The Burrow

It rained last night, but it didn't really help.  Not only are the humans melting into lifeless puddles, but the flora are whimpering, too.  Take a look at what remains of a once vibrant container garden: Honest, I only skipped one day of watering.  But the desert sun is unforgiving, and I've never lived anyplace where the right plant in the right place was a more important piece of advice.   I'm not sure what died in there; Dr. deA gave me a bulb and that may be it.  There's a serious root structure underneath the parched soil; my plan involves cutting back the dead wood, fertilizing the palo verde volunteer which has taken root along the edge, and proceeding with the plan I should have followed in the first place - vincas in all my pots for the summer. Vincas are periwinkle in English, especially when they are of the violet hue.  The ones I find here are variations on pink.  Target had this 1 gallon container on the sale rack.  For...

We have a narrow window of opportunity here in the desert Southwest.  Six weeks usually elapse between the end of winter (the last frost) and the start of the summer's heat.  In that time, plants can be planted and irrigated and fertilized and gotten off to their very best start, before the unrelenting sun wreaks its magic havoc on the flora and turns the soil into hardpan. So, let me share some of what's been going on in my yard. clockwise from bottom left: poinsettia, golden mexican bird of paradise, gopher plant, heavenly bamboo or,  in other words , Euphorbia pulcherrima, caesalpinia pulcherrima, euphorbia rigida nandina domestica , As those of you who keep up with the sidebar are aware, I have been back and forth between pillar and post pawing at the ground and procrastinating like crazy while thinking a lot about the irrigation system in my yard.  Deciding that tackling the entire project all at once was creating this neurasthenia,  I retrenched...