The More Things Change

Here's the arch I spoke of yesterday, painted black and moved closer to the deck (from around the side of the house).

Quick Yard Update

Here are a few new shots of the yard. I recently spray painted our arch on the south side of the house, and moved it to right off the side of the deck. If I had been smart, I would have taken a picture of it, but I did not. Perhaps another time.

For now, here are a few blanket flowers that I bought about a month ago. I orignally thought of planting these in my bathtub, but thought better of it since the tub still has no drain holes, and tends to bake plants after April, since it retains heat so well. Emily's mom also has some of these, and hers looked so good, I decided to get a few for myself.



I also bought a few gazanias to mix in with the blanket flowers. Had a been smart, I would have bought some white ones to offset the color in the blanket flowers. Instead I bought some with a similar color.



While a number of my other potted plants nearly baked to death in our 100+ temps earlier in the week, my shrimp plant continued to thrive. No blooms yet, but the color of the leaves are so lush that I thought they might photograph well.

Yellow Orchid Vine

One of my favorite vines is ramping up it's blooming, despite our 100 degree heat. I planted another one of these off the back porch, but it hasn't taken off, maybe because it's getting afternoon sun, whereas the one pictured here gets morning sun.

I love the shape of the blooms.

What, Another Yard Update?

Here are some new pictures for your viewing pleasure. We picked up about a half inch of rain on Saturday, and our humidity is just now starting to come down. Clouds are coming back in tonight, but no forecast for rain, just wind (again).

This is the best I've seen the chinese pistache look, it's put out more new growth this year than previous ones. The trick is finding the right balance of water during the hottest months, so the leaves don't curl and brown.

The evening primrose are still blooming, and probably will until May. They're still in partial shade, which helps.

The jujubees have also put out a lot of new growth this spring, and are blooming. Any fruit that develops from these will unfortunately fall off once we get over 100, but it will bloom again during the monsoon in late August, and hold it's fruit until picking time in November. It would be nice to have two harvests a year, but alas, it's too bloody hot for that here.

About four years ago I pulled up all of my myoporum groundcover (in favor of flagstone sidewalks), and one came back from the ground, and is now blooming.

The blue emu bush is also blooming, although they look purple to me.



After three springs in the ground, our pomegranates appear to be holding their fruit. There are maybe six or seven maturing fruit per bush at the moment, but they're both still blooming like crazy, so there may be more.

The calomondin is nearing time for picking.

And finally, a look at the north side of the house. The creeping trumpet vine is anything but that, spreading all over the place. Our Thompson's Seedless grape has about seven clusters of developing fruit, and I've curled it's vines back into the yard, to help hide the water barrels behind.

Another Yard Update

Here are a few new shots of the yard.

An oddity for starters, a pomegranate double bloom, one bloom inside the first one.

The grape vine on the north side of the yard reaching for sunshine.

I've moved the old tub planter from behind the emu bushes and replaced it with a makeshift trellis, made out of some old porch parts. Notice the scrawny grapevine planted at its base.

The dwarf orange, which I was threatening to dig up this year (since it didn't produce anything last year), has responding in kind, notice all of the little starters, and this is just one small section of the tree.



Speaking of bumper crops, here is a close up of one small section of the calomonden, I counted at least 30 in this picture, nearing ripeness and pie making, mmm.

A wider shot of the yard, where I've moved the tub out from behind the bushes. It may be too late to plant anything in it this year, but I have a dollars worth of wildflower seeds I'm going to try in it for kicks. Pomegranates blooming in the foreground.



A close up of the easter egg emu bush, which usually blooms around the holiday (hence the name). Only the pink blooms on this bush actually open, the other colors strangely never do.