valley of the Sun had day after day of below freezing temps at night. Gardens everywhere are now various shades of brown.

 

I took a stroll around my garden last weekend looking for any form of beauty in this nastiness of freeze burn. Varigated agave above.

Popcorn plant pods.

The once flame colored fire stick.

Post bloom Dawe's aloe.

Tipu tree leaves. My tree is naked! It's not supposed to be.

Bougainvillea leaves.

San Diego Red Bougainvillea.

And yet, amongst all the brown, the 2nd barrel cactus is sprouting blooms. Hello, color!

This one has me stumped. The ice plant is blooming! It's up to 4 flowers as of yesterday. This poor plant struggles through the summer but I insist in growing them. I'll be hounding every nursery on this side of town again this year for red ones. They've been hard to find the last two seasons due to a hard freeze in California a few years ago. Blooming bunches of Ice plant in the spring are spectacular and not a common sight here. It's my ode to California and years of traveling along those Los Angeles freeways...

Despite all the dead vegetation, the bees and hummingbirds still get their lunch stop over of Mexican Honeysuckle. The two bushes were too big to cover with freeze blankets but I hedged my bets that being against the house, they'd stay warmer than plants left exposed in the garden. All the plants up against the house made it through. Lets hear it for micro climates!

As we inch closer to March, daydreaming of what going to grow in the garden begins. Fertilizing is on the schedule for next weekend. There's going to be a lot of yard clean-up. Pruning must wait! I'll have to keep my itchy fingers busy in the studio instead :)

Marissa

The Pleasure of Spring

I'm here! It's weird... I haven't felt like I've had anything to say. Last week was a mess. If I did have much to say, it was best I kept it close to myself. Our teaching schedule was changed due to AIMS testing. That was workable. Then we find out at the last minute that we're expected to have classes outdoors leading different activities with the students.

Oh my g-d! With a Thursday deadline to have all 2-dimensional art work ready for our yearly exhibit, I was completely stressed. I was fried after one day in the sun. Then it was running around after work with the Chicklet. I wasn't handling the stress well.

A huge stress reliever is coming home and enjoying the garden. Everything is growing and blooming.The popcorn plant has grown so big I had to trim a few branches down. I saw one recently that was well over 5' high. The Chicklet has already reached my height, don't think I'll let the plant beat me too!The Palo Verde is full of buds. In the foreground to the left is a speck of a Desert Marigold. a replacement for the ones that didn't survive.The Ice Plants have exploded in size and color! We replaced another four and they've started to bloom as well. Kenny, the Sharkskin Agave, is holding steady. It's hard to measure his growth but his first offspring was dug up and sent to his new home. We have 4 more Sharkskin "babies" en route.The Chicklet and I love coming home to these. Sometimes we make it before they close, sometimes, not. They're different for the neighborhood and we've gotten some questions and compliments.We set up shop in the carport a few weekends ago. The Chicklet and a fellow Girl Scout came over and we worked on their Clay and Ceramics Badge. They worked on making tiles from clay slabs for one of the activities. We took some cuttings from various plants and trees in the garden and pressed them into the clay. They were fired this week. Can't wait to glaze them in the next week or two.
Marissa