California Spring is here

SW, your rose reminds me of Peace, which is a very popular rose and quite large
http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=21.59395

The photo tab on HelpMeFind shows it can be vary in color depending on weather.
http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.2203&tab=36

WHAT is keeping your fountain clean, doss??

It's called Fountec and it changes the molecules of water. You can't use it if you are growing plants or fish but for fountains it's amazing. Keeps the skeeters away too.
http://www.amazon.com/Fountec-Algaecide-and-Clarifier/dp/B000P6B28S

Oh well---I AM growing plants and fish....but thanks for the info as it may come in handy!

We've used Fountec and it does work, and it is safe for birds, plants and animals (the concentrate is not). Only fish are on the no list. For our big fountain, we try to put a few water iris in the bottom and that keeps the water clean for the birds, but if I don't have enough, I use the Fountec.

http://www.aqua-mart.com/fountec.html

Calif_Sue I have not noticed a fragrance, but I'm usually stuffed up from allergies. It's always that pink on the edges and is probably a Peace Rose. I seem to recall planting one of them. Once I get the candy apple ice plant cleared away maybe I can find the tag.
Good news for the courtyard fountain and thank you for sharing it with us, doss, and KC. I have both kinds, plants and critters, the fountain was driving me nuts, but the birds like to drink out of it. And at least one hummer likes early morning baths in it, so I was going out my mind. Glad someone already thought of a solution.
WIB!
SW

Singingwolf - and I would gladly give those white bird of paradise to you. They were only $5 each so I bought 3. But I don't have a lot of land. I also dug up some white butterfly ginger that has outgrown the area that I originally put them in and dug them all out. Will be giving those away too.

Fountains are nice - but I think I better hold off since I have my hands full trying to upkeep a pool. Who was it that had some beautiful photos of their pool and surrounding planters - was it Doss??

Here are some more photos. The first one is my strawbale veggie garden experiment. Learned about this method right here at DG where they have their own forum. That is a soaker hose running down middle. Bought the bales for $3 each from the dairy in Lake Elsinore. They cut $2/bale off to that price because they had gotten wet. Since I had to take them home to water them daily, that was perfect for me. My composting bins are straight ahead and this is the SW side yard.

Interesting, QG. Keep us updated on that.

You may be thinking of my pool soils. There are stacked stone planters around it. Here's a photo of the fountain.

Every photo of your garden is just spectacular, doss!

My pretty green succulent bowl is filling in nicely.

That succulent bowl is very beautiful!!

Oh doss, I love the photos of your gardens, pool, fountain. ALMOST make me want to trade the wide open spaces for residential property. Would be easier.

Sue, your bowl is lovely. Wanted to do something like that with some Easter baskets I bought last year and planned to line sides with plastic. Jules gave me my first jade last fall, but they are very prolific and I could see them taking over the planter. Don't know if they would hold up for more than a few weeks though. Saw some very large (48" diameter?) bowls at HD, but too many $$'s.

Here is a photo of some succulents on a nursery table.

Think this need some transplanting

And these need planting. Includes a tomato (in case my germinating nursery does not work) and 4 different berry plants - YUM. That new geranium did not like those cold nights.

Yes KC, the Lady Banks is white. It has not been fertilized this year and maybe only once last year. Until last week it was growing all akimbo, but I had a 2.5 ft anti rabbit fence in front of the planter that made it difficult to tend to anything in there. As I recall, your Lady Banks is HUGE. How old is it? It is dangerous to walk in my planter there though, as the gophers love to tunnel in there, ergo the reason for the big rustic looking pots.

SW, I am pretty sure that red flowered plant is a salvia. It reseeds itself in areas nearby, but there is usually only one of those plants that end up surviving.

Doss - it IS your pool I was remembering - I love the stones/pavers that you used.
QG - how much wide open spaces do you have?

We have two Lady Banks - the big one is the yellow double and I think this is its fourth year. The white one is the single petal one, smells heavenly, but is scrawny as heck. I'll have to take a picture of it.

That is a beautiful bowl Sue. And QG you will have yourhands full planting all of those wonderful things.
I do love those Ladybanks roses. Didn't realize that they came in white though. Heavenly!

soilsandup - Not THAT much wide open space. About 1.7 acres. But neighbors have like pieces or bigger and we have the foothills of the coastal range that start here. It is semi rural, at lot less that SingingWolf, but close to everything.

I am actually glad I have my 150 by 125'; lot. If i had you gjys acreage, I would be killing myself on a daily basis trying to get everything perfect. I guess God know where to plant the free spirit gardeners and where to plant the OCC Type A nuts, like me.

Worms - With acreage you can designate a 'no plant zone' as pasture and put livestock out there. Besides, that is a pretty good size lot you have, bigger than tract homes and smaller than something that would drive you crazy.

Thought this bush morning glory looked pretty (in its south-facing pot) in the morning light this a.m.

Just put one in the ground yesterday in probably not-so-well-draining soil. It'll remain to be seen how it does. I had a marguerite that drowned from all the rain (that I took out) not far from the spot where I put in the convolvulus. I put in some carex pansa and festuca californica which are supposed to withstand seasonal flooding in the spot where the marguerite was.



This message was edited Mar 14, 2010 11:08 AM

surf - did you start that from seed? Did not know they came in bush variety. Pretty.

QG,
Your straw bale garden looks much better than mine does so far. DH is stingy with bales of straw, but after the scouts come in this weekend I'm going to talk him out of some more!
Every time I see your pool doss, I am envious. Yeah, I got one too, but not as pretty as yours.
I am impressed with your succulent bowl it looks so nice Sue.
Soils, DH inherited the family farm (about 40+ acres), we mostly had scrub brush when we moved here. The goats ate everything green. It was awfully brown.
DH and I agreed to leave this side of the creek natural, and we grow Christmas trees on the other side. Well, for the most part we've stuck to the plan. Every year more natives come back to live here.
It would drive me nuts too, trying to keep it all perfect. So I don't try.
I consoled myself by fencing in an area that by any standards would be a good sized yard. The fence gives me a boundary, no non native plants outside the boundary planted by me. Don't blame me for the Eucalyptus or the Pepper trees. That's DH.
I remind myself when I can't make my yard perfect (and my standard has gone down since the kids were born), that only the Creator is perfect.
Which is why, NAI often deliberately make mistakes in their regalia, so as to be humble.
QG, just so you don't worry about pollination, DH has hives in 2 places down by you. You'll probably get some of our bees visiting you!
No photo right now, but I'll be posting some soon.
I'm inspired to go out and see what I can do today. : - )
WIB!
SW

We sat out on the patio to have lunch today - took off the furniture covers and enjoyed the glorious weather.

Nah, I'm not that talented. It's just a one-gallon convolvulus cneorum "Snow Angel" that I got at a local nursery. It's got lovely silvery evergreen foliage.

http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/datastore/datastoreview/showpage.cfm?usernumber=93&surveynumber=451

It's great for hot, dry places. I've had trouble finding things that did well in these south-facing pots that get a lot of reflected heat. Put this plant in last year...it seems to be happy.




This message was edited Mar 15, 2010 3:00 PM

Sounds like the convolvulus is perfect for this neck of the woods, or this neck of the sand and brush. I did plant some seeds for this, along with other flowers and veggies. It would be nice if at least 50% germinated AND made it to planthood. ONE of these seeds made it! I did not know it was a morning glory.

These are not supposed to rebloom here, but this is their fourth year.

You must not have gophers....LOL!

We do, but they stay in the vegetable garden.

Kelli - what do you do against the gophers? They are one reason I am trying the straw bale garden for veggies. Ours like flowers, annuals & perennials, though, also.

DH traps them. He has these little wooden traps that he uses. I don't know what they are called but they are painted fluorescent orange and he got them at the local nursery. Sometimes it takes a while to get the gopher and sometimes he gets it right away. We've got a stubborn one in the garden right now. There are a lot of free-roaming cats around and the coyotes get in our backyard sometimes and any of those might help, too.

Our dogs would chase the cats away (we have a neighbor cat who likes to taunt them and sit on top of a fence, but heard he caught a gopher on that side of yard) and the coyotes would eat the dogs, so we are well fenced.

Thank you God, no gophers in Las Vegas. If we do not have them, why do you have them?????

The gophers fill a niche. Along with all the other blessed rodents. You wouldn't want the hawks and gopher snakes to go hungry would you? They only become a pest when they invade your garden. You probably don't have enough rain for them in LV. We didn't have them at the Salton Sea either. Other critters but no gophers, Sharon. We don't have voles or moles around here, and lots of other places do.
I bet you have bigger scorpions than we do. LOL! Tarantula's too! I'm just teasing you. You really don't have gophers where you live, Sharon?
I guess it's only a matter of time before they hitch a ride into LV in a nursery container or some such.
WIB!
SW

I try to send this link any time I hear about gopher problems. It's the greatest thing going for gopher extermination.

http://www.undergroundexterm.com/

Good luck

Gophers do fill an important niche. They're nature's tillers. They spread around nutrients and prevent erosion. Here's an old article about it http://www.cedarcreek.umn.edu/biblio/fulltext/t1072.pdf Exterminating them would just lead to decreased diversity and soil loss.

I live in an established neighborhood. No problems with gophers or squirrels. When we lived farther out near the country, gophers were everywhere. They didn't seem to bother our garden, though. There were better things for them consume in our front yard and the field behind us.

We usually don't have problems with them gophers here until the native food sources dry up. Right now, everything is green, and no problem. Come August though . . .

Thanks for the additional info on the niche that gophers fill, dlbailey. I was going to say that but the words wouldn't come out right, so I'm glad you did. Thanks for the link to the article. Very informative.
They (gophers and squirrels) can live anywhere they want on the farm except in my yard. Lots of room for all of us here. I just want a little bit of ground for me to enjoy my flowers, tropicals, and kitchen garden.
WIB,
SW