New Yard Pictures

I finally finished planting some Iris and Ixia bulbs yesterday and took these pictures below. Our pink morning glory is finally blooming and the other picture here is our turks cap or sleepy hibiscus, named as such because the blooms never open beyond what you see here.

The Elusive Iris

After driving all over town today, rummaging through four Home Depot's and a Lowe's (I can't wait till the new Lowe's opens near us, I'm sick of HD), I finally found some Dutch Iris bulbs, dark purple. This may all be for nought if they don't come up in the spring, but I've never attempted to plant bulbs in the yard, and now seems like as good a time as any. I've already planted some Daffodils and Narcissus bulbs near and under our Chilean Mesquite, hoping they'll get some filtered shade during the summer. Also picked up a bag of Anemone bulbs, apparently poisonous plants with big white blooms... I thought these would look good mixed amongst the purple, but a) this is assuming any of them actually come up, and b) I don't know about planting something that could potentially kill our dog. I might take those back and exchange them for some Ixia bulbs, they looked nice, and my Sunset book doesn't indicate that they're lethal. Just like Home Depot to either sell something without a disclaimer and/or sell something that just isn't native to this area (Magnolia's, for example, my God, are you serious? In this climate?).

I'm hoping to get some more yard pictures posted here as time permits.

Planting Season!

Despite missing the annual plant sale at the Arboretum (for good reason), I've gotten a leg up on getting some things in the ground as the weather cools off (well, into the high 80s, anyway). On the south side of the yard, under our Chilean Mesquite, which provides lots of shade, I've planted a plumeria and numerous narcissus bulbs, in hopes that they'll spread in the shade over the coming years. I also had two large pots of aloes that were root bound, and divided and spread those all over the yard, maybe a dozen in total. The mother plant in the larger of the two pots was probably three feet tall and I could barely carry it and it's rootball. As Emily would say, it was huuuuge. I'll post a picture perhaps if I think about it, in the near future.

We had a chance of rain today but most of it missed us to the northwest (Kingman) and southwest (Tucson), we managed cloudy skies, and humidity, but nothing more. It was 72 this morning, about 15 degrees higher than it has been lately with clear skies. We managed 7 days of rain in the first half of October (albeit light rain), and things seem to be drying out now. I've read this is supposed to be a wetter than normal winter due to El Nino (or La Nina, I forget), I'm crossing my fingers that this is the case, as last year about this time, we went almost six months without a drop of rain (140-some odd days, if memory serves).

October Rain?
















It's not common, but we've had a lot of thunder and lightning the last two days and Emily mentioned that it poured down rain briefly this afternoon at the church, which is about 10 minutes from the house (we had wind and thunder, and whiny dogs, but no rain).

The rain on the radar above just came through, a brief downpour, about a tenth of an inch, but nothing to sneeze at considering it hardly ever rains in October.

We're right on the county line below the "n and i" in Phoenix.

I watered a few things in the yard tonight, and am glad I didn't bother with much more. Good chance of rain again today, hopefully we'll catch some more before this front moves out.

The cooler temps and lingering humidity have done wonders for our plumbago on the south side of the house, and the lower angle of the sun puts it in the shade more so than earlier in the season.

This plant takes a LOT of water in the heat of the summer, but it pays off when the weather cools. I like plants that bloom white, they give the illusion of "cool".