Ann's Air Gardens

Volunteer Flowers

This trip I am only 200 miles away from my garden.  So I am drawing flowers instead of weeding them.  Photos coming...

Want to Build Your Own Greenhouse?

I love the way this Squidoo writer built a greenhouse out of 2 liter plastic bottles! 

A neat greenhouse

The only things growing in my upstairs vacation apartment are a huge basil plant and a tiny "volunteer" plant that grew up out of the root of part of the landscaping on the commons below.  Since the professional gardeners were going to get it anyway, I could not resist hacking it off and bringing it indoors to give my enclosed patio a bit more life.  

I'll be back to my own little garden in a few weeks and it will be interesting to see what will still be alive there.  I am especially interested in the well-being of my first 3 clusters of grapes from the root we dug up out of my late uncle's yard 2 years ago.  What color will they be?

The Jacarandas are in Bloom Again

I don't have a Jacaranda tree, but they are a sight to behold in and around Riverside, CA.

Jacaranda mimosifolia is also known as Brazilian Rose Wood or Blue Trumpet Tree.   They grow up to 50 feet tall and grower wider than they are tall.  These trees can be cloned from softwood cuttings, grafting or from seed.  

Interestingly, the drought-tolerant Jacaranda trees have no notable pests, but they must be placed in well-drained soil.  Also it is not recommended to prune the Jacaranda very much. 

 

 

Strawberries, Yum!

As neglected as my little backyard garden has become, it still managed to have a few surprises for me when I came down from a trip back up to the San Francisco Bay Area where I lived for over 40 years.  I took a friend who liked the Bay Area so much that we decided to stay an extra week and some of my plants did not like that.

But there were a few ripe strawberries awaiting our return, and although small, they were delicious.  The other big surprise was that the bare root from my late uncle's grape vine which I planted in 2009 was doing great and covered with clusters of flowers.  Last year the ground squirrels got that vine so I was not sure it would bloom this year, but we just may have grapes.  I have no idea what kind of grapes they will be, but if they are anything like Uncle Al's figs, they will be awesome. 

I have no idea what kind of fig tree that was either, but my clones are doing great.  So is the parent tree over in Hemet, CA.  I drove by the other day and it has filled out beautifully after my cousin pruned it last fall, and there are little green figs popping out all over again.  That reminds me that we can now eat up the ones left in the freezer from last year's harvest. 

 

Winter Anemones

Last spring I bought one package of purple anemone rhizomes.    They bloomed nicely in the spring and then again in the fall and now some of them are coming back a third time this year:      

We do not get freezes often here in the Palm Desert area, but recently, the weather did dip down to 29 degrees F for a bit while I was away on a trip and when I returned, some of my plants were dead.  I think.

Sometimes they fool me by looking dead and then coming back.  But it was nice to come back and find something blooming in the back yard.

Oddly, there was one pink anemone back there too.  A neighbor had given me a clay planter with some old dirt in it sometime back, and not having had a chance to plant anything, I put it under a drain spout before going away.  When I returned from my trip, the pot was filled with foliage and this flower was just starting to open, with several more buds coming up around it.  

 

Obviously it rained some while I was gone.

The rain brings snow to the mountain tops this time of year even when it is sunny and nice down below.  Here is a photo I took from the trail up to Hemet's intriguing Stone Maze: 

My post about the Maze is here.

 

 
 

Easy Pull

After getting way too many spam comments that I've had to weed out from this blog, I was delighted today to find a relevant link provided in answer to a reader who likes my small space compost bin and wanted to buy one.   The provider calls it  Easy Pull Garden Tub and Barrow.

The downside is that although they can provide this product, the minimum quantity for purchase is 1000 units.  The upside is that they supply Walmart stores, and that is where I bought mine.   Anyway, they have a lot of neat lawn and garden products, so I enjoyed Jay Sun's comment.

Unexpectedly, I had to be away most of the summer.  But before going on my last trip, I cut all of my Sun Gold vining tomatoes out of the garden, leaving just a few small plants in the raised garden, watered by a home brew sprinker system my neighbor Tim installed.  There was a lipstick pepper, several rosemary clones that I rooted from cuttings, moonflower vines, a yellow snapdragon, and a tiny Chrysanthemum plant that I had bought at the 99 Cents Only store last spring and dumped in my backyard planter after it had stopped blooming and look for all the world like it was about to die.

This is what it looked like when I got home in November:

Another surprise was a big plate of glass, somebody else's discarded shower door.  Now I have three of them and can set up a couple more raised planters in time to start some winter vegetables. 

Hawaiin Papaya

A neighbor surprised me with a dozen sprouted Papaya seeds. 

 

 

 
Wow, I didn't realize it was getting so late.  More on these when I get back from a trip up the coast!

Update on my Lemongrass: Before and After

I planted a couple of lemongrass "suckers" that my nice neighbor brought over in February and seriously I did not believe they would survive.  One has a few roots, but the other was just a stalk that was dead looking in a matter of days and stayed that way alll "winter."  But when Spring came there were a few green tips showing and look at them now:

 

There are a few dead leaves due to the fact that while I was away on a trip someone who was not aware that I had installed an automatic sprinkler system decided to water my plants for me and shut the valve off after watering.  Fortunately this was only one day before my return so nothing died.

Three of my baby figs lost all their leaves, but the root systems were strong and they all started leafing out again in a couple weeks.

I have another before and after shot posted on

The Empty Cabinets of my Mind. It shows one day's growth in my new EasyGreen Auto Sprouter.

Empress Tree Cloned in Water

 
 

There was much excitement in my kitchen when healthy roots showed up on the bottom of a stem I whacked off from the little Royal Paulownia I've been nursing back to health for the past several months after having left it home alone while I had to be away for a month.  That was before my new sprinkler system was installed so that I can go away guilt-free.  The Empress Tree was pretty sad looking when I came back to find it all dried out.  All of the leaves had fallen off, but now it seems to be thriving again.  Here it is in a photo taken a month after its ordeal.

 

And here is its first baby.  Not a great photo but the detail shows how the roots grew out from the bottom  of the stem at the diagonal cut across the stem, not from a node.  I had no idea the Empress Tree (Royal Paulownia) could be propagated so easily.  Admittedly, the first time I tried this, the stem cutting wilted and died, but I am not one to give up after just one try if logic tells me something might work.l 

A Pink Hydrangea

 
This plant was a gift from a sweet neighbor who liked the bulbous blue flower head when she saw it at the florist's.  It was perfectly round and as large as a grapefruit.  The first time it bloomed since then I did adjust the pH to get blue flowers, but the blooms were quite small and not perfectly shaped.

This time I let it go pink and frankly I love this color just as much as the trendy blue.  My flower head is not round like a grapefruit, but it is the size of half a melon.  I think it is just gorgeous and am hoping my dear neighbor will come over and see it soon.