Strange and Unusual Plants All Ready for Halloween

It’s that time of year, the weather is cooler, the trees are dressed up in their colors and people are almost ready for Halloween.  

My youngest daughter, Gracie, is going to be a ‘butterfly princess’ this year and my son Kai will be the ‘Brawny’ paper towel guy.  I bought him work boots (he loves those), a flannel shirt and of course, a package of ‘Brawny’ paper towels.

This year, we will be hosting the family Halloween night with my sister, brother and their families.  I can hardly wait.  

This post has been a huge favorite every year.  I hope you enjoy it!

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My kids, aren’t the only ones ready for Halloween.  Use your imagination and see how these plants are prepared as well…..

ready for Halloween

Octopus Agave (Agave vilmoriniana) beginning growing it’s snake-like flower stalk.

Growing up to one foot a day, like a snake coming out of the snake charmer’s basket.

ready for Halloween

Creeping Fig (Ficus pumila) climbing up the pillar and underneath….hanging down like spiderwebs.c

ready for Halloween

A Yucca reclining like a lovely lady.

But beware….she stabs you with her leaves if you get too close….

(This Yucca was trained to grow this way)

Saguaro

Saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) dressed as a giant.

Ready for Halloween

The ‘claws’ of an Agave

Ready for Halloween

Ocotillo (Fouquierea splendens) with a Medusa hairstyle.

Euphorbia tirucalli

Sticks of Fire (Euphorbia tirucalli), will not burn you….but it is poisonous.

Acacia stenophylla

The spooky silhouette of a Shoestring Acacia (Acacia stenophylla).

You can almost hear the hooting owls…

Saguaro carnegiea

Crested Saguaro (Saguaro carnegiea)

A saguaro all dressed up with a new hairstyle.

Agave geminiflora

Twin-Flowered Agave (Agave geminiflora), sprouting horns.

And finally….

White Oleander

A beautiful White Oleander (Nerium oleander) flower lures you in with her subtle fragrance.

But Beware!  She is deadly if ingested…

I hope you enjoyed the plants in their “costumes”.

Are you or your children dressing up for Halloween this year?

What as?

Slowly, but Surely….

I must admit that it has taken me longer then I thought to get over the flu.  It must be my age, but it seems like getting over being sick just sucks out any energy I have.

The other day, I walked by my son’s room and noticed that he was being really quiet….

Star Wars figurines

He had fallen asleep on the floor, playing with the little plastic weapons from his Star Wars figurines.

Please disregard the messy room – but Saturday is room cleaning day and I took this photo on Thursday 😉

Sometimes, I feel like falling asleep on the floor.

I have been getting busy with consults because the weather is cooling off and people are starting to venture outside again.

I have found time to do a little light pruning of my roses.

roses

Okay, I know that my roses look rather ugly – but all roses that grow in our area go through an ‘ugly’ stage in summer.

While we are very lucky that we have two growing seasons for roses (spring and fall) – roses are not fans of our hot, dry summers.

Their leaves get sunburned and if any roses form, they are small and dry out quickly.  This is normal.  Roses go somewhat dormant during summer and just exist until the cooler weather of fall arrives.

So once September arrives, it’s time to prune your roses back by 1/4 of their total size.  Then add the rose fertilizer of your choice, mixed with compost.  I make 6 – 8 holes around each of my roses, about 6″ deep and pour the fertilizer/compost mixture into them and then water deeply.

I only have three roses bushes, so this only took about 15 minutes to do it all.

A couple of weeks ago, as I was driving home from a consult, I noticed a home that had raised vegetable garden beds in their front yard.

cool-season vegetables

cool-season vegetables

I can only imagine how much they grow.  I have two vegetable gardens in the back garden.  Our HOA won’t allow me to put any in the front 😉

Last year at this time, I had all my vegetable seeds planted by September 5th.

This yearI have done nothing yet.

Thankfully, there is a window for planting that extends from September through October for most cool-season vegetables.

My plan is to get it all done by next weekend.  I made sure that my husband had time in his schedule to help me add the compost and manure and then I’ll get my seeds planted.

How about you?  Have you planted your vegetables yet?

A Box of Seeds and an Impatient Gardener…

Under the Weather…Literally and Figuratively

I haven’t stepped out into my garden since Wednesday.

It rained so hard on Friday, that our back patio flooded and my daughter and nephew started scooping up water using buckets and throwing it onto the back lawn.

To top it off, I have been rotating between my favorite chair in the family room and my bed.

I REALLY HATE THE FLU….

The good news is that I am feeling a little better, but have no energy.  But, I thought I would share with you a photo that I took last week of a very pretty Arizona Yellow Bells (Tecoma stans stans).

Arizona Yellow Bells

Arizona Yellow Bells

It has been pruned into a small tree.

I have three that are in the typical shrub-shape.  While I do really like the way they look pruned up like this – I probably won’t be doing this to ours anytime soon.

Mostly because we do our own landscaping and while I do enjoy pruning – I don’t like doing it enough to keep up with the tree form.

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I hope your week is off to a good start.  Our weather is beginning to cool off a little, so once I get my energy back, I’ll be back out in the garden getting my vegetable gardens ready for fall 🙂

The Good and The Bad….

The other day, I was driving home from a landscape consult and as usual – I was on the lookout for examples of good and bad landscaping.

This particular day, I saw some great examples that  I would love to share with you.  

First the good…

my favorite flowering shrubs

my favorite flowering shrubs

Isn’t this landscape grouping, attractive?

There is great texture and color.

The Mexican Bird-of-Paradise (Caesalpinia mexicana) is one of my favorite flowering shrubs, which can be trained as small trees – I have 3 at home.

The spiky foliage of the Red Yucca help to provide contrast with the softer edges of the tree and Lantana.

Speaking of which, you cannot beat Lantana for summer color.

Here is another good example of landscaping…

my favorite flowering shrubs

Although, the Texas Sage, above, is planted a bit too close together, the homeowner has solved the problem by pruning them back severely to approximately 1 ft. using loppers.  Notice that they did NOT use hedge shears or trimmers, which is a good thing!

What this does is to keep the shrubs within bounds, but since they weren’t sheared, the flowers and natural shape of the shrubs can be enjoyed.

You can really tell the difference when you see the photo below from the house next door – which is a bad example by the way…

my favorite flowering shrubs

The same shrubs, planted too close together.  But, the homeowner elected to shear them back with hedge-trimmers.

The flowers and absence of the shrubs natural shape make these look like green ‘cones’.

Finally, I saw this really bad example of landscaping… 

The Good and The Bad....

Isn’t this terrible?

Believe it or not, this is a Mesquite tree that has been ‘poodled’ – meaning sheared into a round shape.

Pruning trees this way is very unhealthy for them for many reasons:

– Shearing trees actually stimulates excess growth meaning that you will need to prune them more often then a properly pruned tree.

– Sunlight has difficulty penetrating the interior, which can lead to the eventual death of interior branches.

– New branches will grow at a ‘weak’ angle, which makes them more susceptible to breakage.

These are but a few of the reason of why not to ‘shear’ or ‘top’ trees.

**How about you?  What examples of good and bad landscaping have you seen this summer?

You can learn more about why it’s wrong to ‘top’ trees in this article from the International Society of Arboriculture.

A Box of Seeds and an Impatient Gardener…

cool-season vegetable garden

cool-season vegetable

Oh, I have been imagining the bounty of vegetables that will come from my cool-season vegetable garden.

I have visions of of harvesting lettuce, garlic, carrots, green onions, cauliflower, spinach and radishes fresh from the garden.

Marigolds and nasturtiums will also be included in the vegetable garden to help keep bad bugs away and they make the vegetable garden pretty.

Of course, I still have cucumbers, peppers, bush beans and tomato plants in the garden, which keep me busy.  But, I can hardly wait to plant my cool-season vegetables.

And so in a few weeks, I will add 3 inches of new compost and 1 inch of manure to my gardens, to get them ready for the seeds that I will plant.

I prefer starting vegetables from seed, except for cauliflower & garlic.  Cauliflower does best when started from transplants.  I’ll plant my garlic in October from cloves (I still have about ten heads of garlic left from my spring harvest 🙂.

I am putting my order in for my seeds now so that they will be ready to plant.

How about you?

What are you going to plant this fall?

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For information on what kind of vegetables to plant in your garden and when to plant them – check out this link(simply enter your zip code for a customized vegetable planting calendar).

**Here is a link of when to plant cool and warm-season vegetables Maricopa County, which is where I live 🙂

Seasonal Gardener ‘Malady’

Every year, I hope to avoid a certain malady that always pops its head up in mid-August.

I was pretty sure I had skipped it this year, but early this week – it hit me.

What is this malady?

“I don’t want to venture out into my garden.”

seasonal malady

seasonal malady

Shocking, isn’t it?  Now, there is nothing wrong with my garden.  In fact, it looks its best this time of year.

My summer-flowering shrubs are absolutely covered in blooms, my trees are growing beautifully and my lawn is thick and green (thanks largely to increased humidity and monsoon rains).

seasonal malady

Bougainvillea ‘Barbara Karst’

Arizona Yellow Bells (Tecoma stans stans)

Arizona Yellow Bells (Tecoma stans stans)

Orange Jubilee

Orange Jubilee

The fact that I haven’t spent much time out in the garden is rather obvious from the photos of my slightly overgrown plants below…

Rio Bravo Sage

Rio Bravo Sage

Gold Lantana

Gold Lantana

So, why on earth don’t I want to go out in the garden?

Well, I must admit that I get a little ‘burned out’ on gardening.  It has to do with the fact that I get a bit tired of the summer heat and living in the Desert Southwest, means that there is always something to do in the garden 12 months of the year.

Sometimes, I just need a little break.  I don’t think this makes me a bad gardener or horticulturist – do  you?

So, maybe some of my plants are a bit overgrown and need a little pruning.  Well, they can grow for a couple more weeks and I’ll get to it in early September.

Besides, I would rather have a overgrown plant covered in flowers then one that is over-pruned and ugly, wouldn’t you?

Seasonal malady

I will shake off this seasonal ‘malady’ and be out in the garden, eager to plant seeds for my winter vegetable garden the beginning of September.

**How about you?  Do you suffer from the same malady from time to time?  Please tell me about it – it will make me feel better 🙂  

Showing Love Through…..Pruning?

Pollinators in the Garden

A beautiful and successful garden, attracts pollinators.  My three favorite pollinators begin with the letter ‘B’ – bees, butterflies and birds.

First, the bees…

favorite pollinators

Icelandic Poppy

Begonia

Begonia

Rabbitbrush

Rabbitbrush

Now, butterflies…

Swallowtail and Dianthus

Swallowtail and Dianthus

favorite pollinators

Pipevine Swallowtail

favorite pollinators

White Checkered Butterfly

And, my favorite – birds…

favorite pollinators

Black-Chinned Hummingbird feeding from Ocotillo flower.

What kind of pollinators do you have visiting your garden this week?

What are their favorite plants?

Guess What Came In the Mail?

I have been waiting, rather impatiently I might add, for a certain item in the mail – a magazine with my published article!

And, I am happy to say that it arrived a couple of days ago….

Birds & Blooms

Here it is!

Companion Gardening

Although, I have written articles for magazines before – but this is the first one that I wrote for a national magazine.

Companion Gardening

Last year, I was asked by the editor of Birds & Blooms magazine to write two articles for their magazine this year.  (I do write twice a week for their blog).

This is the first article, which is about ‘companion gardening’.  

Companion Gardening

I practice ‘companion gardening’ in my own garden and have written smaller articles about it, including posts on this blog.

But, I did do some additional research for this article and was pleasantly surprised to find out more combinations and practices that use combining certain plants together that benefit each other.

Birds & Blooms

I wrote this article from a hotel room back in March, while we were temporarily evacuated from our house when it flooded.

The next article is due out next month and is about ‘drought-tolerant’ gardening.

**Birds & Blooms is a Reader’s Digest publication.  I have found it at my local Kroger’s grocery store as well at Barnes & Noble.

Of course, you can always subscribe to it.  It has lots of great gardening ideas and DIY projects.

**If you would like to order an individual issue, you can get one here 🙂

A Unique Place to Stay and a Mystery

Many of you have visited Williams, AZ along with us as I share the adventures of our annual vacations spent up there.

Besides being located along the historic Route 66 and being the gateway to the Grand Canyon – we also enjoy the cool weather, spending time with family and fishing.

Each year, we are fortunate to stay in cabins that are owned by my sister-in-law’s family.  They are very generous and we are so thankful to have places to stay each year.

Typically, each family stays in an individual cabin.  In the past, we have stayed in the ‘grandmother’s cabin and also in the ‘main’ cabin.

historic Route 66

along the historic Route 66

However, this year, we were excited that we were to stay in what my youngest daughter, Gracie, calls the “Dead Animal Cabin”.

This cabin is owned by my sister-in-law’s cousin.  

And, he is a hunter, who has decorated his cabin with some of his ‘trophies’…

historic Route 66

There are a total of three large heads of elk mounted on the walls…

historic Route 66

This one was so large, that he had to remove the blades from the ceiling fan to fit the head.

historic Route 66

Now, we don’t hunt and so the culture of hunting is somewhat foreign to us.

But, the kids love the seeing all of the animals hanging off the wall.

In addition to the elk, there are also other animals as well…

historic Route 66
historic Route 66
historic Route 66

Now for the ‘mystery’…

When we arrived in the cabin, it was a bit dirty.  My sister-in-law, Marisue, who had arrived earlier did some cleaning and found the first clue of our ‘mystery’:

An empty condom wrapper

I promise it wasn’t used for what you think….this a ‘family appropriate’ blog after all 😉

We found the second clue to the mystery on the dining room table.  It was a list.

Unique Place

Take a closer look at the third item on the list, which is the second clue to the mystery…

Box for testicles

Yes, it does say that.

I couldn’t imagine what these two clues pointed too.  At first, we didn’t even know that they were connected and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to.

So, my sister-in-law, Marisue, called her cousin and got the entire story.

1. Hunter friends of her cousin had recently killed a Desert Bighorn Sheep while hunting.  

Unique Place

Photo by: Andrew Barnes

2. So they contacted him so that he could collect the testicles.

3. He then put the testicles into a condom (remember the empty condom wrapper?)

4. Then he packed the testicles on ice in the box for testicles and drove them to the airport where they were shipped to a sheep farmer up in Montana.

Why?  Well, farmers use the semen in the testicles to artificially inseminate their female sheep.

So, that is the story behind the empty condom wrapper and the list including a ‘box for testicles’.

I couldn’t have made this story up, even if I had wanted too.

An Icy “First” For Me…

Antique ‘Junk’ for the Garden

A couple of weeks ago, we all traveled up to the quaint town of Prescott, AZ.  One of the best things that I like about going there is that they have some very good antique shops.

To be honest, I hadn’t planned on buying anything.  I was just going to browse – but you probably know how that goes….

Two different items caught my eye and I thought that they would be perfect for my garden.

antique from quaint town of Prescott, AZ

Okay, maybe it isn’t obvious what I am going to do with these two antique pieces.

antique from quaint town of Prescott, AZ

 My plan is to use the old watering can as a planter in my vegetable garden.  I plan to add annual flowers that will spill out the top.

All I need to do is to add some holes for drainage on the bottom and put a drip emitter on top for water. 

antique from quaint town of Prescott, AZ

I really like this wire basket.  According to the the seller, it is a wire basket that held wine bottles.

Well, I don’t drink much wine, so I think I will use it in my vegetable garden later this year.

Don’t you think it would make a great trellis for sugar snap peas?

I will simply place the basket in my vegetable garden and plant the seeds around it.  Once they sprout, they will have a great place to grow upward.  Later, when the plants are finished for the season, I will simply take the basket out.

How about you?

Have you discovered any antiques or items that you can use in your garden?

Please share them with me 🙂

An Old, Antique Watering Can Re-Purposed

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