esrosedotblog

We have a new fountain in the courtyard.

It sort of cascades and ripples and makes fountain noises.

It is a bit smaller scale than the other three tier fountain that came with the condo.

There was nothing wrong with that fountain. This one is just prettier and, more important to the residents, novel. A conversation piece. We are basically show offs.

It will not take too long for the novelty to wear off for the humans.

But the birds will enjoy it. It took them just a few minutes to get over skittishness and head for a drink. Sort of. It is a bit touch and go. More go than touch.

Labels: garden

I took more garden pictures today.

We have a whole wall of hibiscus and a fountain against the wall where the other pictures below were taken. But no blooms now. A lot of foliage and the beginning of some blossoms.

I have a cactus collection. On two tables. I can't identify any of them. But I like them a lot.

On the east side and then another sort of in the middle of the west. The west one sits over a big lantana bush which is always blooming in some part of it.

None of these want much water. I need to be careful about how I deal with this as the plant on the right, a desert rose (aha!) needs regular water and the others do not. Sorry, it is a little cut out of the picture and I don't want to go take another one. So not that sorry I guess. :>)

Then there are my succulents. A cactus is a succulent but these are succulent succulents. You can look it up. I don't understand it. I just raise them. They take more water. The thing on the left is a hanging fixture which I have never hung. You see, I am a careless gardener.

But these are the plants I most love. See the teeny flowers? The thing with succulents is that they are not showy for the most part. Small, sweet little flowers. Some exceptions. The desert rose is not blooming just now but when it does it is fucking spectacular.

That is all the flowers. There are some cactus on the other side up against the house. They are OK but not a favorite. I do not baby them. Oddly, they are doing just fine.

That's enough. I am getting bored even if you are not. It is getting to be blah blah time and that is never good for a blog. A blog not a "blahg".

What I am getting out of this is that I am not a brilliant desert gardener. I just get by.

Labels: condo, desert, garden, gardening

Only it doesn't look like a carpet. Or, even, fake.

The green is a little too healthy looking for the desert, but if we had fed it well and kept it watered, it would be this color. It is very detailed. Under the pile, there are yellowed blades, dying out. The color is not uniform. When you walk on it there is a lush feel but it feels like the real thing. I didn't try it barefoot. Too many workmen around. Later.

We had gravel before. Hibiscus bushes with a gravel carpet in front. A fairly big one. 15 feet x 7 feet.

I have always been against fake nature but since we got the artificial olive tree for the living room, we are in for an inch so why not go a mile?

It is the end of the struggle with the gravel that was there before, weeds sprouting up and a general shitty look that just can't be remedied.

The thing about this grass is that no one is going to be fooled about whether it is real or not. And once that "shock" is over, they will have to admire the lushness and the fine work that this very expensive "artificial" lawn represents. Right in the middle of it, here and there, are three or four blades that are "too long", like a cowlick. Under the mowed top (not totally uniform) there are some yellowing blades. Some bent. Some even "dead".

Verisimilitude.

This is not "astroturf", not by a long shot.

It took three guys to lay it down. About three hours. They were meticulous. The preparation is extensive. Flatten the gravel, add some sand, vibrate, pound. Lay the grass.

Labels: garden

So, on a day I was not going to do anything, I went to Lowes and bought a bunch of medium size cactus for our desert section. It has been fallow for awhile but when they painted, I took one of my small plants that had overgrown itself, the second such, and planted it in the empty space on the north courtyard side. Then the whole thing looked a lot lonelier. And with the new paint job, I was inspired to go get a dozen decorative cactus and put them into the spot. They look great. They complete the picture. One of the painters said that, often, they will paint the outside of the house and the owner decides to redecorate the inside too. I just got the cacti. One plant, not a cactus, is a purple sage for the corner. I still mourn the big purple sage they took out when they went desert next door. The plant was between our houses. And, the awful truth is, that the sage is a desert plant. As any listener to cowboy songs will know.

Today's film was the new, pre-print, of Marco Berger's Hawaii 2013. Berger is the master of sexual yearning. Put two presumably gay guys in proximity and watch what happens. Yogi Berra: "You can see a whole lot while watching". Long silent expanses, great photography, music. This one is as good as his other award winning Plan B. I am already anxious to see it again.

The Times says the liberals think the White House should be in more of a panic mode about ACA. They still don't get Obama. No drama. This is instead of support and fighting off the sharks. Oh, I despair of my nominal party. If I could start my own I would. Such assholes. I get more angry at them than the teas sometimes.

Labels: condo, film, garden, obama, professional left

Dentist today. Cleaning. No cavities. See the doc next time. Gotta love a day like this.

The condo painting is getting nearer. Spraying Peggy's place next door. I guess we get it tomorrow. I used the opportunity to get the palo verde tree pruned today. They took down our luscious orange flowered vine for painting. Shit. The paint better look good. Maybe it will grow back quickly.

The weather is gorgeous. Come see it.

No movie. Just teeth in the same time slot.

Labels: condo, dentist, garden, weather

CLEAR AND WARMER

While the rest of the US contemplates the news that we have had the warmest year on record (make that "hottest"), here in PS, we have been doing our best to counter the trend.

It has been unseasonably cold for three weeks.

Today, a break.

Up to the 70s and shirtsleeves on the walk with Booker.

Me not him.

Similar tomorrow and then back into the 50s with frost at night.

This is all jet stream effect getting over the mountains.

We have had more frost damage so far than any other year. Tinges here and there.

The red blossom bush, no one knows its name, got brushed the other night and now displays dead leaves.

The beautiful trumpet vine up the stucco and on to the roof, courtyard wall, is blooming though. It took today's warmth as a cue to go on the spring bounce. It will have another season before the hot summer. Then dormant until a year from now.

I hope that it is not touched with the freeze while it is doing its part to give us spring.

Labels: garden, spring, weather

INSANITY

I wasted near an hour this morning going to Lowes and then Homodepot for small pots of rosemary.

John got a nice table to put against the eastern wall of the courtyard to hold some greenery and break up the vast space of the wall there.

Rosemary seemed the answer as we had a great trailing set of plants at the old house which endured weather at its most extreme.

So I figured, as it is an ubiquitous desert plant, I could pick some up at one of both of those places.

Two scrawny pots at Lowes and a big 2x2 flat at HomoDepot which was even scrawnier.

So I guess that I am headed back to Moller's which is down valley and has not only high quality plants but good advice if we want to think about an alternative summer pot that isn't rosemary, or cactus.

Right now, I predict that we are going to end up with another cactus table. But perhaps not.

Getting plants for and in the desert is a hazardous business. If you are lucky, they will tell you what will and will not endure the summer.

Most don't. Most don't know.

Of course, as usual, I am expecting too much. It is the new age in service and inventory knowledge. In the name of discounts we have traded out expertise. The people are paid poorly and even when they do have the answers they are not very well motivated to find you what you need or want.

The Wal Marting of America. At least I am sane enough not to even try there.

Labels: garden, gardening, horticulture

FIRST RUN THEATER

Today's movie as a live event.

We three had lunch at Panera outside and then proceeded to Moller's nursery in Palm Desert to review the options for our 3x8 garden in the courtyard. The little plot up against the house.

When we got here at the condo, we had some anemic horse tails and a poor bird of paradise. I cut the horsetails down and they have come back but they are not going to prosper. The soil is not verdant enough for them and the sun too strong.

So, I am going to leave them as they are and we bought plants to fill in the plot. The horsetails can fend for themselves.

We bought a variety of summer plants that will stand the heat, love the sun and let us have a lot of green and a little flower all year long.

A lavender, two heathers, two garlics (purple flowers), a bottle brush (red) and two clumps of a horsetail like plant which will offset the old strugglers against the wall.

I haven't really put them in yet but the pots on the plot look pretty good. They will all grow to eventually fill the plot. Or not.

If not, then we will not have a general death as one would with only one kind of plant. We might lose one or two but then we can put in something else that is more adaptable to the little miniclimate.

Here in the desert, miniclimate is all.

Labels: condo, garden, horticulture

SHOOTS

I cut all the horsetails down out front.

The former had planted them against the house and the courtyard slab.

By the time that we had gotten to them, they were scraggly and unkempt. Someone had, incorrectly, sawed many of them off at the top and the stalks had dried down to midway.

I want the bed to be full and I could buy all new ones and start over but I have plenty of time and so do they.

So I cut them down to the ground as recommended in a gardening site that I found.

Then, I began to water the bed. They need a lot of water. Not to be submerged or anything but probably wetter than they have had for a long time.

There was a sprinkler on them but it had a tube spreader, the tubes had come off. The bed was getting wet fitfully if at all.

The only people who lived here for three years were leasers who can hardly be expected to take interest in the horsetails.

Now, I water the bed every day.

Now, the payoff.

Just when I was beginning to think that the whole deal had collapsed, there are new shoots. Maybe six of them in the whole bed.

But it is six more young, healthy ambitious stalks that were not there before.

I am pysched.

I hope the horsetails are psyched too.

We shall see.

Progress.

Labels: garden, horticulture

FALL PLANTING

I went and got some more cactus today.

Three to fill an empty pot that sat/sits on the entrance corner to our front courtyard.

I put three different tall babies in with some stones.

They don't attract a lot of attention on their own but they balance a big pot of a many stemmed cactus on the other side corner near the AC stall. And, of course, the table of cactus that we put in a few weeks ago.

I also found a few little cacti to fill out the table.

Out back, on the patio (the courtyard is front, the patio is back) there have been two empty pots on either side and I bought lantana plants for them. Yellow.

They are in bright sun six months of the year and bright shade the other six.

Flowers need sun. We will see how this all turns out.

That about completes the planting we will have here. Of course, there will be replacements and if present projects, like the horsetails, fail then we will have to fix.

But for now, the only thing that needs to be done is the pruning of the big palo verde that sits in the middle of the courtyard and the California oleander that looms over the new little cactus.

That will be done when the visitors, who are due on Thursday, depart. I don't want them to see stubby trees.

Labels: garden, home, horticulture

ABBREVIATED HORTICULTURE

I didn't mention that on the trip to the nursery and thence to Lowes, I did not get two things I wrote about.

No petunias. No Bird of Paradise.

Sometimes the Universe cancels my vote for me.

In this case, it came about that it is still too hot for petunias. October. I fail to remember this every year. I was also reminded that petunias often fail in the winter when and if it really gets cold. And finally, John fessed up to not liking petunias. We have "always" had them.

So it is chrysanthemums which Lowes had for 3 bucks today and they looked great. I didn't get any though because I was at the end of my gardening rope for the day.

I will go over Monday and fetch them.

The birds? No. The woman at the nursery suggested I not plant in the bed of horsetails but let them be. Maybe even take the bird that is there out.

They had some magnificent horsetails that were six feet tall!

Man, I would like to get that way. But probably not in our scope. She says "lots of water". OK.

This is a lousy photo. They don't ever photograph well.

Labels: garden, horticulture

BOTANICAL EXCURSION

My husband is going to call in a few minutes to let me know he is on his way.

He will pick Booker and me up and we are going out to lunch at the local Panera which is in a failed shopping center and, therefore, under-attended. It is one of the few fast food places that I will go. The food is healthy and good and the service is fast. They bring the stuff to the table. You can sit outside. Which means that Booker can be with us. Did I mention that the people are nice too?.

Then we are going on down Valley to Moller's Garden Center to pick up some plants for the courtyard (front) and patio (rear) of the condo.

Mollers is an upscale nursery which has a larger variety, healthier specimens and all around more enjoyable surroundings than the other alternatives. Lowes. Homo Depot.

And they are locally owned.

Sure it costs more but it is worth it.

We need a bevy of small potted cacti for a table that was given to us in the courtyard. And another collection of "regular" plants for a second table that we brought with us and has always been meant as a potting table because that is what it is.

I won't be potting on it but there will be potted plants.

I am also going to get two bird of paradise plants to match the one that sits smack in the middle right of the horse tail bed against the house.

I cut down all the scraggly horse tails. To the ground. I read that will encourage rooting and new sprouting and the new stalks will not try to be gargantuan. Merely tall.

The bird plants will help fill in the empty space which now yawns there although not too badly. We could almost leave it alone.

For the patio, remember, in the rear, there will be plain old petunias for pots, big ones, that were already here for us to use.

I have been doing a lot of pruning and cleaning up. It is now cool enough that will not stress the plants.

I cut away a huge encroaching grapefruit limb from the neighbor's side which had all but overcome an old, beautiful hibiscus.

I am waiting for the HOA gardeners to drag the limb away. I called and feigned ignorance about the policy. You are supposed to dispose of your own cuttings in the trash. The Super bought it or, more likely, granted me a one-time wish and says they will take the limb away. It is still there but I am patient.

OOPS! John just called. We will finish this later.

OK. We have been to Panera (very hot today and had to ask for the misters to be put on) then to Mollers where we got succulents and cacti.

As it happened, we didn't have enough cactus so I went to Lowes.

You really cannot tell the difference and they are the same price. Maybe Mollers isn't really worth the drive except that you get great advice and help.

Here are the two tables. Left and right.

And that is the whole afternoon.

Labels: condo, garden, horticulture

BIZZY

There are a torrent of "hits" on the MLS posting for the house and there is an agent who wants to jump the gun and look it over this afternoon.

I am cooking chili so the house smells good.

Back east it would be bread or apple pie.

It is all moving quickly. I have told the three "helpers" that we have, gardener, pool guy and housecleaner.

It was hard. But while this is not easy for them either we are not the first ones to move. In fact, the pool and gardener guys were here before we were. I am sure they will survive.

It is our intention to clean our own house. Something at least 90% of people in the world do. Why this causes us so much anxiety I am not sure. We did it for a year when we had the apartment in Boston.

What with agents visiting, making chili and handling the vendors, it has been a longish day.

I also pruned the roses and waxed emotional about saying goodbye to them but we are going to a place called The Rose Garden. I haven't seen it yet, but there must be some there. It doesn't count if I am not running the flower show though.

I also scraped off the suckers on the olive tree and finally said goodbye to the dried birds of paradise. Goodbye to that baby too. But I can start another one at the condo.

I started the right way though by working with another person on our Program.

Getting out of myself is a sure way of not dipping into the well of negativity.

I know. There isn't much negative in my life. But I am good at finding some if left to my own devices.

Labels: garden, helpers

INHIBISCUS

We have been looking for a white hibiscus to replace our old, old half dead one out front.

It was a sort of centerpiece of the home's entrance.

They don't make white anymore. Not many. Not easily available.

What we wanted was a bush/tree big enough to take over the space from the first day.

The other day, I thought, John should go to the local high end nursery and just find a replacement. Which he did. Two replacements.

Yellow. Hula Girl. Imagine.

There was not Hula Boy.

So, today they were delivered (they were big) and our gardener Paul came with his guys and supervised the planting.

It was/is a professional job. Right depth, proper fill of dirt and water. And so on.

The entire production was John's except for the managing the planting part.

They look pretty good huh? The big one with a single trunk could go to 7-8 feet and the little one which branches out would be a bit lower but wider.

Labels: garden, horticulture

PEAK

I just trimmed the roses. They are at their peak. It is one of the most rewarding parts of what little gardening I do.

They will go dormant when the real heat hits and then recoup in the fall but then winter will slow them down before they get luscious again.

So we get two seasons. But this one is the best.

I have to watch the watering. The buds will droop if there is even a bit too little water. If there is too much I believe they do not do as well. Too much foliage.

My theory is that they will bloom if you keep them a little worried about survival. Too much water and they get all fat and happy.

Labels: garden, horticulture

CITRUS TREAT

We joke that Palm Spring has no seasons. Just different variations of temperature.

But if you look closely at plants, many of them behave in a seasonal way. Just not all at the same time.

Citrus trees abide by the traditional spring bloom, summer fruit set and autumn through winter fruit harvest.

It is raining some today. I went out back and walked by the small grove that we have. One tangerine tree, a grapefruit tree and, in huge pots, a lemon and a "mexican" lime. Back east we called them "key limes". Funny.

I realized that we have abundant blossom buds on all four trees. It seems that they appeared over night!

The tangerine is an every other year harvest. This is the year for fruit. We will have a lot. The last harvest broke a couple of tree limbs.

The lemon and grapefruit are ready to go with average buds. The grapefruit is dying but very slowly. It is still bearing smaller fruit. We will keep it going as long as we can. It is an old, old tree. There would be no easy replacing it for beauty, shade or fruit.

The surprise is the small lime which has not done all that well since it was planted. It has had two seasons of just a few fruits. This year, the blossoms are extraordinary. The thickest. The most.

We love these limes. We first ran into them when we went to the Virgin Islands and, of course, Key West. They are small and have a bite. One lime serves two glasses of carbonated water very nicely. Nothing like it on a hot day.

One more thing. There are two harvests with citrus. The first one is the wonderful aroma that saturates the neighborhood when these buds break open. A week away? I hope.

So, I am a happy farmer. A good beginning to a bounty year. If the weather holds.

Labels: citrus, garden, horticulture

EARLY BLOOMER

Our orchid tree is beginning its first of two "seasons" this week. Nothing says Palm Springs like this wonderful tree. At least to us.

Our neighborhood is full of them. One guy has six lined up along the street.

They truly look like orchids, three to four inches wingspan.

And the aroma is glorious.

Labels: desert, garden, horticulture

PRUNE

Today was the annual rose pruning. It is emotionally hard to do it. There are still blooms. But there are still blooms because the roses got pruned last year.

I took the buds and they are in a vase in the dining room.

The bushes are shorn down to a nice bowl shape with a few green leaves to get things started.

With the warm winters, pruning is especially important to stop the sort of leggy growth that occurs just now.

The only question is how far they get pruned. My neighbor takes them down to about three feet. His roses are gorgeous all summer. They are in shade. But they are very tall. The way he wants it.

I will go all the way down to a foot or less on most canes. All of my bushes are in full sun and need to be dense. The way I want it.

The argument about height continues but the pruning is not in doubt.

Gotta do it.

Labels: garden

ANOTHER TREE FALLS

The pepper tree outside our south wall has been in bad shape for some time.

Actually it has been dead.

An irrigation line went bad out there and the tree was deprived of water (we didn't know) during two of the hottest weeks of the summer.

That's all it took.

Well, I wouldn't do well with two weeks dry either.

Gardener Paul thought it might revive but no dice.

They took it down today much to the relief of my neighbor who has mentioned it two times. In the mode of being helpful. "Did you know.....?".

Yes. And I get that it is an eyesore too.

Southern California passive aggressive.

The tree never did very well. It grew too fast for one thing. Makes the wood soft.

This happens to a lot of trees here in the desert. Not suited. We water them and the heat gets them going and before you know it they are huge with no strength at all.

The same tree had branches that would sag of their own weight. Amputation.

So it has gone to a happier place. And the neighbors are happy.

I won't care much actually since the olive tree just outside my windows blocked the view of the dead pepper tree. It is pretty much the same as it was before from here.

Labels: garden, horticulture, nature

DOWNTURN

Quite by surprise. The weather here is suddenly cooler at 100.

John says "who would ever call 100 cool in our former life, huh"?

There is a hurricane pushing up through the Baja by Saturday and we are already seeing the cloud cover and a little of the humidity of it.

This is good. It is September. It is cool enough to do some work we would not attempt in the high heat and radiation. Too much stress.

And cool enough for me to go out and fluff the poinsettia leaves that are burned and sort of get the new shoots already coming out in the right position.

It is now in a bit of shade and the cloud cover will help it a lot. It has done well holding up through the ultraviolet exposure but looks kinda ratty. This is the same big poinsettia that we got from the kids at the holidays. We are hoping to keep it going as a perennial.

From there, I went on to trim the gangly growth on the potted lemon and lime trees. A week of cloud and lower heat will help reduce the trauma from the cutting although they are very tough and if I were tougher I could have gone out and trimmed them earlier.

Then on to the back yard hibiscus for a thorough prune of almost every single branch.

Hibisci bloom on new stems so, to keep them growing, means few flowers. Or fewer than if you prune aggressively.

And to get a true bush you really cannot just prune evenly across the top but, rather, prune creatively all through the bush at different lengths to encourage fill in and more flowers. Each cut will produce a few new branches.

And on to the roses for pruning for the fall bloom.

They go dormant in the high heat and, like back east in the winter, we do not prune before the heat but after. That allows the damaged ends of stems to be more distant from the base plant. A quick and dirty prune overall in the fall, which I guess is today, will get a good bounce going for the autumn blooms.

Southern California desert gardening tips.

I feel rather safe actually in doing this a little early. I have a week of low radiation and heat and then we are into the period where the nights are really cool. Last year I was in San Diego next week and when I came back the mountains were in the 40s and the valley was in the 80s. That is why I went earlier this year.

No point on going cool when it is already cool at home

Labels: garden, horticulture