Many thanks to indefatigable gardener, master photographer, and besotted grandfather Ozark Hillbilly:
As usual, our early Spring was all daffodils and dogwoods, interrupted by the arrival of Lyriel.
We returned to the Ozarks only to find a heavy wet snow smothering our gardens.
Fortunately, it did not take long at all for the clematis and columbines to shake it off and soon even the bluebells were standing proud again.
Our Spring was interrupted a second time when we traveled west to a land of desiccation where even lichens found the growing difficult at best.
On our return we found that things here were most decidedly wet and running wild. The Zen was no less mellow tho, as we settled back in.
***********
I was planning to spend the long weekend transplanting TOO MANY mail-order tomatoes into rootpouches, while I could get the Spousal Unit to help me with the ‘lifting 35lb bags of planting mix’ part. It’s been raining here since Friday afternoon, and it will continue raining through Monday. After which the S.U. has been commanded to go back to his downtown office for the first time since March 2020, and I will be shifting bags of SODDEN planting mix all on my own. These transitions will be unpleasant for everybody, I fear…
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
The Seven Stages of Brisket
Baud
Lyriel looks like a Lyriel. What a cutie.
Gorgeous scenery.
satby
Beautiful granddaughter, wonderful gardens! Perfect Sunday morning viewing.
prostratedragon
So pretty in pink! The garden, too.
Barbara
I love it when I see a baby who makes sleeping look like a job. Thanks for the pictures. It’s raining here too.
OzarkHillbilly
Between our travels and the incessant rains we’ve been having here, the weeds have taken over in the gardens. If I get a break in the weather it is barely enough to do some weeding in the various planting beds. I still haven’t managed to mulch the veggie garden and the weeds are taking over. The one advantage of that is that even tho it is way too wet to do anything there, I can at least walk around on top of the weeds to check on their growth without sinking up to my knees in the muck.
It’s supposed to sunshine and 70s today and tomorrow with the rain returning late Tuesday. Which is just enough time to get the beans in the ground so they can turn to mush because it’s just too damned wet.
sigh
eta: “besotted grandfather” is pretty much the sum of me these days but don’t tell my granddaughters.
Cermet
Beautiful little one (Lyriel; but also the flowers); here, rain, more rain, too cool to like, and did I mention rain? But we did need it so just complaining pointlessly. At least I don’t have to do mowing today :)
Cermet
@Cermet: Just added due to your post: weeding! Ugh! That’s why I own a mower … .
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
rikyrah
Great pictures ?
satby
Right now it’s 39° out, but the “real feel” says 47°, so pretty humid after our good soaking rain on Thursday and early Friday. I held off mulching the front flower bed until we got a good rain, today I’ll water it again and mulch it over, after putting in the annual mums I bought to fill in after the spring bulb greenery is gone. Treated myself to two hanging pots of begonias yesterday at the market for the front porch. This week I’m hanging the mosquito netting curtains before the temps return to the high 80s and my porch living room is ready for occupancy. That’s where I spend my downtime in the summer and mosquito netting is a must.
satby
@Cermet: you mow your flower beds? That’s hardcore weeding!?
Kindle autocorrect is being especially helpful (not) today.
OzarkHillbilly
Heh, same here. I do weed and mulch around the plants but mow between the rows.
Steeplejack (phone)
@rikyrah:
Good morning! ?
sab
What a luscious garden.
My across the street neighbor and I traded plants. She got some of my Siberian iris (survived the winter transplanted into a plastic pot.) She gave me a big clump of spiderwort, which she says is even tougher. Anyone have any warnings? I gather it is invasive so I will be very careful where I plant it, but it is beautiful.
ETA Can well established thriving daylilies hold their own if I introduce spiderwort in their midst?
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: I have a bed of daylillies that has been invaded by some wild thing that desperately wants to take over, but no matter how hard it tries the daylillies just sneer at it’s wholly inadequate efforts.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s encouraging.
satby
@sab: Not familiar with spiderwort, but after reading about it, I wouldn’t plant it at all. Sounds highly invasive if it gets away from you.
Geminid
@sab: From what I’ve seen of the Spiderwort some previous tenants planted, it’s a slow but sure spreader. So you may have to dig some out from time to time to keep your daylilies clear.
My friend Joan has an extra large lot where she grows a lot of flowers, shrubs, and vegetables, and barely keeps up with the weeds. She plans to plant some of the spiderwort from my place in an ungardened corner, and let it do it’s own weeding.
sab
@satby: I plan to put it in the middle of a well established daylily patch in the tiny bed between my house and the driveway. It should be a challenge to spread from there if the daylilies hold their own. They already clobbered the siberian iris.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: To me, invasive is just another word for thriving. I like invasive plants. I like to plant them all together and see who comes out on top.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
debbie
Lyriel is a real beauty! You will end up thanking the rain when the heat returns. More time for the damned weeding.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, if they didn’t escape out of our own spaces and damage native habitat and wildlife, I would agree. But, they do.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby:
JPL
Ozark, She is so cute, and just plain huggable. You are one lucky grandpa. One day she will be swinging on that set in your yard.
Lapassionara
@OzarkHillbilly: what a lovely granddaughter!
if you like invasive plants, try gooseneck loosestrife. It gives spiderwort a run for its money.
Geminid
@satby: Spiderwort is a native plant, at least in eastern Virginia. English horticulturist John Tradescans brought some from Virginia to England in 1639, on one of his three plant gathering trips to the new colony. Spiderwort’s botanical name is Tradescantia Virginianis.
Spiderwort used to be called “Wandering Jew.” The best name I’ve seen is the one the Spanish gave it: “Flor de Santa Lucia,” Saint Lucy’s Flower.
JPL
It’s 53 now and will warm to 76 later in the day, and there is no rain in the area. Perfect weather for grilling some ribs later on today.
?
TS (the original)
Beautiful house & garden, delightfully wonderful grandbabe.
All of life’s joys.
Mary G
Beautiful grand baby born in a worldwide pandemic gives me hope and somebody to keep fighting for. Plus so many flowers. I would love some of that rain. Hot conditions at the end of the week predict fire. I remember when that was almost impossible in May.
Dorothy A. Winsor
The whole Ozark garden set up is gorgeous. I don’t want to do the work to construct or manage it, but I’m jealous of the people who get to enjoy it.
I miss bluebells. In Iowa, we lived five minutes from a bluebell wood
Amir Khalid
Flowers are pretty. Baby is adorable. Welcome to Earth, Lyriel.
Baud
@JPL:
Ozark is obviously adopted.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mary G: Speaking of: California faces another drought as lake beds turn to dust – a photo essay
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Heh. If there is one thing my siblings could never get away with denying, it is our relationship. Mind you they still try.
eta: the same for my sons.
Raven
It’s our 22nd anniversary so we packed up the boy and went to the bakery for only the second time since the shit hit the fan.
stinger
What a rosy, kissable child!
Years back, I noticed spiderwort along the ditches of the rural road I jog. When I realized the flowers came in more than one color (darker and lighter blue-purple), I transplanted a few plants to my garden among some hybrid daylilies. The ditches still have spiderwort in about the same proportion to other weeds/grasses/native plants as before. And in my garden, I might have two plants where I formerly had one — this is after 5 or 6 years. They grow in slowly thickening clumps, much like the daylilies, and neither daylily nor spiderwort has yet shoved out the other, although they all could stand to be thinned. I found a third color (white with a dark heart) later and my sister-in-law has a fourth (deep pink), so we’re going to swap plants soon.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Congrats.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: @Geminid: oh, whatever you two! I was out giving my dwarf burning bush the stink eye.
Invasive in one place, native in another. Climate change is shuffling the deck.
Kristine
Lovely garden and sweet Lyriel. I agree that it’s a good way to start a Sunday.
I love spiderwort, which seems to behave itself here in NE Illinois. A friend tried to grow some in his garden and had no luck, and while I see scattered blooms in the state park and along trails each year, they remain scattered. Maybe they need warmer weather in order to run rampant.
We’re still considered to be in Severe Drought here, though my plot saw 0.6” or so of rain this past week. Everyone else seems to get more, but the rains fizzle when they get close to the lake. Everything is still growing, though. Irises exploded—I hunted online, and I think they’re an heirloom variety called Alcazar, which makes sense given where I found the original rhizomes. A burst of unseasonable heat wrung out the first bloom, but each stalk still has a few more buds to go. The crabapple are all spent, but a few native columbine opened and the astilbes are gearing up. I planted some dahlias in pots for color while I wait for the monarda, liatris spicata, cardinal flowers, and day lilies to catch up.
Wag
Our peach tree had flowered just before our last snow of the season, over Mother’s Day weekend. I checked it yesterday, and it looks like the pollinators did their job before the storm. We have a bumper crop of peaches! I’m very excited after not getting any fruit last year following a late freeze.
OzarkHillbilly
Not garden related, but I gotta pass this on: In truly upsetting news, William Shakespeare is dead:
Sad sad news.
Oh. You mean this is a different William Shakespeare?
Sure thing, honey. You betcha. People “misinterpreted it.” Riiiiight.
JPL
@Raven: Happy Anniversary!
Ken
“Plant Wars”, the slowest-paced “Robot Wars” knock-off ever.
debbie
@Raven:
Happy anniversary to you and your bride!
NotMax
What’s that on the lawn? Oh, it’s a hydraulic serpent launcher!
cope
@satby: As my ninth grade bio teacher taught us, a rose bush is a weed in a corn field.
Nice pictures and narrative by the way. Thanks, OHB.
Geminid
@satby: I know. I was just playing plant pedant.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
The confusion is understandable, kind of. Both William Shakespeares were from Warwickshire,
FelonyGovt
Lovely flowers and what a sweet baby!
Will be planting two more Golden Eunonymous plants today. Also putting my new red bell pepper and jalapeño plants in containers.
Gin & Tonic
@Raven: Happy Anniversary!
WaterGirl
Ozark, beautiful grandbaby! I see that you got the model that sleeps like an angel and never cries. :-)
@satby:
Why are you giving your dwarf burning bush the stink eye? My “dwarf” burning bush is really happy with this weird weather.
It has become not-so-dwarf in the last 10 years, even though it stayed in the dwarf range for the first 20 years of its life.
Jeffery
Just out shoving mammoth sunflower seeds in. They are a few years old. Don’t know how many if any will come up. The much needed soaking rain started Friday night and will continue into Monday. The seeds should germinate without a problem if they are viable.
narya
I delayed getting out of bed here in eastern PA in the hope that the rain would stop; alas, it’s still drippy and mid-40s, so a run is not in the offing. Nearly time for trackaritas–though even the Indy 500 racetrack is at 49 degrees right now. I’m hoping that all of the plants on my porch survive the weather; they’ll enjoy the rain, but if it froze, I’m gonna be SOL. OH, your place is beautiful; it looks like my fantasy home, to be honest. And the granddaughter is similarly lovely.
WaterGirl
@Wag: Bumper crop of peaches… so jealous! But you deserve it after last year. Actually, we all deserve bumper crops from our fruit trees every year!
My tart cherry tree seemed to have a bumper crop every other year.
Ken
@Amir Khalid: And both were born in the second millennium.
What I want to know is what were the second William’s parents thinking. “Maybe he’ll grow up to be a writer?” It seems far more likely that he grew up to be someone who heard “Very funny, but seriously what’s your name” a lot.
Gin & Tonic
We are in the middle of a pretty classic spring Nor’easter here – temps struggling to climb above 50 and on and off rain. Nearly 2” since the start, probably another inch to go. Really ruining a lot of outdoor weekend plans, but the ground really needs the moisture.
zhena gogolia
Wow, Lyriel is a beauty!
And there is nothing like the Ozarks for natural beauty.
WaterGirl
@Ken: I went to high school with a guy named Daniel Daniel. What were his parents thinking?
Geminid
@Gin & Tonic: We are getting the back side of that storm in Virginia- cool, overcast with occasional rain. We needed rain badly too.
Nelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Where is the bluebell woods? Need to find something like that to lift spirits. (I’m in Urbandale.)
Cermet
@OzarkHillbilly: Know of any invasive plants that overwhelms poison sumac (except English ivy or Kudzu! The former is killing local tree’s and lucky, the later isn’t near me) I am gonna try Rose of Sharon tree’s but that takes years.
And yes, after the flowers are no longer feeding the bee’s, it mower time … .
OzarkHillbilly
Until PawPaw picks her up, than an internal alarm sets off the external alarm. On our last day there I did get to hold her for almost 2 peaceful hours. It was nice, I could almost get used to it.
cope
@NotMax: That has actually happened to me when a lizard came shooting out of a hose I turned on one day. Leapin’ lizards, indeed.
Raven: congrats on your nuptial commemoration.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: “We want this child to grow up and leave, never to return.”
Steeplejack
@Raven:
Happy anniversary! ?
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: @Nelle:
This was a great year for bluebells here in Illinois! I have Virginia bluebells (the traditional plant) and I also have Spanish bluebells (which are a bulb).
Great year for both of them. I was in blue bell heaven.
Dorothy, you should see if they would plant some bluebells at your place – surely they have a garden that everyone can see even from inside the building?
Ramalama
I should know better than to visit here on Sunday mornings. The jealousy. The absolute jealousy at people with gardens and landscape types of materials on their lawnages.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: There’s nothing like a little baby lying on your chest.
O. Felix Culpa
Lyriel is a lovely rose of a baby. Thank you for the beautiful pix.
Here in the arid southwest it remains dry dry dry. I tore up and put in a new drip irrigation system for my vegetable beds. I’m going to build a shade structure this weekend to see if that will help the tomatoes, which I think might be getting burnt in the hot sun. We’ve been harvesting greens from my raised beds (bak choy, spinach, tatsoi and lettuce) for some time and the chard is coming on nicely. No peas or beans have emerged from their beds, so I’m trying again. As for flowers, our daffodils are done and the columbines are on their way out. The only ones in bloom right now are some store-bought pansies. I love their cheerful faces. I’ve got cosmos, dahlias, marigolds, sunflowers, and zinnias in the works. We’ll see how they do.
MazeDancer
Lyriel is beautiful, and sounds like a flower name waiting to be allocated to some lucky winner.
And, yay, for bakery adventure and congrats on your anniversary, Raven.
Was given a lovely amaryllis that made many seed pods. The seed “leaves” drifted everywhere. Thought, maybe I’ll try growing some. Tell me how internet.
Years. Takes years. Lots of attention for years. Maybe all bulbs are that way?
Not doing it, alas. And never complaining about blooming bulb plant prices again.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Maybe so! I can totally see suggesting it as a joke, maybe even yucking it up for a minute at the idea. But no normal person would name their kid that, and two people had to sign off on that!
WaterGirl
@Raven: Congratulations!
I always thought of your bakery visits as just you and the pups. But maybe now that you are both retired, all things are possible. :-)
dnfree
@WaterGirl: I married into a last name that is also a first name. Even without doubling up, it causes confusion as to which name is which, so maybe the parents were trying to simplify.
Our daughter (for example, Kathleen George) once attended a youth soccer camp. Unbeknownst to us, all the other attendees were boys. They each received a soccer ball with their name on it at the start of camp. Hers said “George Kathleen”. No comma.
Sure Lurkalot
Granddaughter is precious. I love the little people.
Yesterday was nice enough in Denver for a lovely bike ride along an old farmer’s canal that weaves through the city. Ridiculously green from our wet spring and a strong lilac year too. The next 2 days are supposed to be cool and damp so it was a good idea to get some miles in.
Kattails
@Lapassionara: invasive grrrr bishops weed grrrr grrrr want some? It came in with a plant swap plant and I let it get away from me. I told myself to get right on it, but did I listen? Nooooo.
cold and sodden here, I started soaking some peas (about a month late), they sprouted really fast and are now climbing out of their little ramekins. Hope to get them in tomorrow.
Ozark, it’s all just gorgeous, including that little pink one!
satby
@Raven: Happy Anniversary!
JMG
High 40s and raining here on Cape Cod. Rained all day yesterday and will do so again tomorrow. But as this has been the warmest, driest, non-foggy May here I can remember, cannot complain. I can’t play golf, but I can also postpone weeding the hydrangeas. Weeding is hard with two shot knees.
susanna
Beautiful babies go well with beautiful blooms.
Your home is lovely and looks inviting for enjoying the outside of it, which those granddaughters will enjoy endlessly.
satby
@WaterGirl: Burning bush is classified as invasive (here, anyway); it’s one of the plants that’s invading native forest and crowding out native plants. It matters because it displaces plants that provide food and nesting sites for native wildlife.
Baud
@Raven:
Yo.
Kristine
@WaterGirl: The Virginia bluebells were lovely. They grow along roadsides and the bike trail up here. One of my favorite wildflowers.
satby
@WaterGirl: Used to babysit kids who had a friend named Flash Flood. Seriously. Poor kid.
Mike in NC
Pretty quiet Sunday morning in Key West. We’re packed and getting ready to check out of the resort. All the rowdy tourists must be at church (or possibly hungover, ya think?). Looking forward to getting home tomorrow night to see if the cats missed us at all.
MagdaInBlack
@satby: Perhaps they’re just returning home, since American Wahoo / “Euonymus atropurpureus” is a native plant. I remember my mother finding one while tromping thru the woods along the Fox River. She was so exited ?
Kristine
@satby: @WaterGirl: Our main invasive around here is bush honeysuckle. It’s the first shrub to leaf out in the spring, thus preventing sunlight from reaching the ground and the spring native flowers. Plus it spreads like wildfire and fills in all the spaces between trees. It’s reached the point where folks complain when the park services get rid of it because they think the woods are supposed to be that jam-packed and impassable.
dnfree
Since someone brought up names, here’s a “Life in these United States” story from Reader’s Digest back in the 1950s, so well before computerized records. A man whose parents had just given him two initials instead of first and middle names registered for the army. The clerk wrote on his record “R (only) B (only) Jones”. For the duration of his service, he was Ronly Bonly Jones.
dnfree
@satby: I had a “house parent” (back in the days when college women had to be supervised) whose last name was Buick. He swore that if he had a son, he was going to name him Rusty.
MomSense
Lyriel is the prettiest flower of all!
WaterGirl
@dnfree: I think you are being generous, but okay. :-)
Lapassionara
@Kattails: I too am planting peas this morning, but they are Lady Peas, a type of field pea. I have sprouted them in flats, and they are due to be in the ground. Thank goodness for some sun at last!
Suburban Mom
@sab: Yes, but I dig up some spiderwort every year so that the day lilies stay more visible.
WaterGirl
@satby: I wonder if we are talking about the same burning bush. Mine is a bush/shrub, and it doesn’t spread at all
I just texted you a picture of mine. Are we talking about two different things?
WaterGirl
@satby: oh my god.
satby
@WaterGirl: Same thing. Look up “IL DNR Invasive species” list for IL invasives. Slightly different for different regions.
Amir Khalid
@dnfree:
Is it true that people without middle names who join the US military get the acronym NMI (no middle initial) inserted between their given name and surname? I read that somewhere.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl: The landscaping here is already gorgeous. There’s a team of workers here every day, all day. I don’t know that there’s a woody enough area for bluebells though.
There are some raised gardens available for residents to claim too, but I don’t actually like gardening, just the results.
MelissaM
The annual “I ordered too many tomato plants!” from Annie Laurie! ;-)
satby
@Kristine: Luckily, IL usually is drought free enough to do controlled burns to kill non-native brush, but that creates it’s own pollution problems. Everyone can do their own thing; I just try not to plant things invasive in my area… which reminds me, I have to go kill the sweet autumn clemantis that the previous owner planted again. It’s spread to four yards in this area, and across the alley.
laura
The first gardenia unfurled over Friday night with scads more to come. Yesterday we moved every potted plant in the backyard to temporary quarters in the raised bed in anticipation of the start of a backyard renovation tomorrow. We’re reducing lawn and making space for a future she shed / additional dwelling unit some fine day in the future. Today I’ll tear out some galloping elephant ears and take them around the corner to a neighbor who’s been building a front yard garden of earthly delights. Pretty things – but nowhere near as pretty as Lyriel.
Tazj
On my way out the door but Lyriel is so beautiful I had to leave a comment. Congratulations to the whole family.
Benw
This post makes me happy.
grandmaBear
My strawberries are producing now in SW Ohio and the black raspberry vines are full of still green berries . I’ve also got red raspberries, blueberries, a blackberry, and a couple of marionberry plants to come. I hope to make some jam and cobblers this year if I can keep the birds away. My garden is 1/3 berry plants, but that’s what the family will eat. I’ve had luck with some greens, especially herbs, spinach and snow peas but the ground has so much clay it takes a lot of amending.
Eunicecycle
Ohio has an invasive called multiflora rose. At one point farmers were encouraged to plant it as a natural fence. It has nasty long thorns and grows very thick. At the nature center where I used to work there were some bushes that were over 20 feet tall. It is all along the roads and highways in my area. My husband had to buy some special concoction to kill one on our property.
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, but I have it on good authority (ie, area dipshit RWNJ) that climate change is EXAGGERATED. The libs are just scare-mongering!
Lyriel is a beautiful name for a beautiful baby.
Got nothing to add about the gardening pics except to say, wow. Purty.
O. Felix Culpa
@grandmaBear: Best of luck with the clay soil! I have sandy soil in parts and hard-packed clay elsewhere. We’ve been working on amending the soil for five years. Progress is being made, but it’s astonishing how one continues to hit solid clay when planting. Raised beds are a boon.
Miss Bianca
@O. Felix Culpa: No spring rain or snow for New Mexico? : (
We’ve been getting a fair amount of moisture up here in CO, it’s almost shockingly green around here. Makes me wish I were more of a gardener!
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I don’t have a woody area in my yard, and they thrive anyway. (Unless you count the fence, it is made of wood!
In either case, I’m glad you have a gorgeous garden to look at. And it’s great that they have space for people who love to garden. I imagine that’s a big selling point.
WaterGirl
@MelissaM:
Yeah, but Anne Laurie speaks for all of us on that one. Or at least for many of us.
I ordered 8 tomato plants, which is ridiculous. Some evil person posted a link to Laurel’s heirloom tomatoes in a Garden Chat while we were all in lockdown, and I ordered 8 plants from there in February because I couldn’t resist.
WaterGirl
@satby: The neighbor who moved in 3 years ago finally pulled all that out. I LOVE clematis, but not that one.
It kept coming over on my side. No respect for boundaries. :-)
stinger
@satby:
Agree on both counts.
stinger
@WaterGirl: Former Iowa State basketball coach Maury John named his son, kid you not, John. Who was attending Iowa State the same time as I was and was dating a girl in my dorm. Named Dawn. We REALLY wanted them to get married.
MazeDancer
@WaterGirl: My neighbor’s husband wanted to replace some early blighted tomatoes in their gigantic vegetable garden.
So he came home with a flat. That’s right, an entire flat of tomato plant 6-packs.
She tried to get me to take some, but I already was overstocked in tomatoes that won’t grow for this year. Unlike the clever Anne Laurie, root pouches produce zero to low results for me.
Doesn’t prevent my trying over and over.
TerryC
I have to deal with all of them: Buckthorn, Multiflora Rose, Honeysuckle, Wild Grape Vine, and Autumn Olive! The disc golf course my son and I are building in a public park about 15 miles from here has all four, and all four way overgrown. We’re talking about all mixed together in the same pile of brush. And they work together to try to harm you when you clear them out. We’re talking olive with trunks as big as my thighs, 30’ high honeysuckle, buckthorn trucks that are 10” across. Roses that whip out and grab you from 15 feet away. Sigh. I know how to get down on my hands and knees and remove them all with hand tools.
Earlier this month we planted 25 Red Buckeye at my home and 25 Ohio Buckeye. The success rate of leafing is spectacular this year, they look really good. Likewise, but not quite so much, the Sycamore, Bald Cypress, and Kentucky coffee Bean Trees. The Loblolly Pines clearly don’t want to be here ?
WaterGirl
@MazeDancer: Oh. My. God.
And it’s a sin to throw away perfectly good (non-invasive) plants that want to live.
WaterGirl
@TerryC: Ouch!
StringOnAStick
We moved here last fall, and haven’t had grass for 20 years because I xeriscaped the front yard with groundcover manzanita and the backyard was half sandstone. Now we have a much bigger yard and grass, and every time the sprinklers come on I feel guilty because for one thing this is a desert, and for the other we only got 51% of normal snowpack this winter. The next watershed to the South is the Klamath, where the Bundy gang is about to precipitate a crisis over water diversion being severely restricted.
I’m thinking about hiring a native plant design consultant to get rid of much more grass in the front yard. I was already planning a full xeric backyard and I’m working my way through the huge task list to get it ready to plant next spring. all the intense green lawns in this neighbourhood defy reality.
hotshoe
I’m always surprised – even though I know better – to hear or see about places with so much water that the ground is too mucky to work in, in May.
Where I live in central CA ranch country, it’s always dry in summer — that’s normal. Rainfall season is generally considered to be from October to May, but we don’t get more than an inch of rain total in the month of May.
Well, this year is officially a drought and we got zero rain in April, zero in May.
It’s dry enough that I’m pulling out every flower which regrew from last year. Naturtium. Violet. Nigella. Calendula. They won’t be any good this year and they already look miserable. It’s all going back to bare dirt. Everything except the CA poppies, which also look miserable but which I’m leaving until they finish setting seed.
The good thing is, if ya weed once now, there won’t be any more weed sprouts until if/when the water returns in the fall.
waratah
@OzarkHillbilly: All the years of your work has produced a beautiful garden and zen place. This is the garden I want . This is the garden I want located out of the cities and suburbs with the sounds of birds and wildlife. Your photos are beautiful. Your granddaughter is so cute, I love her name.
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: We got a little rain and hail about a week ago, but otherwise nothing. We are in the most extreme of measured levels of drought. How nice that you have green!
O. Felix Culpa
@StringOnAStick: Lawns are verboten in my neck of New Mexico. As they should be throughout all dry regions. Good on you for xeriscaping.