Arizona garden

An Unforgettable Experience: Hummingbird Banding

Arizona garden, Garden Travels, Hummingbird Gardening, Noelle Johnson Horticulturist Arizona, Southwest garden

Do you love hummingbirds? If asked, most people would say that these tiny birds are among their favorite bird species.

Anna’s Hummingbird whose head and throat are covered in pollen.

I always pause whatever I’m doing whenever I see a hummingbird nearby as I marvel at their small size along with their brilliant colors and flying antics.

Last weekend, I enjoyed an unforgettable experience observing and learning about hummingbirds at the annual Hummingbird Festival, in beautiful Sedona, Arizona.

At the festival, I gave two presentations on small space hummingbird gardening, showing people how they could create a mini-hummingbird garden in a container.

When I wasn’t speaking, I was enjoying the garden tour, visiting local hummingbird gardens along with attending other lectures given by noted hummingbird experts.

While there were wonderful events throughout the weekend, this was one particular event that I’ll never forget.

Immature Male Black-Chinned Hummingbird

Imagine being able to observe hummingbirds up close being banded and re-released. It really is as incredible as it sounds! In fact, I was able to hold and release a hummingbird myself!

So, what is hummingbird banding?

Hummingbirds are captured, tagged and re-released and is done to track hummingbird migration, the age and health of hummingbirds.

Mature Black-Chinned Hummingbird

This hummingbird banding site was located in the backyard of a home in Sedona.

Multiple hummingbird feeders are set out to attract a large number of hummingbirds.

A few of the feeders are inside of cages with openings for hummingbirds to enter.

A hummingbird enters to feed from the feeder.

Each little hummer is carefully put into a mesh bag in order to safely transport it to the nearby table to be examined and banded.

It’s important to note this process does no harm to them and it is a very quick.

The tools needed for banding hummingbirds.

The birds are carefully removed from the bag and the process begins.

Young male Anna’s hummingbird.

They are carefully inspected for general health and to identify the species of hummingbird. On this day – Anna’s, Black-Chinned and Costa’s hummingbirds were seen.

Measurements of the beak and feathers are taken to determine the age.

Feathers on the underside are softly blown with a straw in order to see how much (or how little) fat a hummingbird has. A little fat indicates that a hummingbird is getting ready to migrate.

Special eyewear is required for the banders to see what they are doing with these tiny birds.

For the banding process itself, hummingbirds are placed in a nylon stocking so that one of their legs is more easily manipulated.

The small band is carefully placed on the leg.

As you might expect, it isn’t easy to band hummingbirds because of their tiny size – the bands themselves are so small that they fit around a toothpick. In fact, hummingbird banding is a highly specialized job and there are only 150 people in the U.S. who have permits allowing them to band hummingbirds.

After the banding has been done, hummingbirds are given a drink of sugar water before being released.

This hummingbird bander is from St. Louis, MO and was so excited to see his first Costa’s hummingbird (which aren’t found where he lives).

For me, the most exciting part is when observers have the opportunity to hold and release the newly-banded hummingbirds.

The hummingbirds would sit for a few seconds in the palm of your hand before flying off.

Holding a hummingbird in your hand is as amazing as you would expect! The hummingbird that I released was a young black-chinned hummingbird that had hatched earlier this year.

One of the observers who got to release a hummingbird was a gentleman who was 100 years old + 1 month old!

How wonderful to be able to experience new things at that age 🙂

The garden where the banding was held was beautiful – especially with the backdrop of the red rocks of Sedona.

I must admit that I was equally split between observing the banding and watching the numerous hummingbirds feeding.

Can you tell how many hummingbirds are in the photo, above?

Seven!

I have got to add more hummingbird feeders to my own garden!

***********************

I am so grateful to the folks at the Hummingbird Society who put on a wonderful festival. I enjoyed speaking and learning about these wonderful “flying jewels”.

The festival is held every other year in Sedona, AZ. There were over 1,000 attendees this year. I highly encourage you to consider attending this special event next year.

A Butterfly / Hummingbird Garden Finished!

Succulents: Great Alternative Container Plants

Agave, Arizona garden, Cactus/Succulents, Containers

Did you know that one of the great things about living in the Southwest is the fact that we aren’t limited to just growing flowering annuals in our pots – succulents make great alternative container plants!

Last year, I replaced all of my flowering plants with succulents and I haven’t looked back. They look great and take very minimal care, which fits into my busy life perfectly.

Recently, I visited the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix and saw some great examples of potted succulents, which I thought I’d share with you…

Succulents in pot, Victoria Agave ‘Compacta’

Succulents in pot, Agave parryi ‘truncata’

Succulents in pot, Mexican Fence Post (Pachycereus marginatus)

A trio of variegated agave

Succulents in pot, ‘Blue Elf’ Aloe

As you can see, there are so many options when you decide to use succulents in containers.

Whether you live near the Desert Botanical Garden or even if you don’t – you can visit your local botanical garden for some alternative ideas for filling your containers.

Growing succulents in pot is easy – the most important thing is that they are well-drained, so it’s important to use a planting mix specially formulated for succulents.

Do you have any succulents growing in pots?

Summer Pruning and a ‘Substitute’ Gardener

Arizona garden, AZ Plant Lady, az plant lady family, desert gardening, Pruning, Southwest garden

Have you ever had a ‘substitute’ teacher? As most of you know, a substitute teacher doesn’t do things the same way our regular teacher does.

A few years ago, I was asked to step in as a ‘substitute’ gardener for my father-in-law’s landscape.

Photo: Meticulously pruned desert ruellia (Ruellia peninsularis)

My father-in-law had always been a meticulous gardener and took a lot of pride in his landscape. Have you ever seen rounder shrubs?

A few years earlier, I had designed the landscape around his new home and tried to convince him to allow his plants to grow into their natural shapes. But as you can see from the photo above, he didn’t follow my advice.

He eventually took out his backyard grass and replaced it with artificial turf and whenever flowers or leaves would fall on the grass, he would vacuum them up – I’m not kidding.

We would often joke with each other about our very different styles of gardening – especially when he would come over to my house for a visit and see my plants growing “wild and free” as he would say.

But despite our differences, we shared the same love for plants and the garden.

Unfortunately, his gardening days were numbered and he asked me to come over and help him with the gardening tasks that he could no longer do.

My father-in-law was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) in October 2010 and it progressed very rapidly.

So, I became his ‘substitute gardener’ and I was happy to be able to help out so that he could still enjoy the beauty of his garden, even if he could not care for it himself.

In early August of 2011, I lightly pruned back his gold lantana. At this point, my father-in-law spent most of his time indoors sitting down. But, as I was pruning, I saw him slowly make his way out, with his walker, so he could watch me prune his plants.

At this point, he could no longer talk due to ALS and I’m certain that if he could have spoken, he might have asked me to make the lantana ’rounder’.

After this light pruning, the lantana would grow back to its original size before stopping during winter. If they had not been pruned, they would have look quite overgrown for my father-in-law’s taste.

Light pruning involves removing 1/3 or less. The timing of this light pruning is crucial – prune too late and your plants will be extra susceptible to damage from frost. Don’t prune after early August in zone 9 (July in zone 8) gardens. Pruning in fall should not be done for this very reason.

Substitute Gardener

Another part of the garden that my father-in-law took a lot of pride in was his flowering annuals. Every year, he would plant the same red geraniums and white-flowering bacopa in winter. Once spring rolled around, he would plant red and white vinca. He never deviated by trying out newer colors or varieties.

I found myself taking over this job as well and when I came home and see all there was to do in my neglected garden – I didn’t mind. It felt so good to be able to control how his garden looked because ALS had taken control of everything else.

My father-in-law died in September 2011, just 11 months after being diagnosed with ALS.

It’s been almost 3 years since he passed away, but whenever August comes around and I find myself lightly pruning back my gold lantana – I enjoy the memory of one our last moments together in the garden as I pruned his lantana.

Pruning Flowering Shrubs in Late Summer

Favorite Flower Photo: Day 4 – Purple Profusion

Arizona garden, AZ Plant Lady, Flowering Annuals, Uncategorized

I love the color purple in the garden because the color, helps to visually ‘cool’ the garden.

‘Rio Bravo’ Sage (Leucophyllum langmaniae ‘Rio Bravo’)

Have you ever wondered how some plants handle our hot temperatures and intense sunlight?

Look carefully at the flowers, above. Note the small hairs covering the petals? They help to reflect the sun’s rays.

I like using large shrubs to screen the back wall of my garden, so I have quite a few ‘Rio Bravo’ sage shrubs.

They put on a spectacular show off and on throughout the summer when they bloom. (Leucophyllum langmaniae) is just one species of Leucophyllum (Texas Sage).

Of course, if you insist on pruning your sage shrubs into round ‘blobs’ – you will never see the flower show.

For guidelines on how to prune your desert, flowering shrubs correctly, click here.

The Gardens of Bisbee

Arizona, Arizona garden, Uncategorized

Earlier this week, I have been sharing with you about our recent trip into the old, mining town of Bisbee, AZ.

From unique pieces of art, the friendly people, great food and endless stairways, our trip was so much fun.

What I haven’t shown you in my earlier posts are the plants and gardens of Bisbee, which deserve their own post.

Bisbee is located in zone 8a, which is means that it gets about 10 degrees colder then Phoenix and Tucson areas. Because this historic town is also higher in the mountains, it doesn’t get as hot in the summer months.

Much of the plants were the same of what you would see growing throughout central and southern Arizona. Missing were the more tropical plants such as bougainvillea, yellow bells and lantana, which struggle to survive the winters in this area.

The gardens in Bisbee often made use of old, antique pieces that intermingled almost seamlessly among garden plants.

In this garden, the homeowner added a splash of color by using brightly-colored bottles to form an informal border along her raised beds.

Up on her wire fence, she had an old miner’s pan and soup pot hanging from a post.

The Historical Clawson House had a lovely planting arrangement that I particularly liked.

A large swath of flowering coreopsis contrasted beautifully with the gray/blue agave showing us that you don’t need a lot of different types of plants to make a statement in the garden – sometimes less is more effective.

Walking along the main street, I saw the biggest star jasmine vine.

It grew up the metal fence and beyond, hugging this 3-story building. Needless to say, the fragrance was intoxicating.

A brightly-colored building had an unusual pair of container plants.

Spinless prickly pear (Opuntia ellisiana) looked great in half-whiskey barrels.

Continuing our walk through town, I saw a small cafe which had an adjoining garden that can only be described as a grotto.

Where else, but in the desert southwest would you see a prickly pear cactus growing along side a rose bush?

Speaking of roses, I spotted a hedge of pink Iceberg roses in full bloom.

*Iceberg roses are a typically used for providing an informal hedge and they do well in Arizona.

In front of the iconic courthouse, I spotted some flowering ocotillo, so I headed over for a closer look.

I never tire of seeing the vermillion-colored flowers of ocotillo year after year.

My little ocotillo produced its first flower earlier this spring, after 4 years in the ground! It can take while for newly planted ocotillo to flower, but 4 years was a little long to have to wait.

Alongside the ocotillo were santa-rita (purple) prickly pears in full bloom.

Continuing our walk through the historic downtown, I noticed murals painted along the Cochise County Cooperative Extension Building.

In the window of the building were some helpful plant tips.

What a great way to add ‘plants’ to an area where planting live plants isn’t feasible.

This small front garden had a naturalistic planting theme using white achillea with Mexican evening primrose.

A local store did add some live plants by training a pair of vines over the doorway.

As I passed by these large metal doors, I wondered what lay behind them…

I peeked through a crack and noticed a lovely, little garden. I just wish that I could have seen more.

I have always liked small bungalows and their gardens. Maybe I can have one someday when the kids are gone and we need less room.

Here is another bungalow garden filled with purple prickly pear, a white Texas sage and autumn sage.

The city park had a two rain barrels, painted with rainy themes. It was a great way to demonstrate how homeowners can harvest their own rainwater.

**In closing, I would like to say that it isn’t easy traveling with me. I am always stopping and taking small detours in order to take pictures of plants and landscapes.

My husband is always so patient and doesn’t hesitate to carry my purse for me when my hands are busy holding my camera taking pictures.

Another common occurrence when traveling with a horticulturist is having to stop the truck after passing a lovely (or sometimes bad) landscape.

Again, my husband doesn’t complain – he just pulls over and waits while I run out to take a picture.

In this case, it was a lovely metal fence that had small shelves for pots planted with red yucca, to rest on. There were figures sculpted out of metal as well. It was just lovely.

I hope you enjoyed this small tour of the gardens of Bisbee. I cannot wait to return again someday.

On The Road to Bisbee…

A Visit to the Wild West and Its Plants…

Arizona, Arizona garden, Containers, Uncategorized

Over the weekend, my husband and I went away for the weekend to celebrate our 28th wedding anniversary.

We had debated on where to go and decided to make the trip to southeastern Arizona. Why this area, you may ask? Well, I have lived in Arizona for 28 years and during the time, have traveled to the northwest, southwest, southern, northern, northeast and eastern regions of the state – but I had never been to the southeastern areas. Our ultimate destination was to be the former mining town of Bisbee, now a popular tourist attraction.

Along the way to Bisbee, we decided to visit Tombstone along the way. My husband had visited Tombstone when he was you, back when many boys dreamed of becoming a cowboy.

If you are a little rusty on your cowboy history, Tombstone is the place the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral took place in 1881.

The main street is blocked off to cars and is lined on either side by stores and restaurants catering to tourists.

It was an interesting mixture of historical places converted into tourist attractions.

I enjoy visiting museums, so my husband and I headed over to the old courthouse, which has been turned into a museum.

It was very interesting to learn of Tombstone’s history as a silver mining town.

The back of the courtyard was where hangings took place.

Inside, was a diorama where the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral was depicted with a detailed description of what happened.

Cowboys stood along the side of the main street of Tombstone, which added to the illusion of being taken back in time.

After visiting the attractions along the main street, we decided to stroll through the adjoining streets. There were many old buildings dating back to the late 1880’s that were still standing.

Tombstone is in zone 8a, which means that it gets down to 10 degrees in the winter months. As a result, I was interested in seeing what types of plants did well here.

Coastal Cholla (Cylindropuntia prolifera)

Prickly pears and cholla cacti were in full bloom.

Cow’s Tongue Prickly Pear (Opuntia engelmannii)

There were no lawns to be seen and most of the landscape consisted of a variety of succulents including desert spoon, hesperaloe and yucca.

Yellow Bird-of-Paradise (Caesalpinia gilliesii)

I did see a beautiful yellow bird-of-paradise, which is usually seen in high desert areas where its more cold-tender cousins red bird-of-paradise (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) and Mexican bird-of-paradise (Caesalpinia mexicana) can struggle.

I love how the bright red stamens contrast with the yellow flowers, don’t you? Yellow bird-of-paradise is hardy to -10 degrees or zone 6.

Texas sage as also prevalent in the area.

I wasn’t sure what to think of this collection of container plants.

It consisted of a mixture of plastic pots and toilets planted with live and silk flowers. I’m pretty sure my HOA wouldn’t allow this 😉

While Tombstone was much of what I expected, the history and cowboy themed attractions weren’t my favorite part of our visit…

I invite you to come back for my next post, where I will share with you why this small plant made me so excited and how it is part of a very historic plant!

Join me for my next post about our adventures in Tombstone.

Trees and Shrubs for a Neglected Desert Garden Area

Arizona garden, desert gardening, Landscape Design, Landscape Problems, Shrubs, Trees

Trees and Shrubs for a Neglected Area

In my last post “A Long Forgotten Area Ready for Transformation”, I told you that I would share what plants I was going to have put in this neglected area.

Criteria for Plant Selection

The selection of these plants has been guided by specific criteria:

Personal Experience: Many of these plants have thrived in my own home garden or in landscapes I’ve overseen.
Low Maintenance: I’ve opted for varieties that require minimal upkeep.
Drought Resistance: These plants are well-suited to dry conditions.
Year-round Beauty: The chosen plant palette guarantees a vibrant display of colors throughout the year, with at least one plant in bloom at any given time.

Trees for the Area

So are you ready to see what I chose?

Let’s start with the trees…

Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis)

The area has two large Foothills Palo Verde trees along with a Wolfberry tree, so I chose one other type of tree to add.

Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) is one of my favorite desert trees. It is not a true willow, but is named for the fact that its leaves are willow-shaped.

Colorful flowers appear throughout the summer that add a vibrant punch of color to the landscape.

Hardy to zone 6, Desert Willow requires well-drained soil and full sun or filtered shade.

Shrubs for the Area

Now for the shrubs…

Valentine Bush (Eremophila maculata ‘Valentine’)

Valentine Bush (Eremophila maculata ‘Valentine’) is my favorite shrub of all time. I will never forget the day when I was first introduced to this red-flowering shrub, by Mountain States Wholesale Nursery. It was 1999 and I was a horticulturist fresh out of college.

I was given 2 Valentine shrubs from Mountain States to plant in the landscape area I managed. Ever since then, I have been hooked.

Red flowers appear on this shrub, beginning in January and lasting until April. If you haven’t noticed it before, there isn’t much blooming in winter, which is one of the reasons I love Valentine.

The foliage is evergreen and Valentine are hardy to zone 8. Better yet, they only need to be pruned once a year – in spring after flowering.

Plant in full sun and well-drained soil.

For more information about Valentine, check out my post about this great plant.

Baja Ruellia (Ruellia peninsularis)

My second choice for shrubs is Baja Ruellia (Ruellia peninsularis).

Now, this isn’t its rather invasive cousin Ruellia (Ruellia brittoniana), pictured below…

Baja Ruellia is what I like to think of as a smaller version of Texas Sage species (Leucophyllum sp). It doesn’t get as large and has a longer flowering season then Leucophyllum.

The flowers of Baja Ruellia are tubular and appear spring through fall, with the heaviest bloom occurring in spring.

The foliage is light green and rarely suffers frost damage in our zone 9b climate. Hardy to zone 9, Baja Ruellia should be planted in full sun and well-drained soil.

Silvery Cassia (Senna phyllodenia)

The third shrub for this area will be Silvery Cassia (Senna phyllodenia). This Australian native does very well in arid landscapes.

The silvery foliage will provide contrast to the darker greens present in the landscape. Evergreen to 20 degrees, this shrub flourishes in zone 9 landscapes.

Yellow flowers appear in late winter and into spring. Pruning is needed after flowering, to remove seed pods in managed landscapes.

Like the other shrubs, Silvery Cassia enjoys full sun and well-drained soil.

Autumn Sage (Salvia greggii)

The smallest shrub for this area will be Autumn Sage (Salvia greggii). This plant is hard to zone 7, so remains evergreen during winter here.

Flowers appear fall through spring in the low desert. The most common colors are red or pink, although there are other colors such as white, lavender and peach.

I like to use Autumn Sage around trees like Palo Verde, where the filtered shade shelters it from the intense summer sun. I first saw them planted around a tree at the Desert Botanical Garden and I really liked the way it looked, so I have repeated this design in many of my landscapes.

The Autumn Sage above, was planted by me around a Foothills Palo Verde about 12 years ago and they are still going strong.

I still have perennials and accent plants to show you that I have included in the design and I’ll share them with you next time.

*********************************

An Update on my Family

Life around our household has been busy lately….

School is back in session (for which I am extremely grateful for 😉

My son Kai, has ditched his wheelchair for a walker and will soon be able to walk without it.

AND

My daughter, will soon come home after leaving 5 months ago for the Navy. She is graduating from her Equipment Operator School next week and will be an official ‘SeaBee’. She will be on leave for 2 weeks before she reports for combat training in Mississippi, where she will be stationed for a month.

The BEST news is that her permanent base will be in Port Hueneme, which is where she wanted to be. What is even better for us, is that it is in Southern California, just 7 hours from home!!!

We are getting ready to celebrate her homecoming, which I will share with all of you 🙂

Natural Shade for Tomato Plants

Arizona garden, desert gardening, Vegetable Gardening

If you like to grow tomatoes AND you live in the desert, then you know how important it is to shade your tomato plants during the summer months.

Most vegetable gardeners haul out 50% shade cloth, which does a great job at shading tomatoes and protecting them from the intense desert sun.

Personally, I don’t particularly like how shade cloth looks. As a horticulturist and landscape designer – I like gardens to look beautiful and that extends to vegetable gardens.

So instead of putting up shade cloth over my tomato plants this year, I decided to create natural shade for them.

My tomatoes are surrounded by giant sunflowers on their east, west and southern sides. If you can only add sunflowers to one side, then choose the west side to protect them from the intense afternoon sun.

Throughout the day, they experience filtered shade. My tomatoes look great without any signs of sunburn.

Sunflowers are easy to grow from seed and you can start planting them in March and continue throughout the summer.

Because sunflowers only live a few months, I have planted a second crop of sunflowers in between my existing sunflowers. I will soon plant a third crop in order to provide shade all summer and into early fall for my tomatoes.

An added bonus to planting sunflowers is that they provide food and shelter for birds and you can enjoy their delicious sunflower seeds.

Another reason to use sunflowers instead of shade cloth for tomatoes is that sunflowers are a lot less expensive then shade cloth and are an inexpensive and sustainable solution.

How about you? What do you use to shade your tomatoes?

Spring Cleaning – Severe Renewal Pruning

Arizona garden, AZ Plant Lady, AZ Plant Lady Classes, California desert garden, desert gardening, Landscape Problems, Las Vegas gardening, Nevada garden, Pruning, Shrubs

My inbox has been filled lately with pruning questions. Specifically, how to prune back overgrown flowering shrubs.

Chihuahuan Sage (Leucophyllum laevigatum)

You may be wondering why you need to severely prune back overgrown shrubs?

Well, as you can see from the photo, above – as a shrub’s branches age, they produce fewer leaves and flowers. As time passes – these branches die, which leave ugly, bare areas.

Here are a few more examples of overgrown shrubs that need to be severely pruned back…

‘White Cloud’ Texas Sage (Leucophyllum frutescens ‘White Cloud’)

You may think the formally pruned sage shrubs in the photo above, look okay besides being a bit on the large side.

But, what you don’t see is a large amount of dead branches inside. In reality, these shrubs are covered in a very thin layer of growth.

Here is an example of old Cassia (Senna nemophila) shrubs that have only been pruned formally. You can see that there are more dead areas than live growth.

So, how do you go about severely pruning old, overgrown shrubs back?

First of all – don’t do this during cooler months because it will take your shrubs a very long time to grow back. In addition, it can make frost-tender shrubs more susceptible to frost damage. Wait until spring for pruning back summer-flowering shrubs such as bougainvillea, sage, oleanders, etc.

You need a good pair of loppers and sometimes a pruning saw and you are ready to go. Simply prune your shrub back until there is only about 1 – 2 ft left.

Hedge trimmers can help if you use them to remove the outer part of the shrub and then you can get your loppers inside to prune off larger branches toward the base.

Below, are photos of ‘Rio Bravo’ Sage (Leucophyllum langmaniae ‘Rio Bravo’) shrubs that started out overgrown, were pruned back severely, and grew back.

Overgrown shrubs.

Pruned back to 1 ft.

This is the ugly stage. But you need to go through this ‘awkward’ stage to achieve beautiful, healthy shrubs.

I promise that it doesn’t last long…

New growth appears 3 weeks later

8 weeks after pruning.

12 weeks after severe pruning.

You can see that the severe pruning caused the shrub to grow young, new branches that produce beautiful green growth and flowers.

**Although severe renewal pruning keeps your shrubs healthy and attractive – there are a few cases when an old, overgrown shrub won’t grow back. It is doubtful that the Cassia shrubs, above, will survive for long either with or without severe pruning).

This usually indicates that the shrub has declined too much and would not have survived for long even without pruning. If this happens, you are better off replacing your shrub.**

Hand pruners, pruning saw and loppers

A good guideline for severely pruning your shrubs is to do this every 3 years or so. Of course, you can do this every year if you like to help keep your shrubs from outgrowing their space.

I hope that this helps to answer some of your questions.

If you would like to learn more about how to prune shrubs the right way, I invite you to learn more about my popular online shrub pruning workshop.

Too Many Lemons? Freeze the Juice…

Arizona garden, California desert garden, Citrus, desert gardening, Fruit Trees

Every winter, we are the lucky recipients of a bounty of citrus from both family and neighbors.

My fruit bowls and pantry are full of blood oranges, grapefruit, and lemons.

Citrus generally ripens during the winter and the cold snap that we had last week had many people picking the citrus fruit from their trees so that the fruit wouldn’t be damaged by the frost.

The problem arises that either I have too many lemons in winter and none in the summer unless I want to spend a ridiculous amount of money on lemons.

So, what do you do?

Well, I juiced them a week ago and made “lemon ice-cubes.”

Then, I promptly forgot about them until I was searching in the freezer for the chicken to thaw out for dinner.

So, I took them out and put my lemon ice cubes into freezer bags.

have three freezer bags full of lemon ice cubes, which will last me through the coming year.

What do I use them for? Well, many of my favorite dinner recipes call for a tablespoon or two of lemon juice, and they are great for making ice tea.

You can also save the lemon zest, (just before you juice them), and freeze the zest too.

My kids love grapefruit (I don’t) and have been eating some for both breakfasts and a snack. They have also been taking the blood oranges to school in their lunch boxes.

My friend, Becky, from Tucson, made ‘Orange Peel Vinegar’ which she uses as a cleaner with her extra oranges.

What do you do with an overabundance of citrus?

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