Bloom Day, August 2015

Being new to the garden blogging world I didn't realize there was a tradition of posting pictures of blooms on the 15th. Being in the desert in August really made me jealous. Not much is blooming. But here's what I have:

 Bouganvillea, always a sure thing.

 Aloe from a mother's day flower arrangement.

Lantana, but sure of the variety, but it's a big, happy, healthy plant.

Lantana, a different variety. A little smaller, not as robust, but doing well. Lantana and Bouganvillea are pretty reliable here for blooming.

This is a red verbena, barely hanging on through the heat, the only beautiful bloom in this hanging pot.

Russelia equisetiformis, firecracker plant. I just recently planted this where a red yucca used to be.

Now on to the blooms I'm excited about! My kitchen garden.

 This little flower, with a bee, grows into this....

Watermelon, beach ball sized! 

My mint in the herb garden is blooming.

Even though the sweet peppers are tiny, and need some supplemental calcium, they are still flowering and growing.

The 3 sisters garden is doing well. The tassel on the corn is a male flower technically, anthers.

 Just this morning the squash flowered for the first time!

Happy belated bloom day.

Tucson

I was down in Tucson for a conference and squeezed in a lunch meeting with some old friends. I lived in Oro Valley as a kid and find it relevant to my current interests. You see, when I moved to Tucson, we moved from Colorado, and before that Utah. I'll I'd ever seen was mountains, pine trees, and green. The desert was brown and dead in my mind. (Plus I was 12, is there any more awkward time!) My parents took us to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. I walked out of there a desert rat, a desert lizard. I have loved the desert ever since, and have lived here or been trying to get back to here ever since.

The view of the Catalina mountains from Oro Valley is amazing. This photo doesn't convey the beauty I saw. It's one of my favorite views.

I noticed more barrel cacti down in Oro Valley were blooming. I also realized I don't see many, if any, fishhook barrels in the Phoenix area. (Edit: since writing this, I have seen a few, skinny and ragged, and not blooming. Perhaps a different species or too damn hot)

Blooming barrell.

After my meetings I stopped by a nursery that looked very inviting, Acacia Nursery.  The associate Rob, was extremely helpful. 

Any nursery with a crested saguaro has to be decent right? You have any idea how much a crested saguaro this size cost? Think nice used car. About $10-20 thousand!

Selection was decent, succulents, agaves, aloes. Desert adapted.

They had a nice full grown a. gentryi, "Jaws". I haven't seen the full size until here. I was passively introduced to Jaws by A Growing Obsession. I noticed in the comments, a. gentryi being given as a gift. 

In the office they had these 2 beautiful plants that the employee wasn't sure of their species. So I took this photo to look it up. You probably already know, but I think it is a euphorbia ammak.

The associate there gave me a pup of a partridge breast aloe. Hopefully I can keep it growing. When a nursery gives me a cutting, I'm loyal for life. Thank you!

Of course I had to buy something, but I wasn't sure what. Then I saw it! A. ovatifolia, Whale's Tongue agave. This is the last of the agave species I'm consciously lusting after. It's been hard to find. So now I have it! Just not positive I know where I want to put the beast.

On the way out of town, I luckily a red light. Luckily because I wanted to take a picture of the this bed of a. victoriae-reginaes. Pretty cool to see so many in one place.

Good bye Tucson and Picacho Peak. See you soon.

Three Sisters Garden

Coming home I was excited to see the corn all sprouted, except about 10 of the 60 I planted.

Last night I planted white tepary beans by the every other corn mound. The other corn mounds I planted with rattlesnake green beans. The beans will climb the corn stalks and support them from the winds.

In between the corn mounds (5 corn mounds per row, 4 seeds per mound) I planted 3 different squash-like plants, Tohono O'Odham squash, yellow flesh watermelon, and dipper gourds. Each mound had only one species, 3 seeds each. Then diagonally the same seed in the next row. So I have 5 mounds for each species.

Something I'm excited about is I found a beautiful bloomed agave perryi "artichoke" and planted the seeds in a little home greenhouse and they sprouted right before we left.

Right before we left I planted some seeds from a few agave geminiflora blooming over by Wal-Mart at Pinnacle Peak and Lake Pleasant Pkwy.

Now I have tons of small sprouted agave seeds and not sure how to get them from seedlings to viable plants!

Another thing, right before we left I stopped by a nursery in Wickenburg, Cactus Ranch Garden and Nursery. It was the best nursery I've ever seen, by far. The owner Gilbert is creating a museum, and I'm pretty sure some of his customers have no idea what kind of amazing place he has there, other than it's beautifully designed.

I bought a pedalanthis macrocarpis (slipper plant), I put in the ground this morning

and a fire barrel cactus.

He gave me a cutting from a specimen succulent arrangement he has that is rare and gorgeous. Here's an image I found courtesy of this site, it's not exactly how Gilbert had it arranged, but close:

I'm excited to go back up with Lori and wander around with her there. I was so overwhelmed by the spectacle he has I didn't think to document it for the blog.

The heat also did it's damage while we were gone.

The red hibiscus I've been nursing along in hospice care finally checked out. Hopefully the roots are still alive and I can cut the dead wood off and let it come back.

Tragically, one of my very favorite agaves, the variegated attenuata burned up, and I'm pretty sure it's toast.

We hardly knew ye fox tail. Hopefully you will have just enough energy to sucker a new one.