Pruning Goals & Mangave corner Part 1

One of my goals this year was to be better at pruning. What better place to start earlier this spring than this overgrown... area:

there are a lot of plants there

And that was after i pulled out the big Agave 'Crazy Horse' that the gophers ate.

This eucalyptus 'Moon Lagoon' needed a major chop, so i just held my breath and did it:

i hope it forgives me... and grows straight. 

I've also been scared to prune the acacia baileyana purpurea - it's from the Huntington! What if i kill it? Or make it look weird?

deep breath and just do!

Note to self - it already looks weird. At least now it also looks a bit more like a tree, although it's hard to tell from the next picture.

But this post is called the 'mangave corner' - why am i talking about pruning?

it looks a little bit less overgrown now?

On the other side of all these plants/trees/bushes, all of which got pruned, is where i keep a lot of my mangaves in pots. They are in pots because of the gophers, of course. (again - everything is the gopher's fault)

this is from earlier this spring, but it looks almost the same now

a bit of a close up

Doesn't it look like there's more room here? Maybe for some new mangaves? Hold on just a few weeks and let's see... I mean, i have to take new pictures to show how the plants recovered from my hack job, i mean pruning, right? Might as well get some new mangaves while i'm at it.

(yes, i have a problem! but it's a wonderful problem to have...)

Roses Blooming in Spring 2020

Somehow, i've ended up with a number of pretty roses in the garden. This spring, they all showed off. I've also managed to plant them in such a way that they bloom at slightly different times... Here are all the pictures from this year!

'Livin Easy" blooms 2nd - there are two bushes in the front

I like this darker orange

I totally bought this plant because of the 2018 Garden Bloggers Fling in Austin

and it was totally worth it

Last to bloom is "Blaze" - on the north side of the house. There are three giant bushes, and while the blooms are smaller, there are a lot more of them!

one of the first blooms

They are a pretty red

'Blaze' is a climbing rose, but there's nothing for them to climb on, so I prune them into unruly bushes each year. I'm sure i'll have picture of the entire view during one of my weekend wrap up posts soon - they look gorgeous at the top of the bloom!

First to bloom is 'Mr Lincoln' - who also defies my ability to capture his color correctly

in real life, he's a very dark red

Mr. Lincoln's claim to fame is his scent - strong and very much like what you think a rose smells like

buds!

The plant itself is only about 3 years old, and i should remember to prune it better next year, so it looks less lanky.

but so many blooms this year!

This is the first year this particular rose has done so well for me, so i'm excited about that!

so perfect!

I convinced myself to cut a few blooms, and brought one inside. It made the whole room smell like roses. I also used some to make rose tea, which i then used to flavor kombucha. That worked great as well!

Now i'm thinking if there are other spots i could plant roses for next year...

Six on Saturday: Weird cherry tree, and new pots!

Just for fun this weekend, here's a look at six random things in my garden...

First off, my very strange cherry tree - can you see it blooming here?

it's on the north side of the house

It's done this the last few years - bloom on the bottom half of the tree first. I assume it has something to do with the roof line of the house?

a closer picture

In a few more weeks, the top will have flowers, and the bottom leaves. In a few more months, there will be lots of cherries, which is really all that matters.

(also - note to self - prune those opuntia...)

Next - i refreshed some of the hanging pots in my garden! I'm still amazed i can keep these alive! This is one of the new ones:

just some easy succulents

 This one is in a bit more exposed location - it already has sunburn:

but hopefully it will adjust...

 both pots have a spot that's clearly rock mulch - that's where the ice cubes go! I water these pots with ice cubes... so that the water can actually soak into the pots. I've had luck with string-of-pearls surviving, so let's hope that continues!

These next two pots are going on their 3rd year!

this one looks much better now that i watered it...

this one looks kinda bad, TBH, but this plant is definitely surviving

I should get around to adding some more plants to that second pot. Perhaps i should brave the garden center next weekend for my weekly "leave the house" adventure/support local businesses, while maintaining social distancing.

Plants in the Shower!

After watching Hoover Boo at Piece of Eden finish her "non-garden project" I realized i had never shared one of the more exciting indoor gardening projects I finished last year. After a leaking pipe in the wall necessitated a major master bathroom remodel (as well as other things, the joy of remodeling...), our master bath suddenly had way more light. And you know what that means - more plants! Especially plants i can't grow outside here, because they need lots of water/humidity/have large leaves, etc etc.

This is now the view across from the actual shower:

plants!

The shower colors are mostly white and blue-ish, so that's what made the pot colors work. Some of these plants were already living in the house, just not in places that made them very happy.

that fig grew 4 new leaves in about a month after it got moved in here

Initially, all the pots had saucers, but that actually let to too much water (not a problem i'm very familiar with!) so now all the pots drain. The nice part of them being in the large shower enclosure is that watering and draining becomes very easy.

including for little ones like this

My houseplants usually never look this happy!

after some complains about getting dirt everywhere, i did learn to put some rock mulch on top

Even outside of the shower enclosure, there's now enough light for more plants!

by the sink!

and even a yucca!

This remodel took a while, but in the end, it's all worth it for this gardener... more plants! Oh, and no more leaking pipes in the wall, that was good too :)

Cleaning Up the Back Garden

One of the projects that i completed in 2018 that seems like a small change, but is paying huge dividends this spring, was the change to the path at the bottom of the hill. Here is the before:

Hillside with path

This hill used to go straight up from that retaining wall, with no clear way to get anywhere. A few years ago, i had access paths installed using railroad ties, with a path on the top and bottom. The top path (which runs along the block wall fence) was just dirt, and the bottom was compacted decomposed granite (DG). The top path got replaced with a gravel path to help with weed suppression and better access.

The bottom path with DG worked for a while,but over time, lots of weeds would grow in it. Also, as the plants on the hillside grew, they grew over the path. That was great, but then they started growing through the DG. So finally, last summer, the landscapers came in and dug out the DG, and replaced it with gravel, matching what is on the top path:

it's about 3 inches thick.

It worked great! And right now, weeding the gravel is much easier than the DG path ever was. The plants are already growing over the path again, without growing into the gravel.

On a side note, i can still never get over how full the hillside is now versus just a few years ago. Here is the view from the other side:

looking south

While the landscapers did that, i also had them clean up and put a new top coat on the main DG in the back garden. While i don't have them do this every year, it makes it look so good...

clean DG - no weeds and no annoying gopher holes!

They also trimmed up the Palo Verde, so it resembles more of a tree, and less of a blob:

the agave ovatifolia can breathe!

One of the biggest adds was the new stock pond, which i'll share lots more about later!

stock pond added

Of course, looking at these pictures now makes me want to call them back for a spring refresh of the DG! But if i did that now, i wouldn't have poppies later this spring, so back to hand weeding it is!

The garden holds it's breath...

Scary things are happening... Aloes almost crushed by ladders...

 Plants a bit trampled, or covered

I wanted to redo that bed anyway?

 Scraping the paint off the deck means blue flecks are everywhere...

 The front garden hasn't been spared...

Good thing the roses got pruned last week?

Better to do this in February, I suppose. Next weekend, recovery can start and planting can resume. The crew has been very careful, which is appreciated!

Productive Day!

My day may have started rather unproductively (sleeping in until noon!) but i ended up getting a lot done!

Here's the list from last time:

• Fix pipe <-- Done! It ended up being very easy...
• Trim acacias & uncover agaves in the front <-- Done! i did create an entire garbage can full of trimmings, but the little agaves can breath again

Still left to do:

• Clean up the 'stone pond' bed in the front garden <-- i did clear out a bunch of grass and removed a bunch of gopher mounds, and cleared all the dirt out of the rocks. Now i just need to figure out what to do with this bed!
• Trim up Palo Verde tree <-- No progress yet on the tree itself yet, but i did finally break down a giant branch that broke off a few months ago. To be honest, i'm a bit worried about pruning the tree!
• Clean up right back patio bed <-- no progress yet!

I didn't take many pictures today, but here is what the acacia looked like before:

It's now about half that size. I'm not sure this one will stay long term, although i love the easy green it provides, with cute yellow flowers...

I also seem to have a new friend/permanent resident:

That's a bad picture, but there's a new, small, purple-headed hummingbird (looks like a male Costa?) that's decided my garden is it's home. Hummingbirds show up all the time, of course, but generally they don't really care much for humans getting near.  This one is happy to sit above my head on the patio, or in the branches of various bushes and let me get really close. He will also buzz me if i'm getting in his way. He's territorial in a strange way too - happy to share the feeder and some of the plants, but aerial battles ensue if another hummingbird tries to sit on his perch or drink from one particular aloe bloom. I'm hoping he'll stick around for the winter!

Next time, i'll try for better pictures! Hopefully renovating the beds will make for more exciting pictures than hacking my way through the bush!

Project Update - Back Garden

I documented my progress on the front garden this spring here, and now it's the back garden's turn. I documented all the things i had to get done in this post, which includes a lot of pictures of ugliness! Let's see what progress i actually made...

Cleaning up all the trimmings was pretty easy, followed by weeding and trying to fix all the holes in the DG (getting there!) - so that's mostly done!

We'll call the wall color "rustic" and leave it at that...

 The bed with the buddleja looks better - i'm experimenting this year with succulents and aeonium this year. Several aeonium 'Mardi Gras' survived winter in that brown pot, so i'm optimistic!

the tree could probably be trimmed even harder next year?

 This spot used to be occupied by a caesalpinia pulcherrima (bird of paradise), which should have come back, but it didn't (or i ran out of patience). I'm now tempting fate by putting a grevillea there. 

i should find the tag for this one...

 The area with the woody overgrown sage got cleaned up and the sage replaced with a new one! This is also where i put a bunch of the xMangave that i got this spring. You can't really see them, but they're there... The little ball is covering a gopher trap, because of course that's still going on.

also added mulch & all the pups are from the agave just to the left.

 This area also got some succulent experiments! It also got mint that appeared out of somewhere? this could be a problem, but if it outcompetes the bermuda grass, it can stay.

i should add rock mulch here, i think?

 The pot area got cleaned out, and i finally got rid of the dead smoke bush. Instead of replacing it, i've added some other plants (a blue salvia and an acacia) - we'll see what survives!

the acacia purpurea is still deciding on "dead or alive"

 The area between the sage bushes has made a lot of progress! The xMangave 'kaleidoscope' came back, and new mulch and a few small ground covers (not shown) seem to be surviving. Gophers remain, so plants disappear every once in a while, but other than that, the area looks nice.

i just planted an echinocereus - we'll see how it does.

the yellow is from the palo verde blooms - i really should clean that all up.

 The hill side has made some progress - mostly things i cut back and then let grow. There hasn't been much new added at all.

the one section is still a bit dreary - perhaps a bigger spruce up in the fall?

the acacia redolens 'Low Boy" really needs to be cut back even more!

The bed that was the worst of all was the next one - and it's made a lot of progress! Of course, just as i was taking these pictures, a family of gophers with a taste for red hesperaloe moved in - hence the metal cover in these pictures. But other than that, this bed has seen a lot of changes:

overall view

view without the bucket

Here's the list i made back in january:

1. gopher mounds - the mounds are gone, and making progress on the gophers
2. a mess of dead plant parts in the areas that get no water - cleaned it all up, and added new drip lines under the mulch for the new plants (all cuttings from the garden). This also made about a million hesperaloe seedlings pop up. 
3. a massively leaning Cylindropuntia that is only getting worse and really needs fixing - pulled this one out, and took several large cuttings. They're now rooting in pots near the russian sage bushes. 
4. a weirdly shaped opuntia microdasys that lost half of its arms when they cracked due to the rains. It's now draping itself over a very pretty Agave 'sharkskin'. The opuntia should probably come out altogether, and be replanted (or replaced with something else, but it matches the o. microdasys that's in the other patio bed, which is the only part of the garden that looks good!) - removed the opuntia, and replaced it with o. austrina, which should have orange flowers. 
5. when the opuntia arm came off, it exposed a weird empty area between the opuntia and the callistemon 'little john', which needs planting - i didn't add much to this area of the bed yet - an agave 'Snow Glow' hiding under the flowers, and the opuntia are all that's there. I did cut back and divide the grasses, and put new mulch here too. The different shapes/colors/sizes of rocks feel a bit more natural, although sometimes also jarring?
6. the random autumn sage bush in this bed needs trimming, but at least it's not woody.   - done!

So not bad! It's been helpful having these blog posts to look at and hold myself accountable for fixing these things. Fixing these areas has pointed out other areas that now need to be fixed. But that probably won't really happen until fall, when it's less hot. I'll try to document them this summer, so i don't forget!