Back For Another Yard Update?

Here are a few new pictures from the past few weeks. Earlier in the month, this roadrunner decided to lay out in the front yard and sun (?). Either that or it was suffering from seizures, a very bizarre spectacle.

Here it is sitting casually in the rocks.

And here it is cocking its head to the sky. The pictures don't do justice what this bird was doing, whilst allowing me to walk right up to it.

This is probably the same bugger that's bored holes in two of my oranges, if I had to guess.

Onto the vegetable garden.

Here's a shot of the gourd vines I'm growing. These are ones that you can make into scoopers, but I doubt they'll survive our December chill. Huge leaves, as you can see.

Here's a close up of an eggplant, that also will probably die before I pick anything off it.

And finally, a wide view of everything. Along the wall are straight-8 cucumbers, now blooming, the gourds, which are now a foot taller than pictured here. In the foreground are two tomatoes, both blooming, and the eggplant, also blooming.

Mega-Sized Yard Post

Ok, so it's been a while. It's been hot for seven months and hardly rained, so the yard has been on life support. Now, with it finally cooling off, some of the plants are blooming again.

Here's what I've got for this installment:

- Wolfberry Bush - Odd combination of puple blooms and red berries, very cool, and very SHARP branches!

- Winter vegtable garden! Cucumbers, gourds, cardinal vines, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, in no particular order.



- Calomondon gearing up for it's huge December harvest (I hope), blooming like crazy

- New compost bin! Or a bomb shelter for trolls, take your pick.

- Wedelia, Yellow Dot, Etc - Finally blooming after struggling through our summer, too much direct sun. Spreading everywhere now.

- Chaste Tree, Monks Pepper Tree, Etc, still blooming, the leaves look horrible, but otherwise in good shape.



- Yellow Orchid Vine - Not growing as well in the back yard as the front, but there's more sun and less consistant watering. Love the shape of the blooms.




- Back corner of the yard



- Yellow Bells are blooming like crazy

The Yard

Here is a quick picture of our wolfberry bush, putting out a few tiny purple flowers, and some small red berries. Very odd plant.

A couple of roses, a Double Delight, and Mr. Lincoln. Hopefully planting them this time of year, they'll survive through next spring, and perhaps beyond.

Isolated Storm

This is the true definition of an isolated thunderstorm. Emily took this picture whilst coming home tonight. The storm was sitting over south Phoenix, about 30 miles to the west. In the first shot you can just make out the rain coming out of the storm. There wasn't another cloud anywhere around it for miles.

This is a shot of the same storm from our back yard, minutes later. The top of the storm was already starting to get sheared I'm guessing my the upper level winds. Minutes after this the storm was scattered completely across the western sky.

Here's a quick picture of my clearance rose, I've managed to get a bloom out of it, albeit a small one.

Plant Bonanza

Here recently I've acquired a number of new plants, none of which are pictured here, EXCEPT this guy. I'm rotating it in and out of the house, whenever it's shady on the porch. Perhaps next year I'll transplant it into a larger pot and keep it outside, but it's a little sensitive to the dry heat. Thanks to the six tenths of an inch of rain that we had last night, however, the humidity is sky high, and the plant seems to like that. It's a Japonica something or other, I didn't see a common name for it in my book, so I'll no doubt never remember the scientific name. I love the color of the blooms on it, and the shape of the leaves.



I also traded in my dead nectarine tree for a chuparosa, which will have red blooms next spring. There were two in the pot, so one went in my raised planter, the other into a pot on the back porch. I also got another bird of paradise, which will probably end up in the front yard, filling the void of my potato bush, which bought the farm back in the earlier part of August.

I also managed to get two 5 gallon roses for the price of a 2 gallon, because they were mislabeled at the store. I have a vague idea of where they're going, and since my five dollar rose vine is still alive, there is hope that I'm figuring out how to care for them here. We'll see, famous last words.

Is It November Yet?

A few more pictures for you, the first three are of two love lies bleeding, the second one is much taller, has a different leaf structure, and odd blooms.

Here is the one I'm used to seeing:

And here is the odd one growing on the opposite side of the yard in our tangerine tree well.

The moss roses are blooming, thanks to Brenna's great watering.

The chaste tree is starting to bloom again.

And here's a picture of yet another monsoon that went around our house.

Quick Yard Update

We're in survival-mode out in the yard. It's been a very dry monsoon, and hot, so I've been focusing on keeping things alive rather than taking a lot of pictures. Not much of anything blooms when it's this hot, except for the yellow bells, orange jubilee, and bird of paradise, and I've posted pictures of those a million times already.

Here are a few things of interest.

Some vincas I planted as seeds back in February have decided to come up and they're blooming. The bush river willow tree is in the background.



My five dollar rose that I got on clearance at Lowe's a few weeks ago has started putting out lots of new growth. Planting it between the house and the eucalyptus has probably helps. It's a climber, and hopefully since it was a 5-gallon plant, the root system will help it through until it cools off in November.



The apple tree has dropped all of it's dying leaves from June/July, and has started pushing out a new flush of growth. Either I've finally figured out how to water it, or it's enjoying the increased humidity, different angle of the sun, something. Who knows, I'm just happy I haven't killed it yet.