Let's Stay Holmes

Well this could be another $120 mistake

I pruned the hibiscus again. It’s probably the wrong time of year to do this and it will probably weep over its loss of branches and then attract pests and disease. Oh, well. I’m just excited to have something in my yard live long enough to prune.

I rid the hibiscus of suckers and it looks more pleasing to the eye now. You can still see how it was lollipopped at the top

I received the hibiscus as a housewarming gift. It presented as light pink, almost peach at the nursery. I declared it a romantic color and placed it in a pot right outside the master window because I wanted to see it every day.

The color was more cream than this photo suggests.

This hibiscus is a tropical one and not a hardy hibiscus. Both do fine here in Zone 9b. I think it’s a bit of a fussy plant and I had no business as a beginner adding this to my yard.

But I’m fascinated with hibiscus in general. On a recent trip to Oahu I posed with any bright colored hibiscus found all around the city, blooms as big as my hand.

My hibiscus came trimmed up in the standard way, a lollipop, which I hated and let grow out for two years. Last month and now today, I tried to shape it up a little while still letting it be the tree it was meant to be.

Meanwhile, my hibiscus really needs…. something. Fertilizer? Repotting? Different location? It’s getting more sunlight since the tropical storm toppled a neighboring ficus a couple weeks ago. I’m not sure the hibiscus likes it. I know it definitely does not like any sort of wind and it lets me know by dropping blooms and leaves. However, it does love tons of water.

In fact, it hasn’t bloomed in quite some time. It will produce buds but they yellow and dry out. My plan is to research when to fertilize the hibiscus and get it on a regular schedule. After two years it’s time to take care of this lovely tree and enjoy what it has to offer.

…Aaaaand this is gardening. Guessing at what nature wants and experimenting until it either flourishes or gives up.

Late Summer Blooms

Some surprises at the last gasp of summer.

I spy a bud or two on my desert rose (adenium). I didn’t know it was ramping up to bless me with more flowers this late in the game but I’m happy it’s trying. I can’t remember if I’m supposed to withhold water to force a bloom or put it in a dark place. This plant was recently in the garage dungeon for a few days during Hurricane Hilary to guard it against tropical storm winds and a year’s worth of rain. Maybe that is why it’s trying to bloom again now.

I’ve mentioned my crepe myrtle tree I got free from Tree For All about this time last year. The power company had information on their website to register for a free shade tree and then come and get it. I could choose from three tree varieties and we chose this one together.

When I got it, this tree was a stick. It continued to do nothing at all while I faithfully watered it. My husband wanted to get rid of it and I wasn’t ready to plant it. I’ve got grand ideas of a pergola one day and I want this tree around it to provide additional shade for the foliage I intend to plant all around the pergola as a little oasis in my yard. Plus our HOA won’t let us plant anything without permission from our neighbors, a detailed plan in triplicate, a permit, and what have you. So in the pot it stayed and it sprouted a few leaves. It blew over a few times and each time I righted it, I wondered if it would survive.

I found out crepe myrtles can actually do okay in a pot. Now the crepe myrtle is doing much better after my husband repotted it and it’s getting buckets of water.

Really glad for this growth! I’m not sure how big it’s going to get. I think I should probably prune the top because it’s growing in a direction I don’t want it to.

This is a crepe myrtle bloom! I was not expecting the white and I’m pleasantly surprised by this tree. I’m going to love the snowy, fragrant blooms cascading over my pergola…

And I mean literal buckets of water. Our air conditioning condensation drains out into the side yard and the water goes… nowhere. My husband had the great idea to place a bucket underneath and use the water in our garden. It’s heavy and fills quickly. These days there is more than a bucket full waiting for me each morning to disperse.

It’s really important to get rid of standing water because mosquitos will lay eggs there. The Mosquito Vector place here in the Coachella Valley has done a great job educating everyone not to let even a teaspoonful of water sit because the mosquitos will find it and breed. The vector control place will come out and rid the mosquitos for you, evaluate your yard, and spray in affected areas. Mosquitos are dangerous here, as West Nile Virus and other diseases have been detected very close to home. So I use the buckets of water any chance I can get to try and mitigate our risk for these pests. Plus it’s great for doing our part in a drought.

Lastly, I just wrote about the basil and lo and behold it is for sure blooming.

I’m not sure what to expect from this and I’m waiting to see what happens. I have plenty of basil and I don’t like the way this one tastes. Apparently this is called bolting. You can buy slow bolt seeds, like I did with my cilantro, that won’t do this in the hot weather. I just searched for seeds in the desert when I first started my garden and came across Native Seeds S.E.A.R.C.H based out of Tucson, Arizona. Now, a lot of these seeds are great for the high desert and I’m in the low desert. But there aren’t a lot of seed places directly in my area and I just love their website and nonprofit. This is the link to the herbs sold at Native Seeds , and as I’m writing this the Slo-Bolt Cilantro is already sold out. Good thing I saved my own seeds!

Native Seeds is actually a link I’m posting on my blog, which I normally don’t do. I started to notice ads on here now, yuck. I don’t get paid for the ads and have no say on which ads are on here. Some of the ads look pretty terrible and for sure have nothing to do with me or with gardening. I have no sponsors and don’t plan on that kind of thing. I would advise not clicking on any ads on my blog. They could be scams or bogus websites, and they’re not anything I’ve said is okay. The blog company wants me to pay to get rid of them and I’m just not in the position to do that right now. So in the meantime, don’t click on anything that looks unsafe.

By the way, does anyone say clicking anymore or is the correct term tapping now? I imagine my kids are going to ask me why I say clicking. My son and I recently found ourselves bored while waiting at the doctor’s office and I had to explain to him what a computer mouse was. We don’t do a whole lot of screens, tablets, and video games at our house yet but I don’t want my children growing up in a cave so little by little we explore the role of screens in our lives. Pretty soon it’s going to be the other way around, with my kids explaining technology to me!

Thai Basil Going to Seed

Now what?

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve learned by trial and error that the basil likes a sunny spot, does okay if I only water it every 2 or 3 days, and stays green over the summer. That’s an awesome plant to have in the desert!

It appears to be getting leggy (possibly from its little hiatus in the garage during Tropical Storm Hilary) and it looks like it’s trying to make some flowers.

The tops look different on the tallest, largest plants. I think this basil is getting ready to flower or go to seed.

I don’t really like the taste of Thai basil. It was purchased by mistake and labeled as sweet basil. But I like the smell when I’m caring for it and I think it would make a great potted plant someplace else so I can free up some prime real estate in my elevated planter.

This planter is awesome and I want three more. It keeps the soil really moist and it’s just the right height. Anything I have placed in here has done well. And with wheels on the bottom, I can position it anywhere I want. My only complaint is that it’s too shallow. I would love 5 or 6 more inches of depth for carrots and the like.

So back to the basil. I pinched off two leaf formations that look like they might develop into blooms. My thought is to keep this plant going a little longer I’ll need to continue doing that.

However, I kept the tallest plant as-is because being a beginning (budding?) gardener I want to see what it does and if I can get any seeds out of it. There’s no harm in this and no great loss to anyone since no one in the family likes Thai basil. Plus it will be fun for my kids to have some low stakes seeds to plant.

My plan is to wait out these 100 degree temps and then transplant the basil and sage into a pot so that I can prepare the soil in the elevated planter for something else. I read that herbs are so good for pest control and might even ward off mosquitos from my patio. Win-win!

Trimming the Sage

Either I killed it, or it will continue to flourish. Who can say? In the words of the great Enya, only thyme.

Today I harvested some sage. I should have done this a few weeks ago when it was lush and healthy. Now after a humid weekend in the garage weathering a tropical storm, it’s not doing so hot.

My hell-on-wheels herb garden. See, I should have been in product marketing. The correct term for this is “raised garden bed” or “elevated planter”, but doesn’t hell-on-wheels sound like more fun? Same with my potting bench, which truth be told is just an old painter’s bench covered in pots and containers of various shapes and sizes. Shouldn’t that be more aptly called a “potty zone”? Anyway, I digress.

I had two types of sage in here, and due to the tomatoes covering every surface it was pretty hard to tell what popped up from all the seeds my kid and I planted. We had a lot going on in this planter. In addition to the tomatoes we had carrots, radishes, marigolds, cilantro, parsley, and I’m pretty sure I saw some chives in there. Or maybe it was just some stray grass.

Our local library has a seed catalog and everyone is allowed to pick up little envelopes of seeds. I’ve taken advantage of this free seed service sponsored by our local Master Gardeners to the point where I’m always picking up a packet or two whenever we visit, and I’m pretty sure that’s where my parsley came from, as well as the lone sage plant that mysteriously appeared after I put in store bought sage starts. This lone plant was divine. Its leaves were long and thin, the scent heavenly, and we just enjoyed this herb more than the thriving sage plants next to it. The other plants’ leaves are leathery and hairy. It’s not a bad sage, it’s only that once you’ve tried the premium sage the others just aren’t as good. Well take two guesses on which plant died.

I cut back the sage plants. I didn’t realize this but it seems with both the sage and the basil the new leaves grow underneath the old mature ones.

Tons of new little leaves on this sage plant after I trimmed it, harvested and cut off dead leaves

This is the luxury sage, which I will call it that especially if the seeds came from the Rancho Mirage library we frequent – so very la-ti-dah. All of its leaves were brown except these very tiny ones. We’re still in the 100 degree summer heat so I really don’t think it will survive

My plan was to dig up these herbs and place them in another pot after they’ve had a chance to fill out again. I need to add more soil to this planter and then… I’m not sure what’s going to go in here but historically it’s done well so I’ll put something we actually want to eat.

Teeny Tiny Mystery Plants

What could they be? There’s only one way to find out!

As I was cleaning up after the storm, ridding all the empty pots in my potting zone of standing water, I noticed a pattern of little sprouts coming up at my feet. Upon further inspection, I found the same little sprouts in two pots, and rounding the corner by the dog run I found even more in one of the dog pots. I have a sneaking suspicion this is from the allysum I had growing in all three of these pots but that doesn’t explain the plants on the ground.

I’m gonna water them and see what happens. They are free ninety-five after all. The worst that could happen is me watering weeds for a few weeks until I find out what these mysterious plants are.

Happy Plants, Happy Wife

Wow! The elephant plant is so much greener than the last time I took a picture of it

Sunning my pots after being in the garage over the weekend. Look how tall the citrus is

Angel’s wings looking gorgeous! It was so droopy after having no sunlight for 3 days but it lifted itself up after a couple days in the sun

My husband’s plumeria cutting has been a success!

Pads of a feather, flocking together. And growing more paddles!!

The vinca is going bonkers! Gonna have to cut it back before it gets leggy

Oh, the hibiscus. I could write a whole post on this and I probably should. It was standard shaped when I got it like a lollipop. I didn’t care for that shape so I let it grow. This week I shaped it into a blob and trimmed the top. Hoping for some over the top blooms soon!

Last year, I got a free shade tree from the Tree For All project in my city. It’s a crepe myrtle and apparently they can do well in pots, which suits me just fine because the decision on where to plant a tree is a big one. Today my crepe myrtle has buds on it!

Just walking around the yard admiring the beauty and thinking about how far we’ve come.

Damage from Hurricane Hilary

Hey I always wanted a backyard pool and now we’ve got one!

Thanks but no thanks! Though Hilary was a tropical storm by the time it got here, it wreaked havoc on my yard.

We were very lucky to have so little issues with this big storm that caused road washouts, power outages, home flooding, and so much more. Our valley is still dealing with the aftermath of the extreme weather.

I took precautions and sandbagged the entry on the side of the house that typically floods beforehand. We put all our potted plants and patio furniture inside the garage as we were anticipating a year’s worth of rain and high winds. Well, in the humid conditions and the three days of stormy weather, the plants suffered in the garage.

This ficus is lifted out of the ground and was leaning on two other ficus across the yard. Our gardener said the way to save it was to anchor it to the house. Um, no! We are in the process of removing it. You can see it’s a little too close to the air conditioning unit anyway so good riddance.

One thing I wasn’t expecting was how good the ficus smells when it’s essentially being hacked to bits. I would love an essential oil or candle in this scent please!

This mother in law tongue is doing great (but its trailing roommate, not so great). It has many babies that I’ll be dividing up when the time is right. But it fell through the columnar planter it was resting on during the storm. It turns out the planter is rusted so I got rid of the tall planter box and will be keeping it like this on the ground instead. It’s tall enough to not need the height, and the tall planter was just collecting water anyway. The mosquitos will be sad their breeding ground is no more but that’s life. The last time I replanted it was in February 2022 and it was just one stalk.

Ah, this one hurts my heart. This gumby cactus my friend gave me when she moved has root rot now. One of its arms fell to the ground so I’ve picked that up and I’m waiting for it to scab over so I can plant it. I wonder if this is the cactus’ survival mechanism, to drop a piece of itself when it knows it’s going to die, to ensure life goes on…

We’ve only just now turned our sprinklers on, a week after the monsoonal storm conditions began.

Let’s Catch Up…

Here’s a summary of everything gardening and plant related from the last time I made a blog post (January 2023) until now.

We harvested some rad radishes! These are grown from Easter egg radish seeds

Everything bloomed nicely except for the darn geranium.

Every one of my snapdragons that I so gleefully planted late in the season died within weeks of planting, poor unfortunate souls

The Italian parsley went gangbusters and we had fresh parsley all season long.

I’ve never seen such giant parsley leaves. I’m definitely going to plant this again!

We did a lot of bird watching. The phoebe bird came by pretty often and continued to be shy but never wavered in its loyalty

I tried my hand at trimming the ficus with some help. Unfortunately this was unsuccessful and my attempt to save money by cutting back the ficus and doing yard work myself was ill conceived. It turns out when you have two little kids and the weather begins to get up in the 100’s you don’t feel like going outside and yet the ficus grows on anyway…

Indoor plants doing okay. I’ve long since expected this monstera to die because I overwatered it when I first got it and I’m pretty sure it has root rot but it continues to hang on

We discovered some surprise shamrocks after a storm! I quickly purchased some fairy garden stuff and told my 3 year old when shamrocks appear it means gnomes are ready to make a home there

So many buds on this little John. I don’t love this bush but it’s all over my property. One day I’ll rip them out and plant something I like

This one is already blooming just a few feet away

Beefsteak tomato is getting tall but hasn’t set fruit (it finally fruited at the very end of the season and the tomato rotted on the plant before it could ripen). I thought I planted a sungold behind it but it turned out to be a red cherry tomato variety. We had teeny tiny tomatoes all season but not enough for a salad. The ones in the wheeled planter did much better

Can’t tell if this is the cherry tomato or the beefsteak. The plants wound around each other.

Lettuce did great here. Many weeds. Regretting not pulling the weed behind it before it went to seed as I thought it was a calendula. Well now I can’t get rid of that weed and it pops up absolutely everywhere

Little bit of color in one of the “dog pots”

Finally! My purple prickly pear is growing pads after two years

These are just so pretty when they bloom and the only reason I keep them around

One of the red sunflowers my mother in law sent me. Sunflowers always do so well here! Nothing else popped up. I envisioned a bed absolutely brimming with flowers and none of my zinnias, cosmos or hollyhocks came up.

I used a dehydrator for a day and a half until crispy

The result was a 2 cup Mason jar full of leaves that I’m still using

This sunflower was so red it looked black

The desert rose finally bloomed. It’s not the color I thought it was. I think I’ll get another one in a color that suits me because this is a really fun plant once I got the hang of it and placed it in the right spot

It still needs a planter. Just haven’t found one that I like enough to buy

My friend moved away and gave me her cacti. While I’m not sure why she chose me, a proven plant murderer to care for these, this is the most comforting thing she could have done. This is a gumby cactus, madagascar palm, and unidentified.

More new babies. The Golden barrel Cactus is easy to spot, a Peruvian old woman and an angel’s wings. The rest I’ll have to figure out.

New cactus from my friend who moved. It reminds me of a porcupine

This one is really happy where I put it and making new babies

So we already had one of these in the front yard and it was labeled as a Christmas cactus. Not so as it is a gumby cactus. We call it the daddy cactus because my husband picked it out and planted it.

Here’s the thing about the basil plants I bought. They’re doing really well here in the wheeled planter. They are thriving in the sunlight. When I finally decided to harvest some for my Thai tuna it tasted like awful spicy licorice! My mother in law said the basil I bought was likely mislabeled as sweet basil but is truly Thai basil. Ugh!!

This elephant plant is getting some green growth on it. It was all yellow when I inherited it

I cleaned out the angel’s wings of old fallen limbs. I’ll try for propagation with some pads. It’s got some new growth on it

This guy is pretty cool and has new growth on it

What’s Up In The Garden Today

Let’s see what’s going on in the garden before we get this big storm that’s coming.

The tomatoes in the raised bed on wheels are getting bigger; however there’s no color on them yet. These are “early girl” variety and I had heard they did well here before but never wanted to purchase them because the name “early girl” sounds like nails on chalkboard to me. Nonetheless when I saw these at the hardware store I thought I would give them a try. I was under the impression that they were cherry tomatoes but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Anyway, I’m not sure what to do to encourage some color on these. Maybe I’ll need to wheel them out into the sun. Not pictured is the sage I just put in there last week – it’s going gangbusters. I’m going to be sad when it heats up and my successful garden on wheels will be brown.

It’s probably just my imagination but these sweet allysum and little snapdragon seedlings seem to be perked up after I splashed a little fish fertilizer on them. That could be why the sage in the other planter is so happy, too.

Biggest surprise of the season – my grape hyacinth is popping up! I never water this area as it’s under some ficus and is probably getting watered from the irrigation there behind it. This was a bulb in water given to me by a friend that was always kept indoors. After it was done blooming I thought what the hey, stuck it in the ground, and forgot about it. I can’t wait to see if it blooms again!

Little bit of color on my strawberry in the bottom corner there and my cosmos have buds! This was another situation where my son had dumped the soil and seeds out, put them back in and now they are growing.

The only thing not doing very well in my garden are my 33 snapdragons! The very plant I thought would be a no-brainer here. They are wilting and drooping. Oh well, maybe their season is about done.

Gardening In The Rain

I highly recommend it!

This is Part 2 of my January task list. In Part 1 I was preparing the soil and fertilizing the lawn, right before a big storm was expected. Now I’m ready to plant something!

Today I planted annual transplants. Specifically, 33 snapdragons. My gardening book says to plant spring-flowering transplants. Truth be told I’m not sure how much longer these snapdragons are going to hold on – maybe 3 months – because I believe they are considered a cool season annual here. But I love them so I’m planting them!

I would love to say the sun was out and birds were singing but this was not the case today. It began to rain just as I went outside to begin planning my garden beds. Big drops of rain fell all over my hair and my flannel shirt. Not to the point of soaking but just enough to feel the rain’s presence. If I were back home I’d just throw on a hoodie but as it stands I dashed inside to get a shell jacket. I didn’t want to call it a day yet because as a mom of two little kids, finding time to garden is a challenge. I have to take and treasure any time I can get to pursue my hobbies. So I pressed forward through the rain with my planning and planting, and I’m so glad I did. There have been studies about the benefits to mood just by digging in the soil. Smelling the soil and dampness and gently laying something beautiful in the ground and patting the soil all around it in the hopes that it will flourish was just what I needed today. My jacket became overkill as the sun came out and a rainbow appeared, reminding me of God’s promise like it always does.

I planted snapdragons in staggered groups of 5 or 7 like this one. My vinca is yellowing and leggy but still hanging on. My thought is to keep it there for now and expect it to die out as summer annuals are sprouting.

I just read in my gardening book about how to plant annuals. You can plant them in a row, which I’ve always done, or you can stagger them. I chose to stagger them this time because I really want to create a layered effect with many flowers.

The plan is to plant sunflowers in the back, then zinnias, then snapdragons and California poppies, then nasturtium. I want to create layers of annuals and lots of color.

What better way to start than with snapdragons? I didn’t know this before but my father in law mentioned getting seeds from his snapdragons and they seed themselves too. Awesome – less work and/or free seeds. I checked out some existing snapdragons we have in the front yard and sure enough, they have brown seed pods on them. I investigated and they are full of a ton of seeds! I saved some for later. Maybe next year I won’t have to pay $3.98 for 6.