Category: desert gardens

Frugal DIY gardening tips for Fall planting

For thousands of years frugal gardening was the only way to garden. Instead of buying starter plants at a local nursery or garden center, people planted seeds they had collected and saved during the previous harvest. Or swapped seeds and cuttings with friends and family. Or divided their own existing plants.

They didn’t buy mulch or composting equipment from those Big Box garden stores either. For century after century they created soil amendments themselves or did without. All gardening was do-it-yourself gardening.

This thrifty approach still works in the 21st century and may be more important than ever, especially for those of us whose gardens scorched right down to the bare earth during the relentless heat this summer. Replacing the plants that died as well as introducing new ones may be what you are facing this Fall. And the expense can be shocking. You may even have moments when you think: Buy groceries? Or buy for the garden?

So here is what to do to create a money-wise, water-wise garden this year.

Your Library is Your Frugal Gardening Friend

Hundreds of public libraries from coast to coast have turned their old card catalogs into bins containing packets of free herb and vegetable seeds. The seeds are most commonly collected locally and packaged in carefully labeled plastic bags by volunteer gardeners. Because the seeds come from their own gardens you know that they should thrive in your climate.

seeds in library card catalog

If your local library does not offer this service, ask them to start one of these “seed banks”. Master Gardeners or members of gardening clubs may be willing to help launch this free seed service.

There are also free seed swap services online. I haven’t used any of them, so I won’t make a specific website recommendation. If you use one, keep in mind that seeds that thrive in one location may not in another, for example, in a hot dry garden. It’s best to find local seed sources.

And DO NOT plant any seeds that come from China or other foreign countries. Don’t even put them in the garbage. Destroy them or turn them in to the US Dept. of Agriculture.



Multiply by Division

Plants that grow from bulbs, corms or rhizomes, which are basically fat roots, can be easily doubled or tripled by dividing them after they have finished their growth season. Note: In most U.S. Southwest climates, it is not necessary to dig up and store these over the winter. Leave them in ground year ’round unless your garden experiences hard freezes.

Among the easiest to multiply by dividing is the drought-tolerant Bearded Iris (Iridaceae). Every 3 or 4 years simply dig up the rhizomes, trim the leaves back to about 5 or 6 inches, then cut the rhizomes apart with a sharp, clean knife. Allow the rhizomes to dry for a couple of weeks, then shallowly replant in late September or October. Don’t wait until Spring.

lily of nile canna lilies
Canna Lilies and blue Lily-0f-the-Nile Agapanthus.

When you divide Canna Lilies (Canna indica) there’s no need to dry out the rhizomes for weeks before replanting, but do wait until it has stopped blooming and the leaves have died down before you dig it up. After you’ve cut the rhizomes into pieces each with a short length of stem attached, let them sit for one or two days. Once the raw cut side has scabbed over you can replant.

Daylilies (Homercallis) and  Agapanthus also lend themselves to being divided. Again, dig them up, divide the large root ball clumps and replant. No long drying out period is required. You should do this every 3 to 5 years to encourage these plants to keep blooming beautifully. After replanting be sure to water them frequently until they are established.

Cutting it up

Take cuttings of your favorite lavender and replant. Bees will thank you!

You can multiply many shrubby perennial herbs, like salvias, rosemary, thyme, lavender, marjoram and oregano simply by taking a 4 to 8 inch long cutting of a stem with two to four leaves attached, then putting that stem in a pot of natural soil from your garden or use commercial potting soil mix. I prefer to mix native soil with potting mix. Take the cutting from fresh new growth for best results and keep the soil damp until ready to transplant into your garden.

You can also take cuttings from your favorite Geranium (Pelargonium) and simply stick them into a pot of soil or potting mix. Keep the soil damp and — voila — you will have vigorous new geraniums in bloom next summer.

Garden Shows mean big savings on uncommon plants

Because people who belong to specialty flower clubs and garden clubs usually cultivate rare and uncommon varieties of plants, at their plant sales you are likely to find unusual hybrids and colors to add variety to your garden.

Check out nearby botanical gardens, too. They often have ongoing plant sales to help support their operations.

Because of Covid-19, however, this is not a good year to hold a neighborhood plant swap in your front yard or driveway. Garden club sales and Botanical Garden events may also be cancelled because of the pandemic.

Not So Perennial

santolina and petunias
The short-lived Santolina (Santolina incana)
with petunias in a flower border suitable for a
hot, dry climate.  The annual petunia will not
last long in hot summer weather.

Now many of these plants are ones we think of as “perennials”, but perennials are not really perennial. They don’t last forever. Over a period of 4 to 10 years you may have to replace every perennial in your garden so DIY frugal gardening can be a real budget saver.

Some perennials don’t even last that long. One of our favorite plants for a perennial flower border in a hot dry garden is the Santolina. I love its brilliant yellow ball-like flowers but it rarely lasts more than 2 or 3 years and then must be replaced to remain beautiful.

And Finally: A Wake Up Call

And remember, it’s best to plant in Fall when the average daily temperature falls below 90F (32C). After all, that’s when Mother Nature plants her seeds. And plants that survived this summer’s blistering heat and have been in summer dormancy are now waking up and they are hungry. Feed them well in the next few weeks so they will be strong and not need replacing next year.

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Saving a garden in relentless heat

As of today Tucson has suffered under daily high temperatures over 105F (44.5C) for 39 straight days. And the TV weather lady tells us these conditions will keep on going. No monsoon rain relief in sight in this part of the Sonoran desert. A friend in Las Vegas tells me it is as bad up there in the Mojave desert.

While this persistent heat is awful for humans, we can take shelter in air conditioning. Plants in the garden, however, cannot. So, what to do to help your plants survive this–or any other–extended period of heat?

The first thing that may come to mind is to increase watering the garden. Sadly, deep watering plants may or may not help. With day-after-day of temperatures of 90-100F+, some plants, particularly non-desert plants, cannot absorb water faster than it is evaporating through the plant’s leaves. Death by dehydration results.

Here, however, are 3 ways to help your plants survive until Fall.

Shade Cloth is a quick remedy

tucson tree under shade cloth
Photo Copyright by Tiffany Weerts 2020. An improvised shade cover in Tucson during a long hot spell.

Shade cloth is a fast solution for plants that appear to be suffering from heat exhaustion. You can buy it today, hang it up over vulnerable plants or borders in your garden and the protection starts immediately even if you have to just tack it up in a temporary make-shift way. Shade cloth comes in variety of weights and with UV protection.

Double pot to cool roots

For the plants that are in pots the heat and afternoon sunlight can be especially brutal. Placing pots where they will be in shade for most of the day is a recommended, but that may not be enough. Again, the problem is death by dehydration–water evaporating too rapidly through the leaves and from the potting soil. Compounding that problem is that terra cotta and metal pots heat up and can “cook” the roots.

Keeping potted plants in shade can help them survive, but double-potting increases the likelihood of the plants surviving summer heat.

However, one way to help your potted plants survive on the patio in summer is to set each pot in a second, larger container. Then put an insulating layer of dried moss or coarse organic mulch between the two pots. This will keep the inner pot cooler and protect plant roots from sizzling heat. You may want to try to keep the insulating layer damp–but beware of soaking it because the water could pool inside the outer pot and soak up into the inner one. You could end up drowning the plants from the bottom.

Consider using one of the newer plastic pots as your outer pot. They are far more attractive than they used to be and conduct far less heat than terra cotta pots. The insulation may also be helpful in winter, if you live in an area where it freezes in winter.

Controversial polymers

Polymers, those water-retaining gel crystals, are frequently used in flower pots to help cut down on watering and retain water in the soil for the plants’ use. This isn’t an instant solution, but polymers can help over a longer term–like all those hot days ahead of us here in the Sonoran and Mojave deserts.

Recently, however, we heard a gardener advocate using water-retaining polymers in flower beds and in the soil around trees.  It sounded like a good idea — particularly in a climate where water evaporates out of the soil so rapidly.

But a little online research revealed a preliminary study which indicates that polymers may break down in our native soils into chemical components which may not be all that good for plants and people. So while polymers may be a great solution for flowering ornamental plants in pots, stick with adding organic amendments, such as crushed pecan hulls or finely ground wood chips, to your garden’s natural soil to increase its water-retaining ability. Moreover, organic amendments add nutrients to the soil, which polymers don’t. If you would like to review the research yourself, to go Google and search for: “Polymers Gardening.”

And if the heat kills most of your plants–which is happening in many gardens here in Tucson now–you can replant in late September or early October.

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

What NOT to plant for fire season

I have always loved what I call the “Tucson Gardening Style“. No broad swathes of grassy lawn browning in the sunshine. No water-guzzling attempts at English flower garden borders limp in the heat. Just native plants left where they were growing before any house was built: prickly pear cacti squeezed side-by-side with creosote bushes and saguaros and agaves and chollas and mesquites. And most of the time these Sonoran desert natives grow right up to the side of the house.

But on June 5th, after the Bighorn wildfire burst into life north of Tucson, this native plant gardening style suddenly seemed less charming and more threatening.

At first the Bighorn fire was just billowing smoke high up in the Santa Catalina Mountains. By June 9 when I drove around northern Tucson to to take photos for another blog, I began to realize an inferno would result if this fire reached down into the upscale Catalina Foothills neighborhood which had only hours before been designated as a threatened evacuation zone.

As I took a few pictures I also realized that in California, where I used to live, the “Tucson Gardening Style” would bring the fire service knocking at the door armed with chain saws and big fines. The law in California is that there must be a 100 foot cleared open space around a home and it is aggressively enforced.

There is, however, such a live-and-let-live “Nobody’s going to tell me what to do” outlook by many Arizonans that it is unlikely that type of regulation would ever be passed here.

Okay, while I live in Arizona now I’m going to ignore local attitudes regarding plants because wildfires happen here and throughout the Western United States. Here are some recommendations about garden plantings to help prevent your home turning into an pile of burnt rubble from an urban or wild fire.

First, clear plants away from the sides of your home and other buildings. Don’t let any shrubs or trees touch or almost touch a building. If the plants catch fire — even if ignited by sparks from a neighbor’s BBQ instead of a wildfire–your home could burst into flames before you even notice it.

While many trees suitable for hot dry climates have oily leaves, the Australian-native Eucalyptus trees are among the worst. Sure, they smell so good, but they are 50 foot high torches just waiting for a little spark to light them. As much as they seem to be great trees for hot dry climates (fast growth, low water usage, lovely dappled shade), they are not. As witness: the massive fires racing through the Eucalyptus forests of Australia in recent years.

I have also seen palm trees burning as 50 foot high torches in Los Angeles during an urban fire, but while embers fell from the palms, they did not seems as potentially dangerous as a flaming eucalyptus with its branches whipping in the wind casting sparks all over the area.

For very a different reason don’t plant a Cottonwood, a major water-sucking plant. Again, it is a fast grower, but will guzzle every drop of water in the ground around it and deprive other plants of water, leaving them tinder-dry. Cottonwood roots will also invade your plumbing and septic systems.

One grass is on the Do Not Plant list:

Buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris L., or Pennisetum ciliare L.) is often called white fountain grass. An African native, it grows and blooms quickly, then dies back to leave dry, quick-burning fields waiting for a lightning strike to start burning. This grass, a threat to native plants including Arizona’s famous Saguaro cactus, has been mentioned as a key factor in the origin of the Bighorn fire. You can view a new webinar on the topic of buffelgrass damage to the Saguaro National Park .

Red Fountain grass does not spread wildly like White Fountain Grass. And it looks lovely when the wind blows.

Instead of Buffelgrass, consider Red fountain grass (Cordyline) which is less invasive and stays where it is planted. The much larger South American-native Pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana) will also stay where it is planted in a desert climate, but not if there is a pond or stream nearby. In that case it becomes invasive forcing out native plants.

Now onto something more positive. While the evidence is anecdotal, a few homeowners have sworn that their huge water-logged agaves saved their homes during a wildfire. I’ve seen the photos and the agaves encircling the homes look as if they have melted, but the houses were spared. It’s important to note that there was a cleared space between the house and the agaves and beyond the agaves, too.

As for planting any trees or agaves, wait until fall. It is too hot now and there is a great risk that anything you plant will die of heat at this time of year no matter how much you water it. Don’t let the landscape guy tell you otherwise!

The Bighorn fire is still burning on June 19th, but because of a wind shift, it is moving northeast, away from Tucson proper. A photo of it taken yesterday is at the top of this post. According to reports over 3,000 Saguaros have already been destroyed, but–happy news–most of the wild animals in the fire path, including baby mountain goats, have escaped. And there has been no loss of homes or human life so far.

Here is what happens to an SUV when the Forest Service makes a Phos-Chek drop. It’s that red stuff fixed wing airplanes drop on the edges of fires.

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Adios Lantana. Hello potatoes!

NOTE: this is somewhat apocalyptic, but there is a bit of humor at the bottom.

Until recently, prepping for the apocalypse seemed to be a fringe activity. It kept a few people busy stashing fairly expensive survival gear in their basement survival shelters. Some preppers even got reality TV contracts which probably helped pay for those high priced guns and goodies.

Since the arrival of the coronavirus, however, and especially since the shut-down of midwest meat packing plants, more and more people–me among them–are considering planting a “survival garden”. Prepping now seems a realistic activity as significant disruption of the food distribution channels suddenly is a real possibility. It’s a complicated issue but here is an article that explains how food disruption is already happening in the U.S. and around the world.

tomatoes on vine

Now I’ve never been a big supporter of homeowners trying to grow vegetables in a hot dry desert-like climate. It takes a lot of effort, water, raised beds, shade cloths, soil amendments or even the entire replacement of lousy alkaline desert soil to grow veggies in a hot dry garden.

Even with all that I’ve heard disappointing tale after disappointing tale from gardeners who tried to do it. The costs are very very high, especially when calculated at the total dollars spent to produce each tomato or cantaloupe or bunch of spinach.

I’ve always thought: it’s better to support organic farmers by buying their vegetables at the grocery store. As we all know it costs a great deal of money to grow organic vegetables which is why they are more expensive than regular store-bought veggies. Even then, vegetables and fruits from organic growers are less expensive than growing your own in your backyard.

I’m beginning to rethink this.

root vegetables

Here is what I am going to do: rather than going the big raised bed or full backyard garden routes, I decided to start small and checked on Amazon to find grow bags, especially potato grow bags. My reasoning is that people–think of the Irish back in the 1700s and 1800s–lived almost entirely on potatoes. Not a balanced diet, but nutritious enough to survive for awhile.

Other below-ground vegetables, including carrots, parsnips and onions, as well as herbs and even tomatoes can be raised in grow bags.

potatoes on soil dirt

Then today I learned this lesson: what grows reasonably well in one hot and dry location won’t live in another. Summer, I discovered, is not a good time for potatoes in Tucson. Sweet potatoes are a possibility, however. I’m going to have to do more research on what vegetables might grow in Tucson’s version of a hot, dry climate with its monsoons. Cantaloupes and squash are possibilities, I think. But when the weather cools I’m going to plant potatoes. Yukon Gold potatoes to be more specific.

Now I’m not advocating that you start a “survival garden”, but it seems to me to be worthwhile considering because now, more than ever in my lifetime, the future and the food supply seem very uncertain.

I’m not, however, going to remove the Lantana in my front garden and plant potatoes instead. Grow bags on my backyard patio are going to be my “survival garden”.

OK Here is a funny for you.

For art lovers: Tussen Kunst & Quarantaine (@tussenkunstenquarantaine) • Instagram photos and videos

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Is it an attractive weed, a native plant or tasty edible?

Rather than giving you gardening advice for March today I’m going to tell you about one plant, which turned out to be more interesting than expected.

Moving from one desert, the Mojave, to another, the Sonoran, has meant that I am learning to identify many new native plants, among them, the Common Mallow (Malva neglecta). The name “neglecta” is so apt because my neglect has resulted in massive growth of this plant in a narrow yard beside my house.

Surprise! Not a native

Yesterday afternoon, after I wrote the headline for this post and the paragraph above, I discovered that while this variety of Mallow is as common as dirt here in Southern Arizona it is not a native at all. Not even a native plant of the Western Hemisphere. It’s origins are in Egypt, probably in Nile marshes. That makes sense because the leaves are so large and dark green which is very untypical of desert plants, for example, the Desert Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua).

mallow plants growing wild

Since like most of you I am home all the time because of COVID-19, I tentatively planned to start removing at least some of this mallow mini-field.

But after learning more I’m not sure what to do about it. If anything.

How to eliminate weeds 3 ways–or not

Should I listen to the Round-up folks who claim to make it easy to exterminate with a quick spray? (We all know about Round-up so I won’t write more about this option.)

Or how about going extreme like some here in Arizona and blowtorch the weeds–uh…the mallow? You read that right: some gardeners here use flaming blowtorches on weeds because that will kill the seeds, too, even ones that are under a layer of gravel. No blowtorch among my garden tools, so that eliminates this one.

Then came the suggestion of a third way for weed elimination. A couple of gardeners recommended mixing 55% vinegar with water and a dash of liquid soap, then spraying it on the weeds. I am tempted to test this idea–someday when I feel I can risk using the vinegar in my emergency pantry for something other than salad dressing.

The next option is re-wilding

Inspired by a British gardening movement to let wild native plants thrive along roadsides and in city squares, should I simply let my Mallow continue to grow? In the U.K. a Back-to-Natives trend is growing (pun intended!) in an effort to support other native species, including bees, badgers and other wildlife. I wonder if here in Arizona, rattlesnakes and scorpions may find the mallow mini-field a friendly habitat.

Or should follow the advice of two forager friends who pick leaves of dandelions and mallows for their salads?

Behold the multi-use vegetable

mallow blossoms and seeds

They have assured me Mallow is edible, that its seeds tastes like its cousin, Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus).

“Use it in a salad or cook it to thicken soups like gumbo,” they tell me.

Then they go on to add: “It’s really high in Vitamins A, B, and C as well as calcium, magnesium and potassium. Like kale.”

Like kale?

No thanks. (And please don’t reply with a list of all the health benefits of kale. Broccoli, which I love, also is vitamin-packed.)

This morning I was informed by yet another Arizona gardener of one more use for Common Mallow’s big, soft leaves: as toilet paper! Eureka! That’s the solution to the hoarding problem. Plant Mallow now and have a lifetime supply of t.p.

And if the coronavirus situation and the hoarding get worse, maybe I’ll start picking the Mallow leaves and selling them on a street corner as a multi-purpose vegetable for kitchen and bathroom.
Respect the weeds. Stay safe. Happy Gardening.

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Composting is an unnatural act…

Well, composting is unnatural in a hot dry climate where plants produce small leaves with waxy or oily exteriors, where grassy lawns are few and far between and where the air is, more often than not, dry as a bone.

Those are things that are antithetical to the natural composting that occurs in cooler, more forested zones where big leaves and/or lots of pine needles, weekly grass clippings from the lawn, and damp air make composting a normal part of the environment and is fairly easy for a gardener to do.

So because it is not a natural function in a hot dry climate, I’ve never written about it.

During this last month, however, I received an question about it so if you want to start composting, even though you are living in a hot dry climate, here is some advice.

First: the good news about compost. Compost is food for the soil. It loosens the soil hardened by heat and dry air and makes it easier for plant roots to grow deep. It enriches the earth with long-lasting nutrients. Used as a mulch on flower beds it can be protective.

But compost should not be used in place of fertilizer. Its carbon to nitrogen ratio is too unstable, too unpredictable to count on as a fertilizer. In fact, if the compost process isn’t fully complete, the compost may suck nitrogen right out of your soil. Compost that is “complete” is crumbly, not smelly, dark brown or almost black and will, very gradually over years, release some nutrients to your plants and help balance the pH in your garden.

composting food waste

Now to get started the first thing you are going to need is a place or a container to hold the garden and kitchen waste you want to turn into compost.

From left: beginning, middle and done with composting!

When I had a compost heap in my Santa Barbara garden, it was just that, a heap of grass clippings and leaves in the far corner of my backyard that had been started by the previous owner. If I was doing it again, I would have either set up attractive wooden bins or put everything into metal canisters that could be turned. (Live and learn!)

Then begin by adding biodegradable stuff, such as grass clippings, leaves, coffee grounds, sawdust, faded flowers, dead annuals, and even newspapers torn up into little bits. You need a mix of one part green stuff to 3 parts brown stuff for the best composting process. For green stuff you add things like grass clippings; brown stuff are things like chopped straw or old dead dry leaves.

Next, toss in a shovel or two of your native soil to jump-start the process. NO need to buy compost bacteria or fungi starter. Your native soil has what you need.

And dampen the whole thing. Don’t soak it. Just keep it damp like a sponge that has been wrung out. This is especially important in our dry climates. You may have to dampen it daily…or more often. If possible, keep your compost in the shade so it won’t dry out as quickly.

Be sure to turn it regularly so the decomposing process continues on all materials, not just those on outside. When you turn it you may discover it is warm or hot in the center. The center of the compost bin may heat up to 130F, which should kill all the wild seeds that ended in it. If it becomes too hot, that is a sign of excess carbon and you should add more green stuff, like grass clippings or weeds you pulled from your garden.

raccoon by wall

Now about food waste. If you are composting in a container, especially a revolving one up off the ground, toss in all the food waste you have. BUT, if your compost “bin” is actually a compost heap you may find wild raccoons and other hungry animals visiting it. They love those old apple cores, orange peels, rotting pumpkins, bananas and other food leftovers.

Do NOT put meat or dairy in your compost pile. It will not decompose quickly, will smell hideous and may attract vermin or dangerous bacteria to your garden. Also avoid leaves of oleander, they are poisonous. And avoid adding eucalyptus and salt cedar leaves.

I strongly recommend acquiring some type of plastic or metal compost bin. Some cities offer residents free compost bins, so call your local government to see if you can get one or two for free. There are also several on Amazon that look good, including a pink compost bin. One even claims to be able to make compost in two weeks! That’s fast! Composting usually takes months. Happy composting!

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Ask Me Anything and tree planting deception

Sorry, but “Ask Me Anything” has been canceled because there have been too many trolls.

In my Hot Gardens newsletter in the winter of 2006 I suggested that my online gardening friends do just 2 things for the new year: 1) plant a tree and 2) change one lightbulb to LED.

Rio Grande Fax Tex Ash autumn
The large Fan Tex Ash tree thrives i hot dry climates and has gorgeous golden leaves in Fall.

Asking people to change light bulbs seems terribly out of date now–everyone has already done it.
But planting a tree in your own garden is as smart and timely now as it was then. Especially since many ads about tree planting around the world and the U.S. are, as I have recently learned, somewhat misleading.

Deceptive ads about tree planting

We’ve all seen the ads telling us that Nepal or Ethiopia or some other country or a mega-international company has planted millions of trees.

And those claims of tree-planting are true and so inspirational!

But the ads tell only part of the story. As it turns out, some uncounted number of these millions of trees are being planted in ‘tree plantations’ and will be harvested in 10 to 20 years.

In a tree plantation there is no attempt to restore a natural forest which is more complicated than just sticking little trees in the ground lined up in neat rows. Trees in a plantation create a monoculture, rather than a diversified ecosystem. Each tree is like the next one all spaced for optimum growth with no smaller trees or shrubs in between. That means in 10 to 20 years when these more mature trees are cut down and hauled away the benefits of the trees will revert back to zero. Tree plantations are a short-term fix to a long term problem of rapidly increasing carbon dioxide in the air and climate change.

Crape myrtle Lagerstroemia indica hot pink
When most other plants are wearing summer green, the Crape myrtle bursts into colorful bloom. In dry climates it is a relatively small tree.

So I urge you to plant a tree or a few trees or long-lived shrubs in your garden in 2020. Become part of a long-term solution.

Happy gardening in 2020!

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Light and shine for your holiday garden

luminaria

Even if you decide not to deck out your home with strings of lights and other festive decorations this year, consider using luminaria on your porch, in windows or along a walkway during the holidays. To my eyes, homes with luminarias are so much more attractive than ones with dancing elves and soaring Santas. (Although children love the elf-and-santa version of decorations!)

Many garden stores now have ceramic or metal luminarias but they are easy to make at home:

1) fold down the tops of brown paper lunch bags you can buy at the grocery store as if making a cuff and
2) fill in the bottom of the now-shorter bag with a handful of sand or garden soil to anchor it, then
3) set a tea-light in the bottom center of your handmade luminaria and
4) light the tea-light. Voila–you’re done!

Garden Gifts

If you have a gardening friend and are looking around for a holiday gift idea, consider giving them a garden ornament. These three are definitely for the friend who has everything. The two glass ornaments are in the garden behind the Sonoran Glass School in Tucson and are available for sale. The desert tortoise is not for sale and permanently at home in the Arlington Garden in Pasadena.

turtle garden ornament

But these three can be inspiration. If you like the idea of glass in the garden but would like something more affordable, consider buying a tempered glass wind chime at your local holiday faire. And almost every good garden shop has animal ornaments for reasonable prices.

Winter Flower Blooms Again

amaryllis bloom

Looking ahead: when the amaryllis blooming in your home during the holiday season fades, plant the bulb outside in a very sheltered place and in about 14-16 months, the amaryllis will bloom again…and every year after that. I had one in my Mojave garden that bloomed and produced offset bulbs for over a decade! The offset bulbs, which I separated from the original bulb and replanted, in turn bloomed in Springtime, too. It was definitely a gift that kept on giving! Happy holidays to you!

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  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Look to South Africa for unusual off-season flowers

Our mild Autumn weather is almost a second Springtime, especially for gardeners who live at lower elevations in the desert with warm winters.  Plant pretty annuals like carpets in empty flower beds to replace any perennials that have died back. Take care not to disturb the roots of the perennials because they will be back next year.

Or fill pots on your patio to overflowing. At higher, cold-winter elevations it may be too late as the first winter storms have blanketed mountains with snow.

Should you dig up the flower bulbs?

While some people, particularly in the U.K. and New England, dig up their bulbs in Fall, in most of the U.S. southwest it is not necessary. But if you want to add flowers from bulbs, rhizomes and corms to your garden, now is the time to plant to assure yourself of Springtime flowers.

purple and white iris

Freesia and Iris are two of our favorites. Both require little water and no attention. The exception, however, are those re-blooming iris that flower in spring and fall which need heavy watering.

The incredibly fragrant Freesia dies back to the ground after blooming; the Iris keeps its leaves and provides an upright structural element in a garden border.

If you already have Iris, split and replant the rhizomes now for double the flowers next year. Do not plant them deep. Simply place them in a shallow trench and cover lightly–deep enough to protect from a freeze if you live in an area with occasional light freezes in winter.

About tulips: yes, you can plant the bulbs, but they really love a damper, milder climate — like the Netherlands or Seattle.

Flowers from South Africa

Gladiolus dalenii

You may be much better off planting bulbs native to South Africa, such as the freesia-like Tritonia or the Watsonia borbonica, which looks like a miniature gladiolus. The low-growing Babiana is a Sub-Sahara native also worth considering as an edging plant. It looks somewhat like a crocus and does well in a desert garden.

The Gladiolus (Gladiolus dalenii), above, a South African native, is a delicate variation on the large, sturdy upright “glads” of late summer. These bloom in Spring.

Salvia leucantha sage

One plant that is a joy for so many gardeners in California and the Southwest is the Mexican Bush Sage, Salvia leucantha ‘Midnight’ that blooms twice a year. Unlike re-blooming Iris, the Mexican Bush Sage is not a water guzzler. It naturally blooms in Spring and late Fall.  It is a super-tough plant with tall spires of purple or purple and white flowers that stay in bloom through December! One year I even clipped the flower stems and used them to decorate my Christmas tree. Tip: Cut it back to about 8 inches high in January and it will re-grow and bloom again in March.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Free seeds thanks to Libraries, Yahoo and Google

Back before the Yahoo search engine, and later Google and Amazon, came along, libraries kept large wooden cases called card catalogs listing each book they owned on a small piece of paper filed alphabetically. These catalogs were good for finding books if you knew the book name. As for discovering new books on the same or related topics-well, digital search engines beat the old card catalogs hands down.

So libraries joined the search engine world and card catalogs joined buggy whips as obsolete curiosities.

But what to do with these large heavy wood cases?

seeds in card catalog at Tucson Library

Check out locally grown seeds

In Tucson, the library system decided to turn the card catalogs in three of their libraries into “seed catalogs”, of a sort. But no need to open your wallet to purchase the seeds–it’s like checking out a book. Library patrons can check out seeds–mostly vegetable and herb seeds–for free. Most of the seeds appeared to be “home-gathered” and packed by hand which means they came from plants that had actually been grown in a hot, dry garden. That, in turn, means the plants grown from the seeds are more likely to survive our harsh conditions.

Look through here to see a few of the seeds available:

When I asked the librarian about checking out seeds she told me that there was no requirement to “return” or replace the seeds, although they would appreciate it.

I think this is a brilliant idea and one that should be copied by every library in the country. After all, every one of them probably has a big card catalog if they haven’t already disposed of it. And I’m sure the idea would be supported by garden clubs and gardening enthusiasts across the nation.

Coming soon: frugal gardening

There are, of course, other ways to obtain seeds and starter plants for free or very little. I will be writing about them in my next post because frugal gardening has turned out to be a very hot topic! Stay tuned…but meanwhile mention the card-catalog-turned-seed-catalog to your local librarian.

We're Savings Seeds sign Tucson Public Library

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat