esrosedotblog

Out to Lowes this morning for a new fountain pump.

The old one was silent this morning. No babbling brooks.

Our fountain is a sort of abstract thing but the water is fundamental. Nothing new about that.

There is a well with a pump and it raises the water two or three feet. The water drops from the top bowl to the next to the next to the next and so on.

When it is not working, the silence in the courtyard is deafening.

Had to fix that.

So Lowes opens at 7 and I was there. First out of the line in garden supplies.

I bought a back up. Pumps do not last. Not at 24/7/52and annum.

I think they last about a year. I don't remember. Maybe I should date the backup box. But it is OK. Knowing is not going to help the wear and tear. Better to let it sneak up on me. It will be going long after the warranty period.

Labels: fountain, gardening

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

Raising cactus must be a bit like raising wild animals.

A wise animal trainer will always keep the word "wild" in mind. Same with the cactus guy. These plants are just on the fringe of civilization. Not ready to be domesticated.

Not only is an animal trainer required to be on guard, s/he must also be ready to accept any responsibility if there are "accidents". If he gets bitten.

I was working with my cactus today and was rearranging.

One of the least tame cacti was just asking to be slipped into a new pot and so I did the job.

Earlier I had picked up a broken plant that the cat had knocked over. Not our cat. The one who comes into the yard to annoy Booker. Well, he is our cat in a way or Booker's but he doesn't live here.

The broken cactus was a special one. It had been drooping all summer and for some reason started to straighten itself up a week ago and had just finished the move to vertical. Of course, that is/was its problem. It became too tall for the cat to jump over on the way out of the yard. Up over the fence.

I was pretty careful. I got my leather gloves which are not really proof against a prick but a help and I used an empty cereal box to hold the remains on the way to the trash so that no one else would get bitten either. I only got one little pick in the process. Pretty good.

So here I am with my wildest meanest cactus. Wild and mean because it has highly visible "teeth" which can really hurt and there are also almost invisible little tentacles that emanate further out from the bad ones. They are invisible.

The movement to another pot was no big deal. The soil was very dry and in a clump. All I had to do was slip the new pot onto the old.

I somehow let down my guard and tried doing this without gloves. Whammo! It got me.

As best I can reconstruct one of the little tendrils caught me and I lost my grip and then I fell right into the jaws of the big bastards.

I dropped the plant. As usual, it didn't get hurt.

But my hand and thumb hurt like hell and that is not an easy over and out kind of hurt.

The spines have poison on them and it releases into the cut. The pain is immediately heavy duty.

And you can feel it working its way up the finger into the blood stream. The arm can even get numb. It is still a little weird. Numb.

No gloves, a disrespect for history (this has happened with this cactus before) and a little bad luck and I am in the infirmary for a few minutes. That means I took a break, stood back, shook my hand, sucked my thumb on the mistaken theory that the venom will come out if you do that. It may but then it is in my mouth. Good that it doesn't.

These are all autonomic responses. Unconscious appeals to the primitive mind for relief. As basic as life itself.

Back in the cage you nasty bastard. I put on my gloves. No need for them now.

This cactus is my favorite plant in the entire garden. Earned respect.

Labels: cactus, gardening

FALL PREP

Today was the day to clean up the courtyard.

Trimmed the hibiscus back so that they are not so leggy and so they begin to bloom again. They only blossom on new stems. Not severely, just enough.

The lantana was so thick. I had to cut it back as it was engulfing a plant table. Same in back.

We all went to Lowes and got some nice, larger cactus plants to replace the 6 or 7 which have not made it through the summer. It is tough for them in pots. In a way, they want a hard life but not too hard. It is difficult to gauge.

My favorite is the desert rose (inset) which was already blooming. A bit of risk, buying a plant in bloom, but it is worth it.

Some of the Palo Verde needed to be trimmed up. The tree. And the suckers at the base of the California Oleander had to be removed.

I have thought about doing this for maybe three weeks. Far more time than it took to do it.

It is done.

Soon we will have a resurgence of growth and many blossoms.

Labels: gardening

PRUNED

We are getting our patio trees trimmed this afternoon.

I had it done earlier last year, maybe October. Since family was coming early November I put it off.

Much to my dismay, the one tree, a palo verde, sheds minute leaflets about that time and we have been deluged with them in the last three or four weeks. The worse place for them is in the fountain. What a mess.

I had thought we might let it go another year but no. I asked the complex gardener to do it.

There is a weird clause in the HOA rules about using him. Technically it is not OK but if he comes after work and waits a suitable time, ten minutes, it is OK somehow.

Me, I say that if he is willing to take the heat I certainly am.

Another thing. Last year he asked 85 dollars and I gave him 100. Good will money. Just in case money. I want him on my side.

Today he asked 50! I questioned it on the upside and he misunderstood and said, "maybe 40. I explained. He laughed and said, "OK, you can pay me 55." I will give him 60.

And no matter what else happens, there will be more goddam little leaves.

The other tree, a California oleander, is just seedy, pods. It is messy looking.

NOTE! The vine on the house that bears big yellow poddy looking flowers is abloom. When we got here it seemed dead. Lack of water. It came back late and is probably going to have two crops of blooms this year.

Labels: condo, gardening

SHORN

We have about 50 jacaranda trees in our condo complex. About one tree for three condos.

That is a lot of jacaranda.

They have been pruning them and finally reached our little pocket of the neighborhood.

It is a pretty radical operation. every branch is cut off the large trunk which heads at about ten feet or so.

Since the tree grows from this "branch head" and produces upright branches, the trees need to be dead headed from time to time and allowed to grow back otherwise the vigor will go into the large number of branches with less of the beautiful flowers.

I do not know if we will get flowering on the new branches this year.

Until we do, there will be a large stump out there in front.

Oddly, the bare trunks are not bad looking. They have a certain rough grace to them.

Incidentally, if you want a jacaranda in your yard, think twice. The blooms are gorgeous and have a lovely smell on the tree but on the ground the blooms become sort of mushy and almost impossible to clean up.

On concrete, they leave a purple dye.

The best place for a jacaranda is across the street on your neighbor's yard where you can see it in its blossomy glory and never do a lick of work cleaning up after it.

Labels: gardening

POST GARDENISM

I took the front garden out this morning.

No, I didn't wait until John was gone to pull a fast one. We talked about it.

Last fall we put in some plants to fill out the empty spaces left around the horsetails that were there when we came.

It has never been right.

And the summer kicked its ass. Too much sun, too long a day and heat.

So I quit watering it a week ago and took out the really, really dead stuff today.

We will put in some bigger stones on either a decomposed granite or sand base. A little oriental. A little palm springs. Not a water saver. Just a no plant space.

I also took out the attempt at having rosemary on the east shelf and will put in more cactus in pots as we have on the other side.

Labels: gardening

ORGANIZING

Today is sort of "get it all together" day.

Organizing.

I am coming up to sending in my IRS paper work to the accountant. We are in the middle of a muddle with them about our status as California Domestic Partners which should qualify us for community property filings on all our income. For a major saving. But they are not organized for it and it is taking a very long time of back and forth to get it done. My accountant has now written to the IRS Advocate, yes there is one, to see if the long jam can be broken.

This morning I cleaned out the fountain in the courtyard. Over a couple of months it collects the sand in the air (a lot) and little teeny leaves from a nearby tree. In the summer, more.

I siphon the water out and use the hose as a little vacuum to pick up as much of the crap as I can. Then refill it.

It doesn't take a long time but it is messy.

Today's movie was the second 90 minutes of Red Cliff and I am enjoying it immensely. The longer international edit, the longest, has a number of set pieces that amplify the characters and also set up some business which seemed rushed in the shorter US version.

I will probably write a few sketches today for my family tree. My cousin asked me to do everyone's life story in a paragraph or so. I think that I can do that.

So there is a lot of little stuff which adds up.

Soon, Booker's walk and then Chicken Alfredo. The sauce is a mix. A V-day dinner because it is V-day and that is what came up on the rotation.

Organizing.

Labels: films, gardening, life

DESERT SPRING PLUS

Big developments today.

There are blossoms on a few of the cacti that I bought for our courtyard last summer.

A way to dress the area up without tearing up the concrete and also a way to use several high benches that we had gotten.

It never occurred to me that there would be flowers.

But there are.

Suddenly!

Mostly wildly pink blossoms on two of the barrels and some green with red and yellow teeny little buds on another cactus that doesn't really look like a cactus.

If that were not enough, we have white flowers showing on the very large pot cactus that was here when we arrived.

I have never ever been interested in pot gardening before. No potted plants anywhere unless they were huge.

So this is an unanticipated pleasure. Very nice.

I guess my cactus are emulating the cactus outside the walls which have a spring and flowers and some fruit.

I don't expect fruit.

Then, if that weren't exciting enough, today I realized that the orchid plant which I have been watering and fertilizing post-blossom has finally after 6 months (as they said on the tag actually) added two stems. I found the one and tied it to the stake and then, my god, another one. So now, two stems.

Did I mention that I am excited about this?

The orchid lives inside. Maybe I will get a couple more.

The three pot garden benches are, of course, outside. The cactus bench, a high table of succulents which are always doing something and another hot, full sun planting of prostrate rosemary. Prostrate because it doesn't bush up but, well, lies down. And because it is up in the air on pots, the stems will eventually flow over the side and down towards the ground (concrete). It is nice to have all these babies to take care of.

One more step toward puttering, the universal business of geezers.

Labels: condo, gardening, horticulture

GREENERY

We added greenery to the east wall today. Rosemary. Prostrate Rosemary.

I only had a small hand in this project.

John found a neat table which is just right to sit on the odd piece of concrete that they put along the wall between two useless ground spaces.

He wanted rosemary in it but I could not find anything at Lowes or HomeDepot. I am giving them up.

So he went to Mollers and found just what we want with boxes and instructions from the house expert on rosemary.

The prostrate rosemary will not bush but lie on the ground as groundcover but, in our case, it will drop off the side of the boxes. Cascade.

Two of the little bushes are flowering. It looks pretty good.

My part was the planting.

They say that it will take the heat and that is our experience. We had it at the old house in mounds and it sat 100% in the sun. And some of it spilled over on hot rocks which would be similar to the hot wall.

We will see. In the desert, everything decides for itself whether it will make it or not. We are often the last to find out.

Labels: condo, gardening, horticulture

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

NAKED

We got the courtyard trees pruned today.

I went through a lot of gyrations trying to figure out how to find someone to do it.

Not that it is hard to find someone. It was choosing.

I thought about our house gardener that we had until July. A neighbor had an outside gardener do his trees and gave me the guy's card. $200 for about the same work. I thought it a bit high.

And then there are the gardeners who work on the complex here.

We were told that they would do our work on the side for a fee.

I have watched them around and like what I see. They do chop a bit more than I would but they are working a cycle and as I can see, the growback is considerable before the next prune so it is OK.

I mulled.

Then the other day the crew was across the street and I went and asked for the boss.

The boss is the youngest and best looking, hot, man in the group. Big smile.

He came over and we discussed the whole setup for us. Our Palo Verde tree and California Oleander. Both old. We looked at "their" bushes which are outside the wall. Several low bushes, a nice old big trunk hibiscus that is just coming back from a severe prune last year. A wonderful Mexican Firebird and a tree with red blossoms. The only one of its kind in the complex he says and we don't know its name. A beauty. Constant red petals all over.

We also looked at the blank space out back between "our" swath of grass and the street.

We don't mind the street. It is just that there is a considerable break in the oleanders there and we don't want less than any others.

Well, first he told me that we don't have to pay for the bushes to fill as I offered. He is going to be doing that area in 3-4 weeks and will fill in there from HOA stock.

We set a date for the prune.

I was already glad I had chosen to use him. We have a bond. He is getting paid to do the courtyard and it helps make him attentive to the outside.

That was proven today when they showed up half an hour early to do all the bushes and trees in front of our place. Ours and "theirs". Actually the "theirs" are 1/146th ours.

They did a great job. It is very light out there now. The shade is gone which is good for the winter sun to the south of us.

It does look quite naked but that is the point. We will have a lush hazy sun when the new branches return over the next 6 months.

They hauled the prunings away. We are as good as new and I have a new helper. I told him I would see him "next year" and do it again.

I got the big smile.

Oh. He quoted me $80. Much more like it. It took about an hour. He did pretty well and so did I against the other guy who wanted 2.5 as much.

Labels: condo, gardening