In the past, succulent plants were valued primarily for their drought tolerance and found their way into gardens in arid regions. Today, while they are still a great choice for water-wise plants are wise, they offer many other benefits to outdoor spaces including adding colorful flowers and solving common garden problems.
Elk Horn (Cotyledon orbiculata)
I’ve written a series of articles for Houzz focusing on succulents and how you can add beauty to your garden with these versatile plants that will thrive in arid climates.
I hope you find inspiration through them and look at succulent plants in a new way.
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The arrival of summer in the desert fills with days where the thermometer surpasses the century mark and trees are heavily laden with apples. People are often surprised to find that apple trees can be grown in our arid climate, but they do surprisingly well. I have two apple trees in my garden, which is the center of our annual apple day where we gather together to harvest, bake, and play games.
The participants range from 2-years old, all the way to 19 and are made up of my kids, niece, nephews, in-laws, and my grandson, Eric. Each year, they all come over for a day filled with summer fun.
Picking apples are first on the agenda, and the kids pick delicious apples within reach of their arm’s reach.
The younger kids are excited to spot Aesop, our desert tortoise munching on grass, and take a moment to pet him.
One of my nephews is a little nervous to pet Aesop, so he observes him from a couple of feet away.
Half a bushel of apples is more than enough for two pies, with plenty left over for the kids to munch on while we bake.
Out comes my handy apple peeler, which makes peeling and slicing apples a cinch. In addition to peeling them, it cores each and cuts them into a spiral.
The kids line up to take a turn turning the handle for each apple and sneak ribbons of apple peel to eat.
Homemade apple crust is the way to go and I use Paula Deen’s recipe for Perfect Pie Crust. It is a little sweet and uses a combination of vegetable shortening and butter.
The filling consists of brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon juice.
Oh, and butter…
The trickiest part is gently laying the top crust on top of the pie without it breaking.
Crimping.
At this point, the kids wanted to know how long it would take to bake.
Onto our second pie, which was a Dutch apple pie, so only one crust was needed.
My niece helped sprinkle the streusel topping. I always make extra streusel topping because I love it so much.
Pies are now in the oven, and it’s time to play our favorite board game, ‘Ticket to Ride’ and see who can complete their train routes across the U.S.
Finally, the timer dings and warm apple pie leaves the oven, making our mouths water with their delicious fragrance.
Every year, I am pleasantly surprised at how much the kids in both my immediate and extended family, look forward to this day of pie baking. For a few hours, I have the privilege of interacting with them without the distractions of phones, television, and video games while teaching them how to bake as well as where fruit comes from (a tree versus the grocery store).
I hope to continue this tradition for years to come. *Do you have any traditions that you enjoy with your family that revolves around baking?
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This week, I had the honor of interviewing Joe Lamp’l, host of the PBS series, ‘Growing a Greener World.’ Joe is a well-known figure in the gardening world and is frequently on NBC’s TODAY Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, The Weather Channel, etc. He has several popular books, podcast series, nationally syndicated newspaper column, and has recently launched the website, Joe Gardener where he shares his knowledge for both beginner and experienced gardeners alike.
Joe travels the country touring gardens for his show, and I always come away learning something new from each episode. Last year, he made several visits to the greater Phoenix area, and I asked him what surprised him the most about the Southwest? “I was surprised by the lushness of the landscape,” Joe says. “It caused a mind shift with its incredible diversity and lushness, which catches you off guard along with the unbelievable options and how beautiful it can be.”
His passion for gardening manifests itself through many mediums, and Joe is a passionate proponent of gardening naturally. “Feed the soil (with organic matter), and it will feed the plants,” he states. “Common mistakes that homeowners make is not mulching enough and reaching too quickly for chemical solutions to plant problems.” Through his podcasts, website, and show, Joe talks about natural solutions to common problems along with helpful tips toward a more sustainable garden.
When asked for advice for people new to gardening, Joe says, “New gardeners can sometimes be overzealous; planting too much, and water and fertilize their new plants too much, and as a result, become overwhelmed at the maintenance required. Instead, start out slowly and grow into it naturally. Get out and enjoy your garden regularly and keep an eye out for potential problems by being ahead of it.”
**For those of you who live in the greater Phoenix area, Joe Lamp’l will be giving a Water Conservation and Drip Irrigation Workshop at The Home Depot at 1545 S. Crismon Rd, Mesa, AZ 85209 on Saturday, June 24th. It begins at 10:00 and runs until 1:00. I highly encourage you to go and learn about ways to conserve water in your landscape and the latest developments in drip irrigation, including wifi-enabled controllers.**
I invite you to take some time to get to know Joe better through his show, podcasts, and website – you will learn and be inspired!
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Living in the desert southwest has its perks, I am blessed to be able to grow a variety of citrus trees in my garden and they do very well under most circumstances because I protect citrus trees during hot weather.
However, when temperatures outside of the average highs and lows occur, steps need to be taken to protect them. With this week’s record-breaking highs, my orange tree has been suffering as is evident from its sunburned leaves. So I thought, this is a great opportunity to talk about how to protect citrus trees from a heatwave.
1. Protect Citrus Trees Provide Temporary Shade
Sunburn isn’t just a human woe; it affects citrus trees too. The west and south-facing sides of citrus trees are susceptible to sunburn during a heatwave. This shows up as yellowing or browning on the leaves on those sides of the tree. Sunburn can also occur on immature citrus fruit, so it’s important to protect them.
Burlap is a Great Shade Cover for Trees
While spraying citrus trees with sunscreen isn’t an option, adding temporary shade is, especially for citrus trees facing south and west that are particularly vulnerable. Put a large piece of burlap over the tree, focusing on those south and west-facing exposures. Burlap is lightweight and inexpensive. It allows some sun to penetrate, which is important, without overwhelming the tree. You can purchase burlap at your big box store, nursery, or Amazon (affiliate link below).
Shade cloth is an adaptable guardian against sunburn. Whether draped over a scaffold or enlisted to shield neighboring plants, its sun-blocking power proves invaluable during heatwaves. You can easily use a bed sheet in place of burlap for temporary shade. Another option would be to place a shade tent/canopy to help block the sun’s westerly rays.
Shade cloth is very useful as a sun shield when placed on a scaffold or other support – it also works great to help protect other plants in your garden.
2. Increase Irrigation and Water Early to Protect Citrus Trees
When temperatures soar above normal, citrus trees, like most plants, lose more water through their leaves. As a result, their regular watering schedule isn’t enough to meet their needs, so increase the frequency of watering as long as the heat wave lasts.
The Morning Watering Advantage for Citrus
Watering isn’t just about quantity; timing matters. When you water is vital as it is difficult for plants to uptake water in the middle of the day. This is because all of their resources are dedicated to enduring the stresses of the heat and it’s hard for them to divert those to uptake water. Water in the early morning, will allow them to build up a water reserve that will help them bolster their endurance throughout the day.
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Restoration after the Extreme Heat and Sun
When the heatwave subsides, it’s time to bid farewell to temporary shade. Remove the temporary shade in order to protect citrus trees for cooler conditions. As temperatures stabilize, return to your usual watering schedule. By implementing these two proven techniques, you’re empowering your citrus trees to defy the scorching grip of brutal summer temperatures and minimize any negative effects.
Beyond Heatwaves: Year-Round Trunk and Bark Care to Protect Citrus Trees
Remember, safeguarding citrus trees transcends seasons. Ensuring your trees’ trunks and bark receive proper sun protection is a year-long responsibility. Explore this previous blog post for insights on why and how to provide this vital shield.
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Do you have a lawn? I do. My son enjoys spending time outdoors playing football or soccer on the backyard lawn while my grandson likes to run barefoot on it.
Maintaining a lawn does take work including fertilizing it twice a year. My warm-season lawn is bermuda grass, which needs fertilizer in spring and the fall. Grass needs nutrients, like nitrogen for its health and to look its best. When it comes to choosing a type of fertilizer, I select organic fertilizers versus synthetic ones whenever possible.
*This blog post contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). Thanks for your support in this way.*
organic fertilizers
Why choose an organic fertilizer rather than a synthetic fertilizer, you may ask? Their effects last longer, they come from natural (renewable) sources, they won’t kill beneficial microorganisms in the soil, and won’t harm the environment.
My lawn needed to be fertilized not only for its health, but I was hosting a wedding in my backyard, and the grass had to look its best. I applied BioFlora 5 lb 6-10-1 Crumbles Stand Up Bag which is an organic fertilizer that is suitable for all plants in the garden, including lawns
Applying the fertilizer was easy using our spreader – you can also use a hand-spreader if that’s what you have.
Two weeks later, my lawn looked vibrant and healthy, making the perfect backdrop for my daughter’s wedding.
The grass won’t need any other fertilizer until October, just before it goes dormant. It may seem strange to fertilize just before the grass goes to sleep for the winter, but it is recommended as the grass stores up the nutrients, which enables it to green up more quickly the following spring.
You can read more about BioFlora Dry Crumbles and other products here.
*Disclosure: I was given BioFlora Dry Crumbles, free of charge, in return for my honest review.
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Echeveria and aloe planted in an old water fountain in Santa Barbara, CA.
Water features have long had a prominent spot in the landscape, where the both the beauty and sound of water help to create an enjoyable outdoor atmosphere.
However, water features can be high maintenance, messy to clean, and can be problematic in arid climates where water is a precious resource. Because of these reasons, it’s not unusual to see an empty water feature sitting empty without purpose.
In both my garden travels and work as a landscape consultant, I like to discover new uses for water features or ways to mimic the appearance of water, which succulents can fulfill beautifully.
A sink full of succulent plants spill out in the Barrio Garden section of the Tucson Botanical Gardens
Water features and succulents can add welcome interest, from simulating the movement of water with their shapes to taking the place of water in the basin.
Plumbing hardware can be used, along with succulents, to create an artistic arrangement in the garden such as these galvanized buckets and water pipes.
Succulents can also add a lovely planting around water features like the example above with lady’s slipper(Euphorbia macrocarpus), and it’s unique ‘Medusa-like’ growth habit adds an unexpected design element. It is important to keep succulents far enough away from getting any over splash from the water as they need dry soil to grow in.
Containers filled with succulents can make an attractive backdrop for a water feature as they are low-maintenance and their distinctive shapes add welcome texture.
Visit any nursery, and you’ll notice how popular succulents are, as they make up a larger percentage of the plants on display, tempting people to add them to their gardens.
So go ahead and give your water feature new life with succulents!
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It’s one of my favorite times of year in the garden – my peach trees are heavily laden with delicious, sweet fruit ready for picking.
Many people are surprised to learn that you can grow peaches in Arizona, but they do very well. However, they do ripen earlier than in cooler climates. May is peach season here in the desert.
My peach trees sit outside my kitchen window, and I’ve been keeping my eye on them to see when they were ready to harvest. Finally, the day arrived, and I brought out my bushel basket and got to picking.
One peach tree can provide you with most of the peaches you need. Last year, I made peach blueberry jam, which was so good, that it didn’t last long. Today, I’m planning on making regular peach jam, but I can always buy peaches from the store at another time to make other variations if I choose to.
Every May, I haul out my water bath canner, and canning jars, and spend 2 hours making delicious peach jam.
Growing peaches and making jam isn’t difficult or expensive. Here is a link to the guidelines that I follow.
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We had experienced a delightful spring with hot temperatures staying away for the most part. The weather has been so lovely that I’ve been spending a lot of time out in the garden. One garden task that has needed to get done is pruning back my winter/spring flowering shrubs.
What are winter/spring flowering shrubs you may ask? Well, they are those that flower primarily in late winter and on into spring. In the Southwest garden, they include cassia(Senna species), globe mallow(Sphaeralcea ambigua), and Valentine bush(Eremophila maculata).
The time to do this varies depending on the plant and the region you live in, but generally, you want to prune them back once flowering has finished.
I’ve decided to show you how I have pruned my cool-season shrubs and I find that using hedge trimmers make quick work of this job. Yes, I realize that I preach against using hedge trimmers for ‘poodling’ flowering shrubs into formal shapes, BUT they are very useful for corrective pruning for the health and beauty of your shrubs. I only use them ONCE a year.
Above, is a photo of my red globe mallow shrubs before I pruned them. They put on a beautiful show for several weeks, but have gone to seed, and they aren’t particularly attractive in this state.
Newly pruned globe mallow shrubs
This is what they look like after pruning. As you can see, they have been pruned back severely, which is needed to keep them attractive and stimulate attractive, new growth. Don’t worry, while they may look rather ugly, in a few weeks; they will be fully leafed out.
Valentine bush before pruning
Here is one of my Valentine(Eremophila maculata ‘Valentine’) shrubs. This is one of my favorite plants, and it adds priceless winter color to my garden. One of the things that I love about it is that it needs pruning once a year when the flowers have begun to fade.
Valentine bush after pruning
I prune mine back to approximately 2 feet tall and wide, but you could prune it back even further. This pruning is necessary to ensure a good amount of blooms for next year. Don’t prune it after this as you will decrease a number of flowers that will form later.
Finally, it was time to tackle pruning my feathery cassia shrubs (Senna artemisoides). I love the golden yellow flowers that appear in winter and last into early spring. They add a lovely fragrance to the garden as well. However, once flowering has finished, they produce seed pods that will turn brown and ugly if not pruned.
I’ve created a video to show you how to prune these shrubs. Unlike the others, I only prune them back by 1/2 their size.
*As you can see in the video, my grandson, Eric was having fun helping out in the garden.
That is all the pruning that these shrubs will receive, which will keep them both attractive and healthy.
It’s worth noting that hedge trimmers aren’t a bad tool to use – rather, the problem is when they are used incorrectly to prune flowering shrubs excessively throughout the year.
I hope that this post is helpful to you as you maintain your shrubs. If you’d like to learn more about pruning shrubs in the desert garden, I invite you to learn more about my popular online pruning workshop. I’ve helped countless people just like you learn how to maintain beautiful, flowering shrubs with pruning twice a year or less!
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I am always on the lookout for great examples of plants in the desert landscape. In my work as a landscape consultant, I drive through countless neighborhoods, which allows me to see lots of ideas.
A few years ago, I drove by a house that had a beautiful Hop Bush shrub (Dodonaea viscosa).
This evergreen, drought-tolerant shrub does wonderfully in our southwestern climate, and it is a frequent addition to landscapes I design.
It’s versatility is one of the reasons it is near the top of my favorite shrub list.
Hop Bush is a great substitute for Oleander shrubs.
They can grow up to 12 feet tall or be maintained at a shorter height – basically you can decide how large it gets.
Their height makes them a great choice to screen out an unattractive view in spaces where a tree won’t fit while providing shade for for windows.
Hop Bush can be allowed to grow into their natural shape or pruned more formally.
Native to the Southwest, Hop Bush is quite versatile and relatively fuss-free, especially if maintained by pruning every 6 months or so, as shown above. Here is another example of a hop bush shrub that has been pruned more formally, which it handles well.
Of course, you can always let it grow into its more natural form as a large shrub.
For more information on hop bush including what its flowers look like and why it’s becoming a popular substitute for oleanders, you can read my earlier blog post – “Drought Tolerant and Beautiful: Hopbush the Alternative to Oleanders.”
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Last weekend, my husband and I went away to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. We’d been looking forward to leaving kids and work behind and spending time alone eating great food, sleeping in and long walks enjoying beautiful surroundings.
30 years ago
Now with past anniversary milestones, my husband would give me a piece of jewelry, and you would think that being married for 30 years would be marked by maybe a ring or necklace, but I wanted something else for this milestone anniversary.
Last month, one of my blog followers sent me a photograph of his stunning torch cactus (Trichocereus/Echinopsis hybrid), ‘Flying Saucer’. Ever since I saw the brightly-colored flowers of this cactus, I knew that I wanted one for my garden.
Since our anniversary trip was to take us through the city of Tucson, we planned a short diversion to B&B Cactus Farm.
As we pulled up to the nursery, I was hoping that they had a ‘Flying Saucer’ torch cactus just for me.
These cacti are native to South America and do very well in the desert Southwest. Their large blooms come in many different colors and often repeat throughout late spring and summer.
Walking through the cactus nursery, there was a large number of agave, cacti, and other succulents, which were somewhat distracting me from my mission to find the section where the torch cacti were located.
Finally, I found them!
Some were in full bloom like this ‘Blood’ variety.
Toward the entrance, they had the larger specimens including a few large ‘Flying Saucer’.
There were also some other hybrids as well.
It hard to believe that even the younger torch cacti could produce large, colorful flowers.
The blooms last only a couple of days, but there are often multiple blooms.
At this point, I should mention that while I appreciate many different types of cacti and use many in my designs, I only have a few in my landscape.
But, because I love flowers, I wanted to make room for one of these lovely cacti.
It is hard to believe how these cacti, that blend into the background throughout most of the year, are completely transformed by these breathtaking blossoms.
Now, back to my decision. As you might have expected, I was tempted by the other varieties of torch cactus. While they did have the ‘Flying Saucer’ one that I wanted, they only had a few large specimens. So my choice was to buy one large one or two smaller torch cacti for less money.
I elected to buy a smaller ‘Ember’, which looked similar to the ‘Flying Saucer’ and I picked the ‘First Light’ since I love pink flowers.
As we drove away, I looked back at my new torch cactus in the back seat thinking that I couldn’t wait to plant them when we got home. My husband smiled and said, “You never cease to surprise me, choosing cactus to mark our 30th anniversary rather than jewelry”.
We had a wonderful weekend together, and my torch cacti will be planted this week. I’ll be sure to show you pictures of their blossoms. Have you ever seen a torch cactus or perhaps, have one yourself?
For more information on these cacti and their beautiful flowers, click here.
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