Showing posts with label mexican honeysuckle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mexican honeysuckle. Show all posts

Saturday, February 2, 2013

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

Friday, November 26, 2010

Whaaaaaat's Up!? The Garden Edition

Ok, I can write a really looooooong post or save some stuff for more than one. I tell you, when it rains, it pours. It seems like I have little to say and then there's plenty.

To begin, a belated Happy Thanksgiving to all. Ours was quiet. This year the Chicklet went to dinner with her father for a couple of hours and I had dinner with the hairy ones. I bought a turkey breast for the Chicklet and I to make our own dinner. We have to wait until Sunday to spend the day cooking. We've managed to stay busy!Here's Maica enjoying a little appetizer. What is it with my dogs and grass chewing? Paint some spots on them and I have cows. The girls are napping right now. We just came back from an hour's long walk in the neighborhood. The days are so beautiful and the sun feels so good.Over the weekend I noticed that shadows of tree branches were dancing around in my bedroom. Then it dawned on me that they were my trees from the the front yard. Yippea!

I can be standing in my room and look out and see the blooms of the Mexican Honeysuckle pictured above. I love looking out and seeing color, lots of color!Here's the view from the other window. The fountain planter is somewhere underneath there. Once the irrigation was running properly, the basil plant exploded! I've replanted cilantro and mint and hope to have the same kind of success as the basil. For now I'm keeping my co-workers well stocked with basil deliveries.I'm full of anticipation with these babies. I pulled out some small agaves and replanted them elsewhere. These Dawe's Aloes took their place and were recommended because they bloom in winter and spring. Both plants are full of buds and I'm looking forward to the bloom.Everything is looking bright and beautiful in the the garden but the nights are cooling down and we've had some freeze warnings. There are some plants that are going to need to be covered. Pruning is off limits for now. The Popcorn plant has taken over a big spot in the yard. The recent rains brought out the flowers, big time.Here's Kenny!!! (The Sharkskin Agave). He's growing slow and steady. Not as quickly as some of the other agaves and the Lantana that is creeping and crawling it's way around him. I was not a fan of Lantana but I can't argue with the explosion of color. Good job of twisting my arm goes to Ray, the Designer Man!One more front yard shot. I forgot the name of this agave. It was a non-sanctioned-by-Ray plant. He warned me that the original plants would grow and fill up the yard and he wasn't kidding. He did leave me some holes. (Or what I perceive as good spots to add something to). I am in love with the pinkish bouganvillea. Grow, bloom, grow, bloom! My heart smiles everytime I drive up to our house.Canine territory-the backyard. Due to a beetle infestation, the melon plants had to go. The eggplant is thriving and now it's spilling our over the planter. Then lookey, lookey what we found...We planted peppers and tomatoes and lost all those to the summer heat. Or so we thought. One of the bell pepper plants pulled through. I took these off the bush yesterday and one of them went straight onto veggies pizzas for lunch. It still seems somewhat miraculous to plant it, grow it, and eat it from our own garden.Yellow Bells. I thought we would be swimming in them but we have only one plant in the back yard. The other seven are Orange Bells. Equally lovely but it makes these more appreciated. Freia had her head buried in these yesterday and there was no getting a good picture of her. Maica isn't posing. She's focused on a bird that wandered into the backyard. Maica has taken to jumping the fence again. She sprung over twice last week. Luckily, she comes back when I make my way out to the alley to corral her. Crazy pooch!

The Chicklet is bugging me to go out and check on a mural in the making. If it's being worked on, we hope to pick up some paint brushes and help out.

Happy Friday, everyone!
Marissa