It wasn’t always this way. In our first home we tried to do too much at once to the yard. Needless to say it ended in utter failure. With our current home, I made a promise to myself that we would take it easy with the gardening and only start projects that we could finish within a short, set period of time. The front garden had some sad looking ever green bushes and lantana when we moved in. Unfortunately they didn’t fit into our vision of the front yard.
We wanted a garden bursting with flowers. So every single one of the plants we put in produces flowers and most of them attract hummingbirds, bees, and/or butterflies. The problem of course, is that we live in the desert. So we chose plants that were quite xeric and heat tolerant. The Arizona heat is not really comparable to the heat experienced, say on the East Coast. Our heat is dry. It literally feels like you are a Thanksgiving turkey and have been placed inside an oven when you walk outside to 115o F (46o C). Even when some plants claim to be able to withstand full sun, they most often will not survive the Arizona sun, even with heavy watering. With this in mind we made sure to get heat loving, water wise plants.
Unfortunately, my husband and I have a great talent for killing plants. I shan’t list the number of trees, bushes, and herbs we have killed so far, but let me assure you that the list is quite long! One of our great deficits when it comes to keeping plants alive is forgetting to water them as needed for each plant. Part of the resulting mayhem at our old house was due to us ripping out the irrigation system because we were going to put in multiple garden beds and oh, it was going to be glorious. And it would have been had we taken it one step at a time.
We also have an irrigation system set up in our new house. However, this time, we planned ahead and put in additional drip lines so that each plant has its own drip since we were adding so many new plants. Recently, we came to find out there may be a short in the irrigation system! So we have to get someone out here pretty soon to get it fixed! In the meantime we are trying to be good about remembering to water the front garden at least three times a week, as it has been warming up nicely. I’m trying to use all the pretty flowers I’m seeing as motivation to remind me to water. Wish me luck.
Here are some pictures of some of the plants from the front yard:
This is our baby Orchid Beauty Butterfly Bush. It’s tiny right now, but it’s going to grow into a huge bush eventually. I can’t wait to see how much it grows this summer.
We have two Blanche Sandman Honeysuckle Vines. We are going to train them up the pillar in the front of the house.
The Snow in Summer has the cutest little flowers!
This Salvia Ultra Violet is already attracting hummingbirds! I love these pretty little flowers.
This Dianthus gratianopolitanus Firewitch actually had one little flower when we received it in the fall and now it has so many new blooms!
I have always loved daisies and so we got some of these Osteospermum Avalanche.
There are many other plants that I haven’t included here as they haven’t started flowering yet, but I have high hopes for them all. I’ll post updates on the garden when things get more exciting as the weather continues to warm.
Coming up next week: I finished reading The Key by Whitley Strieber this weekend, but I need time to digest the wealth of information in that little book. I will share my thoughts about The Key next week. Stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment