2017 wrap-up

Oh, hi. Yeah, so I dropped off this blog after June. Lots of things just went south and I didn't feel like documenting the carnage. Here's the TL;DR version:

The only two tomato plants I picked up at the Spring Garden Fair got hit by Curly Top Virus, and croaked.

Everything I planted in the backyard east bed all died, except for the Philadelphus.

The apricot tree out front died, rotted out from the base — leaning precariously into the neighbors' drive, threatening to crush their pickup if it fell over. No saving it, so we had it taken out. The arborists didn't poison the stump, and I had hope the 30-year-old root system might throw up some suckers, but that never happened.




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Good news: we had the coyote fence rebuilt and extended. It's beautiful. Bad: the fence guys finished it up December 15, the day Cheyenne died.



Sigh.

weekend update

oooof. So sore. But that's what I get when I skip a weekend. Actually, last weekend Bram took on the front yard weeding, the side-and-back-yard weedwhacking, and hitting the patio bindweed with Roundup. Thanks a million for that, sweetie. 😘

This past Friday I went back to the last of the Waterwise wholesale-to-the-public sales and picked up a few more things; 3 Rozanne geranium for the front door bed; 3 pineleaf penstemon (Penstemon pinifolius) for the northeast bed outside our bedroom; and 3 Turkish speedwell (Veronica liwanensis) for groundcover around the back yard flagstones.

Front yard: Planted the new geraniums and the leadwort I picked up three (!!!!) weeks ago in the front door bed. Mulched with compost. Rejoiced at all the apricots on the ground. Turns out I needn't have worried about shaking them off.




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Back yard: Northeast bed (bedroom bed? what do I call this?): Saturday, dug up as much dirt as I could from around the sumac stump, using the shovel and the pick mattock I picked up this week (ran into Dorothea while I was there at Big Orange! 💕). Monday, turned the hose on the stump for a bit and excavated by hand with the little trowel, cutting roots as I went with the loppers and the pruning saw. Plan is to get a farm jack to pull the remaining stump out. Should also mix in some sand to improve the drainage. Crusher fines for mulch would also be nice, especially for the penstemon, they hate wet ground. Agh, I really need to get those plants in.






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Raised bed: Cut back daylilies — they look kind of hilarious/alien with just flower stalks left and no leaves, dug up a few Maximilian sunflowers to try to make more room for the tomatoes, sent rootstock to Mom! Dug in compost, planted tomatoes and basil (the thyme and Persian basil from NM Plant Co croaked). Mulched with straw (Bram picked up a new bale at the Feed Bin for me) and set up cages. Skipping the soaker hoses this year, instead will water by hand in raised bed (and bedroom bed). Dug up some arugula volunteers on Thursday for a co-worker. Chives and thyme are blooming.


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Yard: The arugula is out of hand and already starting to flower. I hacked off a trash bag-full and brought it in to the office on Friday, for the usual giveaway. I managed to get it all gone, but it was work. Note to self: don't bring pounds of arugula in before a long weekend, most everyone bugs out a day early to get a 4-day weekend.


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2017 Garden Fair | weekend update

So, apparently, there was construction going on at the Santa Fe County Fairgrounds that severely impacted the spaces where the Garden Fair is held. There was only one building open (usually there are two, plus various outdoor spaces), so there was only maybe one-quarter the amount of vendors/exhibitors as usual, plus only the main plant sale. The Farminista ladies were not there! No food trucks! Boo! Fortunately, there were tomatoes in the main plant sale. Unfortunately, even though I got there by 9:30 am, they had sold out of Sungolds! Gah! I panicked and grabbed two Robesons ($4 each). It was nutso, and really crowded, with everything crammed into a too-small space. Ran into the ever-fabulous Bev, Kathy, and Paul B.!


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To salve my disappointment, I engaged in some additional retail therapy on my way home. First, I stopped at Plants of the Southwest and got a Littleleaf Mockorange (Philadelphus microphyllus). Earlier this spring we had Coates Tree Service out to do some work, including removing the three-leaf sumac outside our bedroom window — it was seriously encroaching and causing problems. The mockorange will take its place.



I've been reading Nate Downey's PermaDesign blog, and back in April, he posted a piece about David Salman, the founder and former president of Santa Fe Greenhouses. (Even though the Santa Fe Greenhouses retail location has been closed for years, High Country Gardens, their mail-order branch, is still going.) Nate's blog post mentioned that Salman is still growing plants for his wholesale business, Waterwise Gardening. Which has public sales! Which I stopped at, after Plants of the Southwest! It was fairly busy, with one greenhouse full of mostly perennials, including a bunch I had on my list to check out as other plantings to go with the mockorange! Judging by the ID tags in some of the plants, Salman still raises plants for High Country Gardens. So these were the same ones I had been considering mail-ordering, for less money, and no shipping fees! Woohoo! I kinda went a little nuts:

• 3 Husker Red penstemon (Penstemon digitalis Husker Red)
• 1 Blue Fortune agastache
• 2 Sunset agastache (Agastache rupestris)
• 3 Serpentine columbine (Aquilegia eximia)
• 3 Leadwort (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides), for the front door bed
• 1 Rosemary

Plus a bag of Yum Yum Mix.


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The day's haul:



Then, at home, I started the cleanup in front yard, weeding the sidewalk bed and along the other side of the driveway. I also trimmed up the chamisa, deadheaded stuff, and trimmed back the yuccas that were encroaching the sidewalk. Then I took a rake and shook a bunch of apricots off the tree. I'm really worried with the amount of fruit that's set and still seems viable, even after the hard freeze we had the other weekend. Sigh. Two-and-a-half hours. Front yard itself is still in need of some serious weeding, but I was tired and the bin was full. Next weekend, I guess.





Also: Happy Birthday, Mom! 😘

what's blooming

March 2017 Bloom Day
We've had such a warm spring, things are flowering crazy early.

Apricot:



Pinweed (Erodium cicutarium):



Tulips:





Euphorbia:

what's blooming

June 2016 Bloom Day (all arroyo-walk edition)
New Mexico locust (Robinia neomexicana):



Lupine:







Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa):





Claret cup hedgehog cactus:



Prickly pear:





Indian paintbrush (Castilleja integra):

dodged a bullet

Spring was warm early this year. Lots of fruit set on the apricot, then a hard frost. OMG we would have had SO MANY apricots. Now that Stacy (and Jim and Bernice) has (have) moved back to NYC, we have no one who will take mass quantities.

what’s blooming

Crab apple:





Iris:



Tulip:



Golden currant (Ribes aureum):



Sand cherry (Prunus pumila):



Sage Catmint:



Redbud:



Grape muscari:



Hedgehog cactus (Echinocereus coccineus):



Periwinkle:



Donkey tail spurge (Euphorbia myrsinites):



Arugula: