How's That Garden Growing?

Well.

Er, sort of embarrassingly shaggy lately. Messy, untrimmed, a bit weedy. That's why I haven't put many garden pix up lately.

BUT!

Given this slogging-about-with-Comcast business, and the terrible winter storms too many of you are experiencing, I'll go ahead and put some up. Mess and all. You can make with the clicky and everything.

Lucky you! ;-)

Just before I left for the Northwoods last spring, I mulched my front yard gardens within an inch of their lives. We'd had a longstanding drought and watering restrictions, and since I didn't know how long I'd be gone, I wanted the plants as protected from drought as possible.

So I raked off the old pine bark nuggets, and laid in at least two or three inches of half-composted yard trimming-type mulch, laid out a simple watering hose irrigation system, and then topped everything off with fresh pine bark nuggets.

I don't water or fertilize the way many people do. For one thing, I think it's less healthy for the plants and the environment, both. For another, most of the usual methods are wasteful of either water or compostable stuff. Last but not least, it requires a type of physical effort I can't put into it. I'm very strong and love to work hard - but that falls between bouts of comatose sleeps for days or even months. Whatever I grow must sustain itself when I'm abed.

Even during that extended absence, almost everything in the yard thrived like crazy. I lost almost nothing. The watering system was never used.


This corner of Walter's western garden is a favorite among some of the neighborhood dog walkers. We all love this jade plant, even without flowers. This is its first bloom, and to make up for lost time, it's making two flower spikes instead of one.


I try to keep things from getting too jungly. But here, shaggy as it is, you can probably make out another flame lily vine, starting in the lower left center. The other ones finished blooming for now. The vines themselves are so delicate and pretty, I don't mind at all that they're coming up all over the yard.


Here's a pachypodium - an *elephant's foot,* related to the Madagascar palms we like to grow. It got way too much nutrition and water, discouraging blooms, so I put it in a pot under the eaves. It was a big fat barrel of a plant before that. It's slowwwwwllly shrinking. Maybe in another year or so it'll bloom for me again. The flowers are brilliant yellow on a long stalk.


All you spider fans will probably recognize this as an argiope. They make a wonderful pattern in the middle of their web.