Category: hot dry gardens

Be a superhero! Plant flowers and save the world’s food supply

Okay.  Maybe that headline is a bit extreme…but it is not that far off.  Here’s why.

As we all have heard, bees seem to be vanishing all over the planet. And without them to pollinate edible plants–whether tomatoes in Pasadena or romaine in Yuma or pecans in the San Pedro river valley–we humans may be in trouble and face food shortages.

And it turns out that flowers can be part of the solution.

Red and Yellow cherry tomatoes Hot Gardens

At a recent gardening event in Los Angeles a speaker recommended planting annual flowers between tomato plants to encourage more bees to pollinate the tomatoes while they are seeking nectar from the larger, flashier annual flowers. It helps keep the bees well fed and the bee colony thriving. Tomato plants will produce more abundantly, too.

“Wait a minute”, you say. “There are no commercial growers near me and I’m not growing vegetables in my backyard. Why should I encourage bees?”

The answer is that you can become part of a larger effort to sustain genetic diversity all over the planet.  That’s where the Gardener-Superhero role comes in.

As I look at many desert style gardens filled with agaves and other rarely flowering plants I realized that our new water-wise gardens are creating starvation conditions for our friends the bees. Not enough variety, not enough flowers blooming for not a long enough time.  Worse yet, in many desert areas, the native plants that could provide nectar to bees are being removed to make way for houses and roads.

It is, however, not necessary to plant water-guzzling plants to have bee-friendly flowers in a hot, dry garden.  Here are some that will thrive and  produce flowers over a long period without running up your water bill.

Lantana ground cover mixed colors
The low-growing Lantana (Lantana montevidensis) comes in many colors these days.

Low-growing Lantana (Lantana montevidensis)  is one of the best and most readily available flowering plants for hot, dry gardens. Bees and butterflies love it! It blooms for as long as 9 or 10 months out of the year and because it is a perennial, rather than an annual, you will not have to replace it every year. Be aware that the purple and white varieties bloom for a much shorter time than the gold, yellow or varigated Lantanas. Upkeep is easy: in mid-winter cut the low-growing branches back to a foot or so in length.

Instead of the low-growing lantana, however, consider planting Lantana camera.  It grows to 6 feet tall and makes a very colorful, bee-friendly hedge. A light mid-winter trimming is all the maintenance needed.

Next, Rosemary (Rosemarinus officinalis) attracts bees like a magnet and can provide a delicious herb for your table. Plant several about 2 feet apart to create a rosemary hedge or simply put one plant outside near your back door to clip and use the aromatic leaves in bread or for baking chicken.

Lavender (Lavendula) is another tasty and aromatic herb that bees love as much as humans do.  I prefer French lavender to the English or Spanish varieties, but I have to confess that I have not had much success keeping lavender plants alive from year to year. I simply replant annually.

And finally: annual sunflowers.  If you plant the seeds over a period of a couple of weeks, you will have a longer blooming period for the bees to harvest the nectar. Then later, birds will come to harvest the seeds. You can harvest them, too, and then toast the seeds in your oven for a tasty snack.

So get out your garden gloves and think of them as the red superhero cape for gardeners.

Where to get a free or cheap tree for your home.

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

What’s this? A pig topiary? With succulents?

topiary pig with succulents
A moss topiary pig wearing succulents.

On a trip to Southern California last week I wandered into Brita’s Garden Center which is 3 blocks from the ocean in Seal Beach.  And there in the back of the center was a pig topiary about 3 feet long.  Someone had built a framework of chicken wire/hardware wire and added plenty  of moss.  Next, came the succulents in a variety of colors and shapes. I am sure they were drawing the moisture they need from the damp moss.

curly pig tail on topiary pig
This little pig even has a curly black tail.

This is a clever idea for a garden ornament, although in a hot dry garden these tender succulents may shrivel up when the summer heat begins to build!

I also made a trip recently to Phoenix and will be reporting about my observations at the Desert Botanical Garden shortly.

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Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Surprise! Sun-loving Iris are drought tolerant, but daffodils–not so much

White iris Arlington Garden Pasadena

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.

purple and white iris

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.

Gladiolus dalenii

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.  

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Mesquites and flowering trees to plant in your hot, dry garden this Fall

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.

Mesquite prosopis
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 a large 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!

Desert Willow and agaves
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.

chitalpa tree
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.

Crape myrtle
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.

Brazilian gold medallion tree
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.

Where to get a free or cheap tree for your home.

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Is that plant dead? Should I replace it now? Tips for Fall planting

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.

Azalea regrowing after sunburn
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).

pampas grass
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.

Ligustrum japonicum privet hedge in bloom
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.

Chitalpa taskentensis flowers in summer Hot Gardens

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 other trees 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.

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Show your hot dry garden some love. It’s hungry. Give it some food today.

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.

Love Thy Garden gnome Hot Garden
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:

Garden tool for loosening soil Hot Gardens
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.

Soil builder for trees and shrubs Hot Gardens
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.

While I am not a big fan of dumping chemicals into gardens, certain conditions require specialized treatment.  See this post about iron deficiencies and alkaline soil for one example.  And this post about not adding polymers to your flower beds. 

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.

Organic topsoil Hot Gardens 2018
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.

Pig barbeque Hot Gardens
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.

Hurrican Rosa clouds Hot GArdens
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.

Visit my author’s site to see books I’ve written
and read a chapter of the children’s book free

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

All hail Queen Agave new ruler of the front lawn replacement

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
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.

Agave, deer grass, blue fescue, rocks Hot Gardens

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
Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum' Hot Gardens

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
Agaves and aeonium garden Hot Gardens
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 gardenAgaves, Senecios, Mexican feather grass Hot Gardens

For a hilarious take on Agaves, read this very funny article by Frank Smith in The Awl.

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

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Success with Potatoes and how to grow them in a hot arid garden

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.

Potato plant in pink pot Hot Gardens
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.

Potato plant in pot with water measurement Hot Gardens
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 the green vegetable failures I 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 bag I 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.

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Lawn replacement gone wild with blue bottle ornaments

This astonishing landscape design was developed by the homeowner in an upscale neighborhood that is under strict watering limitations. She told me she had no art training so I think of her as a self-taught landscape designer, sort of a “Grandma Moses of garden planning”.

Blue Bottle lawn replacement Hot Gardens net
Encouraged by the water department, this homeowner replaced her lawn with drought tolerant plants and dozens upon dozens of garden ornaments. To one side there is a long row of ornamental  grasses.
Circular Flower Bed in Blue Bottle garden Hot Gardens net
Circles within circles seems to be her main design motif. At night lights surround these plant beds. See below.

Instead of planting an ordinary selection of cactus and succulents, she let her imagination take flight by adding blue bottles, wind spinners and, at night, lights encircling the plant beds. And, from the empty pots and bags of mulch still stacked around the garden it appears she isn’t done yet.

She inspired me to check out garden ornaments on Amazon and I found this attractive wind spinner and some interesting solar lighted lilies.

What do you think of this garden?

Garden ornaments for lawn replacement Hot Gardens net
The homeowner’s love of wind spinners is quite obvious.
Plumeria tree Hot Gardens net
Among all the cactus and succulents is this tropical plumeria tree. It requires more water than most of the other plants. All the plants in this garden appear very healthy.
Blue Bottles fan ornament in Pasadena Hot Gardens net
While the blue bottles are the most conspicuous visually, there are actually many more wind spinners in the garden.
When the homeowner/designer said she had added lights to the garden and invited me to come back after dark to see it, this is what I saw. It is a quite subtle light display.

Where to get a free or cheap tree for your home.

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  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
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  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

The dirty truth about yellowing leaves when Fall hasn’t even arrived

chlorosis shrub leaves

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.
Rio Grande Fax Tex Ash autumn

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.

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat