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Hot Gardens Newsletter -
Spring 2010
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Wake up and eat.
As the days become longer and the overnight low temperatures
rise, your plants are beginning to come out of winter dormancy.
And they are hungry!
Over the winter plants have
grown slowly underground, spreading their roots ever further in
search of new food sources. Now they are ready to make an
upward push -- producing new branches, new leaves, and most
important of all, new flowers which will lead to seeds.
Creating seeds for reproduction is what plants aim to do.
It is their reason for being.
Yummy Mulch. You
can help your plants by add good organic mulch around
trees and shrubs and in flower beds. Then add a balanced
fertilizer. In many desert gardens you may have to add
sulfur, iron or other minerals to allow your plants to grow and
produce flowers and seeds. Ask for recommendations from
your local nursery for the best fertilizer for your soil
specific conditions. Don't rely on fertilizer you've
seen advertised on TV. It is unlikely to be suitable for
desert alkaline soils.
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Why
Mulch Twice a Year? Much of the soil in the
desert Southwest is alkaline. Not many plants grow
well in alkaline soil. So, as every good desert
gardener knows, when you establish a new garden the
first thing to do is improve the soil with good organic
mulch. |
What happens after your install the plants
in the nutritious soil you have created is this:
the plants gobble up all the nutrition in the soil within
a few months.
Surprisingly quickly, the soil
reverts to its alkaline state. Some plants may continue to
survive--after a fashion--particularly if you dose them with
fertilizer. But adding more and more fertilizer is like
treating the symptoms without getting to the root cause.
By renewing the mulch in Spring and Fall will do much more to
maintain a healthy growing environment for the plants in your
desert garden.
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Head
Start on Next Winter. Plant the perennial
sage, Salvia Leucantha, now from one gallon containers
and it will bloom for weeks and weeks. Then, late
in Fall--say, around November--it will bloom again for
weeks on end. In early winter when little else is
in flower, hummingbirds will flock to it.
You can also cut the spires for a bouquet of flowers
from your garden. One year we used the spires of Salvia
leucantha to decorate our Christmas tree! |
Go to Spring
2008 Newsletter or Spring
2007 Newsletter
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