Green and black Aeoniums and orange Firestick Euphorbias seem to be closing in on the Agave for the title of the most popular drought tolerant plants used in desert landscapes or for lawn replacement. They are showing up everywhere, it seems, from small front garden plots to street side plantings to pots on patios. So this post was originally going to be about some attractive plantings of these succulents that I have seen recently.
But as I did more research, I learned that, as beautiful as they are, some can pose a real danger to pets…and potentially to people. Some are quite toxic.
Firestick succulents (Euphorbia tiruccailli ) are used as a hedge outside a restaurant in Pasadena California. You can trim them to keep the plant smaller, but be sure to wear gloves and even goggles: the white sap is toxic.Place cuttings into a plastic bag that you can tie up tight so pets will not be exposed to the sap.
In Pasadena’s Arlington Garden Firestick euphorbias have been left untrimmed for over a decadeand are now approaching 25 feet in height. The cactus in the center has also become a tall, beautiful focal plant.
The mix of plants in this curbside border–aeoniums, daisies and a firestick succulent–looks great now, but the firestick will grow up to 30 feet tall if left untrimmed. As with all flower/plant borders, it is important to think ahead as to how large each plant will become at maturity. Or be willing to prune some big plants and replace others to maintain the appearance. In this group, the daisy plant will die long before the succulents do.
A mix of succulents in a curbside planting demonstrates the variety of color these tough plants can provide. Lurking in the middle, however, is a potential giant: the Firestick euphorbia! But its orange color is a nice complement to the blue-ish Secenio Talindoides, the green Aeonium, and the brown-ish Kalanchoe.
I love how the color of the bell-like Kalanchoe blooms coordinate with the glass ball on the top of this ornamental garden statue! You may be more familiar with one variety of the Kalanchoe known as the “flapjack” plant. It has large pink and green leaves.The blossoms appear to be sprouting up from the bright green Aeoniums, but actually are from the pink-ish Kalanchoes on the left.
If you had planted “Wonderful” pomegranate shrubs last Spring, and did not harvest the fruit this Fall, you would have plants in your garden that appear to have big, brilliant red Christmas tree ornaments on them. Of course, the leaves on your pom shrubs would have turned a glorious gold then fallen, so your red “ornaments” would be on bare branches now.
Mother Nature’s holiday ornament!
If you are thinking of adding a pomegranates to your garden in Spring, you will be happy to know they are very drought tolerant, as you can read here. The name “Wonderful” designates one of the best varieties of pomegranates for private gardens.
If you are reading this post in Australia or elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, pomegranates bear fruit from March to May, rather than from September to February as they do in the U.S. Southwest.
Among the other plants that will give you green and red during the holiday is the very drought tolerant Heavenly Bamboo, (Nandina domestica), which has bright red berries, reddish leaves and is not a bamboo at all. I am not a big fan of the shape of this plant; it looks too much like a cluster of sticks to my eye…but nonetheless I do love the winter color and the fact that it will survive with considerable neglect.
This Heavenly Bamboo (Nandina domestica) is beginning to change from summer green to winter red.
Surviving considerable neglect is also a prime characteristic of the sturdy bottle brush, another plant that I do not care for–well, I don’t like the big tall ones with red blooms that are used as center barriers along freeways in California.
Dwarf bottle brush “Little John” as a low hedge beside ice plant in a very drought tolerant planting in Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles.
BUT I really love the dwarf bottle brush variety Callistemon ‘Little John’ which is very suitable for home gardens. Instead of primary colors of plain red and plain green, this low-growing shrub has a blueish-grey cast to the leaves and a burgundy color flower.
This drought-tolerant, dwarf Callistemon “‘Little John’ grows slowly, rarely needs any pruning and is colorful in Fall and winter.
Now there is one other color for the holiday season and that is white, as in white Amaryllis, the ones that you force for winter. They are big and bold and can be transplanted into a sheltered corner of your hot, dry garden to bloom again year after year. I did exactly that in Las Vegas, but the next bloom came over a year later near Easter, rather than Christmas. Since then it has bloomed regularly in the Spring.
And be sure to put luminarias out for the holidays to line your patio or walkway. The old-fashioned way to do them is put tea lights inside paper bags. On Amazon the manufacturers state that the bags are fire resistant. If you can find them I’d recommend terra cota luminarias, some of which are battery powered, and you can use them year after year.
Finally…I am moving after the first of the year so I will be publishing this blog only on an irregular basis until I am settled into my new home. Happy New Year to you!
How I love the ruffled beauty of iris and when I discovered, after moving to the desert, that iris are tougher than their delicate flowers look I became an even bigger fan of these spring-bloomers. They need only a little water and after the flowers have faded the iris leaves create an attractive upright element in a garden border.
Some people make the mistake a cutting the leaves back right after the flowers fade. True Confession: I don’t cut my iris back annually–only when I want to divide and replant them every few years. If you intend to transplant your iris, cut the leaves at an angle and 4 inches high before lifting them from the soil. Let the rhizomes dry out for a few days before replanting.
The best time to plant iris is now so you will have flowers in spring. Unlike daffodils, lilies, crocus or other plants with bulbs which should be planted deep, iris have rhizomes (thick bulbus roots) which should be planted flat and shallowly in an area that receives at least 6 hours of sun a day. Just put a thin layer of soil over the rhizomes–not a thick layer of mulch. It is important that the soil drains well; iris rhizomes can rot with too much water. And using high nitrogen fertilizer is a no-no for iris.
Oh, one other thing: there are iris that bloom both in Spring and Fall. When I first learned about them I was thrilled with the prospect of iris twice a year. It turns out, however, they’re really not suitable for arid gardens because they require a great deal of watering.
While I mentioned daffodils and lilies, etc. most of them will not survive in an arid garden. One friend is Tucson, however, planted Paperwhite Narcissus in a very sheltered corner of her garden and they have survived and bloomed again and again.
Many gardeners in arid climates have success with South African plants that grow from bulbs like this Gladiolus Dalenii. This gladiolus does not have the big, flashy blooms we often associate with “glads”, but it will survive in an arid garden. For other South African plants suitable for hot, dry gardens, take a look at the Pacific Horticulture Society website.
Mesquites seem to have become the Street Tree of choice in some cities in the arid Southwest. Cities can line the streets with allées of Honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) or Velvet Mesquite (Prosopis velutina) knowing full well that maintenance is not going to break the city budget. As natives these trees thrive in harsh, dry climates with almost zero upkeep. And Fall is the best time to plant them.
The Mesquite is for all practical purposes a plant-it-and-forget-it tree, but the shade it provides allows other plants thrive.
When you plant keep in mind that irrigating and fertilizing a mesquite is a mistake and planting one in a lawn that is regularly watered can be a disaster: the roots will be shallow, the tree will become top-heavy and topple over in the Spring and Fall windstorms.
A third native mesquite, the Screwbean (Prosopis pubescens) is more of a tall, thorny shrub and is best planted in an out of the way place. One Screwbean mesquite I saw not long ago was tucked back in a no-irrigation zone of alarge Las Vegas garden where it and a nearby Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) were surrounded by a protective circle of agaves. A good choice of companion plants!
A Desert Willow and a Screwbean Mesquite make good companions to these agaves.
In addition to these three, other mesquites from Chile and Argentina have been introduced into the Southwest and have cross-bred like crazy with the locals. And thorns have turned up unexpectedly on supposedly thornless mesquites.
The problem with these fast growing, very drought tolerant trees is that they don’t give us colorful blooms in our gardens. Yes, yes — I know they “bloom”–after all, that’s where Trader Joe’s Mesquite Honey comes from–but the blooms are very subtle. Bees may notice them, but the average person driving along the street won’t.
So here are a few recommendations of trees to plant this fall that will produce colorful blooms in summer.
The first two I have already written about but are worth mentioning again.
This Chitalpa tree was planted as a “whip” about 4 years prior to this photograph being taken.
The Chitalpa tree (Chitalpa x tashkentensis) was especially developed for low water usage gardens — by Russian scientists, no less. The “tashkent” in its name is the capitol city of Uzbekistan formerly part of the old Soviet Union where the scientists worked. Why those scientists spent time developing a ornamental garden tree–rather than a practical fruit or nut tree–I will never figure out. But I thank them.
Anyway…it is definitely a favorite because it blooms in pink, or white, or lavender for months on end in summer. It needs some watering, grows 2 or 3 feet a year and reaches a height of 25 feet tall. Bonus: hummingbirds love it.
In addition to pink and hot pink, one Crepe Myrtle has showy white flowers in summer.
The Crepe Myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) can be a glorious blast of color in the summer, although be aware that it does need watering to do its best. A row of them behind our local library did not get irrigated this summer and failed to put on the usual bright show of flowers.
By nature the Crepe Myrtle is a shrub although some plant growers train them to be a small tree or standard. It tolerates neutral to slightly alkaline soil so be sure to add mulch around it at least once a year.
The Gold Medallion tree (Cassia leptophylla) is a Brazilian native that is now being planted in drought tolerant landscapes in the Southwest after being introduced to the U.S. by the Los Angeles Arboretum in 1958.
This young Gold Medallion tree will easily grow to twice this height.
It flowers with huge basketball size clusters of yellow flowers at the ends of branches and the hotter the weather the more the blooms.
Happily, it also tolerates mildly cold weather down to 25° F for a short time. The City of San Francisco, of all places, is using it as a street tree and it is chilly there, for sure! The Gold Medallion tree needs soil that drains well and do not over-irrigate. It’s seeds are poisonous.
Now about Oleander…Yes, it blooms in summer, is drought tolerant, and grows fast. And every bit of the plant is poisonous–leaves, branches, flowers–everything. Seriously, it can kill people.
CLIMATE CHANGE In the last few days many of us in the Southwest were blessed with rain. It soaked into the earth in some places and in other areas created flash floods. This rainfall came from the remains of Hurricane Sergio. As the Pacific ocean warms up along the California coast, we can expect more after-effects from hurricanes and, before long, full-fledged hurricanes actually blowing into Southern California and eastward. This year the water temperature off So. Cal. was 78° F. That’s 10° above the historic normal. The weather folks tell us hurricanes need 80° F water temperature for energy–and that’s only 2 degrees away. I look at the photos of the destruction caused by Hurricane Michael in Florida and hope we do not have to experience that here.
Mother Nature plants in the Fall and so should you. Instead, however, of simply deciding which trees, shrubs or perennials to add to your arid garden this Fall, you may be looking at which plants you need to replace. The record-breaking heat in the Southwest and California (and Australia!) this last summer baked the leaves on many plants and turned them brown overnight. On others the leaves simply fell off the branches. The plants appeared dead.
After looking as if nearly dead, the cooler weather has brought new growth to this white azalea which thrived for years in a micro-climate backed up against a wall in almost total shade.
But don’t yank these sunburned plants out of your garden yet, especially now that the rains have come. Wait two or three weeks. The roots of dead-looking plants may have survived the heat and be ready to regrow.
If, however, you decide to replace some plants, consider the suitability of the ones you choose for replacements. The heat this last summer will probably be back next year and for many summers to come. You may want to select more desert-like plants or take steps now to create micro-climates for parts of your garden that suffered most from the heat by adding shade-producing and heat-reducing plants. And, unlike the Beanstalk of Jack-and-the-Beanstalk fame, the plants to create micro-climates don’t grow sky high overnight. Planting them this Fall–rather than waiting until Spring–will give them a head start on growth over the winter.
Plant now to create micro-climates in your garden
For starters you can help cool off your entire garden by planting a fast-growing hedge in front of a hot wall. This can be effective with both cement block walls around your property and the stucco walls of your home. The shrubs’ leaves will block the sun from heating up the wall during the day so there will not be as much drying heat to be released after dark. Overall your garden will feel cooler and a bit less dry. And a cooler, slightly damper garden is better for all plants — and people.
Two drastically different hedge plants that grow fast are Pampas Grass (Cortaderia selloana) and Japanese privet (Ligustrum japonicum).
Behind this Pampas grass is a dull gray block wall. In one year it was covered up.
Pampas grass is close to being a Jack-and-the-Beanstalk plant. It will shoot up to as tall as 20 feet in one year, and should be cut back to 18 inches high in mid-winter. But be aware: its blades have rough edges that can cut skin so wear gloves when cutting it back. And it may be very difficult to remove if you change your mind later. It is definitely a statement plant.
In Springtime the Japanese Privet hedge bursts into bloom.
The Japanese privet is more ordinary looking–just a basic green hedge. It grows about two feet a year, however, and is quite drought tolerant. Poor soil conditions do not seem to bother it either. In Spring it is covered with white flowers that look almost like lilac blooms, but don’t smell nearly as nice as lilacs. You can see these and other shrubs for hedges in arid gardens here.
Planting a tree for more shade is another way to create a micro-climate to help other plants in your garden survive in hot weather.
One rapid growing tree that is suitable for arid gardens is the Chitalpa (Chitalpa tashkentensis) which will grow about 3 feet a year to a maximum height of 25 feet. It is a hybrid of the Desert Willow and the Catalpa tree that was created specifically to thrive in hot, dry climates. While it likes balanced soil, slightly alkaline conditions will not impair its growth. I especially like it because it has long-lasting, pretty pink-white blossoms, an open branch structure and provides dappled shade, rather than dark shade. You can see othertrees for hot, dry gardens here.
The right way to plant a tree or shrub
The hole for planting should be 2 1/2 times as wide as the root ball, but do not make it deeper than the root ball. The crown (the part where the roots meet the trunk or main stem) should be at or slightly above ground level–not submerged in the hole. Be sure to add a lot of rich organic mulch into and around the hole you dig for a new tree or shrub to provide nutrients for growth, especially root growth during winter. Really soak the soil with water around the planting hole and, once planted, water the tree regularly until the plant is established.
Now here is one last recommendation for coping with our hotter, drier summers and the damage of relentless heat. In my last post I wrote about applying organic mulch around plants, trees, and in flower beds to help supply nutrition. Another benefit of mulching is that mulch provides an insulating layer to protect the roots from scorching summer heat and winter cold. That’s right — winter cold and its potentially damaging effect on plants is right ahead of us now. More about this in an upcoming post.
It is planting and mulching season both north and south of the Equator. Our friends in Australia and South Africa are heading into warmer weather and Spring gardening.
Just the right sign for this time of year!
Meanwhile those of us in the arid U.S. Southwest are preparing our gardens for Fall and Winter now that the daytime air temperatures have cooled down. And in both parts of the globe, plants are waking up from a months-long dormancy and they are hungry!
Of course, you could just toss some fertilizer here and there around your garden and call that “Plant Breakfast”. That, however is the equivalent of giving your children spoonfuls of sugar for breakfast.
Instead, to give your plants the long-lasting, healthy nutrition they need for strong growth and good root development here is what to do:
This sturdy tool can loosen the soil in a garden that has dried out and hardened over summer.
Loosen the soil around shrubs and trees–but do it very carefully. You do not want to damage the plant roots. I saw this handy tool for loosening soil at Orchard Supply (which is going out of business.) It looks as if it breaks up the earth much deeper than one of those rolling garden gadgets. And the deeper the soil is opened up the deeper the irrigation water and nutrients will go.
As you do this, you may want to add in garden topsoil to the native soil in your planting beds–mixing it all together. Read the label to see if the “Top Soil” has been enriched with fertilizer.
The best soil additive for trees is not the same formula as the best for grasses.
Check with the best independently owned plant nursery in your area for the fertilizer that is right for soil conditions in your area and the kinds of plants you have in your garden. Usually the people at independent nurseries are more knowledgeable about local soil problems than folks at the big box garden centers.
You may even want to test your soil with an inexpensive pH testing kit which you can buy online or at a local garden center before you decide which type of fertilizer or other soil additive is best for your garden.
For whatever it is worth I have been hearing very good things about aged manures and even fish manures. I can’t guarantee that they are better than other types of fertilizers, however, and they may be more expensive. Manures can also be filled with weed seeds unless they have been sterilized.
Be sure the additives that go in your garden are organic. Avoid man-made chemicals if at all possible.
Okay. You have done the best you can to get the soil prepped so the next step is to add heaps of organic mulch. Some bagged mulch has the fine texture of good garden soil and will mix in nicely. Other mulch, like wood chips, is coarser.
If your budget allows it, I would suggest that you use both with the coarse mulch on top to protect the fine mulch and/or soil beneath from blowing away in the Fall winds. The coarse mulch releases its nutrients much more slowly providing food for your plants for a longer period of time. The fine mulch often has extra fertilizer in it to give plants a quick boost. Be careful that you don’t end up with too much fertilizer that would force plants to grow and bloom when they ordinarily would not want to. During winter time, plant growth should be in the roots to get ready for an above-ground growth spurt in Spring.
Mother Nature plants in Fall and so should you, so I will write about best practices for Fall planting in the next post.
Out front of our local Orchard Supply was this pink BBQ pig. Love it!
Full Disclosure: I went to Orchard Supply to take photos of bags of garden mulch and ended up taking all the photos in this post at the store. “Thank You, OSH!” They are going out of business and there are good bargains.
CLIMATE CHANGE. One reason there have rarely been hurricanes as far north as Southern California is because of the cooler ocean current off the California coast. Hurricanes need ocean water with a temperature of 80°+ to keep their power.
Clouds began to drift over So. California this morning as Hurricane Rosa drew closer. It is not going to be a direct hit but we seem to be at the far Western edge of it. It’s very humid, too.
Well, the ocean temperature off the So. California coast was 78° a month ago–ten degrees above normal–which appears to be warm enough. Hurricane Rosa is on her way across upper Baja, then onto Yuma AZ and points north and will be bringing flooding monsoon-type rains to the Los Angeles and Las Vegas areas. While rain is desirable for all of us, downpours can be dangerous. Read more about saving rain in your garden.
Front yards don’t look the way they used to. For generations, the American standard from coast to coast has been green grass as a carpet in the front of the house. Mowed once a week. It was all very orderly and not many decisions were involved. The homeowner’s “garden personality” was expressed in the choice of shrubs or flowers chosen to line the edges of that green carpet like a fringe. Lawn replacement didn’t even enter people’s minds.
(NOTE: It is still too hot to plant in most of the Southwest, so I am writing about Lawn Replacement again! Wait until the temperature drops below 90 degree F before beginning Fall planting.)
Now as homeowners in the West under the pressures of drought and climate change rush to remove these conventional front lawns no clear single standard for replacement exists. What many homeowners know is that the grass in front of their house is “bad” and needs to go. The Water Department said so. And even offered to pay part of the replacement costs.
Homeowners are facing new lawn decisions
Gold Lantana is one tough ground cover that thrives with very little water and a lot of neglect. Too much fertilizer will make it bloom less. It comes in a variety of colors ranging from white to blue to pink to orange. The white and blue do NOT do well as lawn replacement.
“Agaves? Aloes? Aeoniums? Or maybe a single color field of gold Lantana? Yeah. That sounds good. Just one type of plant and one color. Oh–but will that be too much gold? Would pink Lantana be better? Or maybe native plants? Or maybe… [pause] Or maybe I’ll just hire someone to do it for me.”
While homeowners may be overwhelmed by these decisions, many of the landscapers installing these new front yards are not. Agaves seem to be becoming the basic plant around which low water usage gardens are being created.
Now I have nothing against agaves. Without them we wouldn’t have Margaritas. And long-nosed bats would simply be another vanishing species if agaves disappeared.
Moreover, these plants are practically indestructible with a lifespan of several decades. (Yes, I know they are called “century plants”, but they really do not live for a 100 years.) Professional landscapers love plants that they can stick in the ground and then count on to remain alive long after they have left the scene. They do not want to hear complaints about plants dying on previous jobsites.
So agaves it is.
But these plants need visual softening, some other plants to add visual variety. Even the plant-and-go landscapers recognize that but rarely do ornamental grasses become their first choice as “other plants”.
The lawn by this row of Pampas grass has since been removed. Behind it is a dull gray block wall. In winter cut the Pampas grass back to 18 inches in height.
I wish they would. From a 15 foot tall Pampas Grass (Cortaderia selloana)to line an unpainted block wall to 6 inch tall Mondo grass or Lilyturf (Liriope muscari) to cover a gentle slope in green, ornamental grasses are interesting and beautiful additions to a drought-tolerant garden.
A Large Agave surrounded by grass and rocks This mix of Blue Fescue (Festuca), Deer Grass (Mulhenbergia rigens) and Agaves along a simulated creek bed filled with rocks is a classic image of lawn replacement using drought tolerant grasses. It takes an artistic hand to site these plants in a way that looks good. It also takes money. Creating artificial streams can be very expensive.
Grasses to line a garden path
Far less expensive is Red Fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’) planted along a sidewalk. It becomes a colorful addition to a drought-tolerant garden. It is especially attractive in Autumn when it blooms and dances in the wind. The nearby Agave is good for structure, but not for gracefulness.
Next are a pair of photos showing before and after Mexican Feather grass (Nassella tenuissima) was added to a garden of Agaves and Aeoniums. Sadly, the “Before” photo with chopped off Feather grass in a distant corner was actually taken in September of 2018. The “After” was taken in 2016. Why the homeowner decided to whack off the Feather Grass before he put the house up for sale is beyond me.
Before: A garden of Agave and Aeoniums
With no Mexican Feather grass this front garden simply becomes a mass of plants with thick leaves in basically the same color.
After: Adding Mexican Feather Grass to the Agave garden
I’ll start with the confession: I sometimes take “drives” around cities and towns on Google, using Google’s street view. It gives me a chance to look at how people garden in places I may not have visited. I also look for examples of lawn replacements where green grass in front yards has obviously been removed and drought tolerant plants installed instead.
Most recently I “drove” around Tucson, Arizona and El Paso, Texas and, instead of lawn replacements or dry, sun-baked lawns, I saw a lot of non-gardens in front of homes. What I consider non-gardens are front yards with a random bush or two here or there, nothing seemingly planned or cared for. These spaces may have rock mulch, but as often as not, they don’t. And they are not native plant gardens either. Lawn replacement wasn’t even an issue in those places.
Both cities have low annual rainfall –10 inches for El Paso, 12 inches for Tucson–which puts them both clearly into a desert climate category with most of the rain coming during the summer monsoon.
With a little planning, however, non-gardens can be transformed into attractive spaces that will please the eye and increase property values.
Full disclosure: These examples below are lawn replacements. Instead of starting with non-gardens these homeowners removed thirsty front lawns temporarily creating “non-gardens”.
Here are two examples I particularly like. Neither require much maintenance at all after they are established. (And for 4 more landscaping ideas for hot gardens, go here.)
Lawn Replacement garden #1
These homeowners stripped out the grass and planted a border of non-thirsty desert plants in a curving shape around a plot that looks like bare earth but is in fact decomposed granite. The decomposed granite protects the underlying soil from erosion during heavy rains and is excellent for weed control.
The low-growing Lantana (Lantana montevidensis) comes in many colors these days.
Among the plants in this border near the house are several varieties of Agaves plus Lantana with orange blooms. Lantana flowers for months on end and needs very little water. The Agaves can survive with almost total neglect.
In the foreground are Aloe, iceplants (Delosperma) and a lone clump of Mexican feather grass (Nassella tenuissima) in bare soil that once had wood mulch on it. The bare soil looks washed out and uneven in contrast to the decomposed granite surface.
Lawn replacement garden #2
This second garden is also drought tolerant, although it definitely needs more watering than the one above.
This garden is new within the last 3 years. Wisely, the ground is covered with organic mulch.
Despite the fact that many of the plants are desert natives, they give the impression of being abundant in an almost “English garden” style with mounds of green plants with leaves of contrasting colors and shapes. Because this photo was taken in late summer only a few blooms are left on plants. Among the plants are the almost leafless Palo verde trees (Parkinsonia x), deer grass (Muhlenbergia rigens), and the Mexican Bird of Paradise (Caesalpinia mexicana) with its long-lasting orange blooms.
The garden design also includes berms, shallow “hills” created artificially, to give more privacy to the home. One good thing about creating berms is that in the process of building up the pile of earth you can add nutrients all the way through to the old bare earth below. These berms are covered with wood mulch to provide both cover for the bare soil and food for the plants. The homeowners have chosen a light color decomposed granite for the paths. It also comes in a variety of other colors.
Here is a second view of the home. I’m not sure what the plant in the front by the rock is, but it looks as if it is failing.
In a recent post I whined a little bit about not being able to grow leafy green vegetables or tomatoes in a hot dry garden. I even gave examples of a couple of failures and recommended focusing more on the fruit trees that thrive in desert-like climates.
Well, this post is about Success with Potatoes.
This potato plant is a year and a half old and still producing potatoes regularly, even though insects have found the leaves to be tasty.
And for evidence I offer my niece’s pot garden. She and her husband — actually he is the one who does most of the gardening–planted potatoes in a 8 gallon pink plastic pot a year and a half ago at the suggestion of an English friend. Much to their surprise, it has been producing potatoes for them continuously. They have never pulled the plant up; the potatoes seem to rise to the surface where they harvest them.
During this time the potato plant grew big and healthy in its pot in a semi-shady location. Then under the scorching 110+ degree (F) (43 Celcius) heat earlier this year, the plant faded back only to revive when the heat cooled back down into the 90s. Of course, it was tucked back into full shade when the weather really heated up. And they have 2 water monitors in the shape of butterflies in the pot. I suggested they might want to double pot to help control water evaporation.
In addition to the potato plant they grow peppers. The red leafed plant at the lower left is a seasonal addition to the patio. It will not survive hot weather.
When I wrote about thegreen vegetable failuresI mentioned that hydroponic systems were so expensive that they seemed impractical for growing vegetables in desert-like conditions. But for potatoes and other root vegetables, like carrots, there are some very affordable systems, among them a grow bagI found on Amazon. Some have little doors near the bottom to allow you to harvest the potatoes while leaving the plant undisturbed. That seems to confirm my niece’s experience of the perpetually producing potato plant.
So here’s to potato salad year ’round from your shady patio garden!
BLUE UPDATE In the previous post about the blue bottle garden I asked readers what they thought about the garden. The responses were not positive which was my initial reaction, too. But different people have differing ideas of beauty. I will post some more attractive lawn replacement gardens soon.
It is a subtle change but one day you notice that the leaves on one of your shrubs (or maybe a tree) are turning yellowish and as far as you know yellow leaves are not natural to this plant–even in Fall. You look closer and see that the veins in the leaves are still green as you can see in this photo.
Well, what you are looking at is chlorosis, a kind of iron-deficiency in plants that inhibits the development of chlorophyll, the stuff that makes green plants green and keeps them alive and growing. It is most common in plants grown in alkaline soils with high pH.
The problem begins in the dirt, the soil in your garden. Even in hot dry desert-like gardens there is ample iron in the soil, but unfortunately plants can’t access it. The technical causes for the iron/soil problems read like a chemistry textbook so I will skip it, but advise you to take steps to reverse the condition before it gets worse. After all, you don’t want to lose an expensive plant or tree, especially to a plant problem that is curable.
What you need to do at this time of year is apply a foliar spray of iron chelate (pronounced “key-late”) to the leaves of your plant. It is available online and probably at a local big box gardening or hardware store for less than $15. It may take repeated applications of the spray to green up your shrub again.
But even a foliar spray is a temporary solution, effective for two or three months.
The next steps are to
Test the pH of the soil around the plant with chlorosis using an inexpensive pH testing kit which you can easily find online. You may want to test other parts of your garden too. (In fact, you may want to check the pH every year!)
Add chelated-iron fertilizer to the soil around the plant or tree IN SPRINGTIME(not Fall). This is a longer term solution than the foliar leaf spray.
Dig in extra amounts of organic materials in the Fall and the Spring to balance the soil in your plant beds to a neutral 7 pH. If you can get it to 6.5, all the better. Plants love 6.5 pH! Keeping a high level of organic materials in and around the plants is a long term solution to chlorosis.
BTW, if you have a Fan Tex Ash tree the leaves on it will naturally turn yellow in Fall. It is one of the very few trees for hot dry gardens that has lovely Fall color. (Of course, there are the aspen trees that grow in the mountains around the deserts and also become golden in Fall.)
CLIMATE CHANGE UPDATE
In an abrupt about-face the Australians tossed out their Prime Minister who announced last week that keeping fuel prices low was more important than meeting Paris Accord climate change limits. Among the first things the new PM stated was that climate change came first–particularly in light of the severe drought that is impacting ranchers in New South Wales, outside of Sydney.
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