Some photos from our trip to Southwest US

This photo is about the vivid orange I see on some of the desert plants.  It seems to be some kind of vine that is growing on the actual plant.  I find that a good portion of my photos from our trip to the Southwest US in Feb. - March, are of plants, of course. 

Some of the grasses that manage to grow in the white sands desert, in New Mexico.

There is a surprising amount of plant life in these harsh conditions.  This is at Death Valley, California.

More Death Valley.  You can see the reflection in this photo.  They had quite a bit of rain, just prior to our arrival here, and so you are seeing quite a large expanse of water that has not drained away.  I have much to learn about this area.  The night before we drove through Death Valley, we camped near Shoshone just at the edge of Death Valley.  At night, there was a chorus of frogs... I could not believe it!  I made a video of them.  I have the audio but no photos of the frogs... I could not see them.  As it was getting dark I did not attempt to look for them.  There are all sorts of 'harsh'  and maybe poisonous creatures that live in this area.  Most of them come out at night, when it is cooler.  So, not knowing what I may have gotten into, I returned to the Dodge Lodge without finding frogs. 
My viewing of the trip photos will have to wait for when I have more time.  It has been a busy week, It was raining off and on for most the week, but I seemed to be busy the whole time.  I read the Wild Swans book, by Jung Chang.  The horrendous story of a woman, her mother, and her grandmother, who lived through the political reign of Mao.  I can't begin to imagine how so many people were brainwashed into living through the things the country endured for so very many years.  The present politics and revolts in the Muslim world sound awful, too.  The whole world seems to be tipped on its ear, with the climatic catastrophes and human wars and economic disasters. 
Marlene and Art were over to dinner.  They had a rather nasty bit of weather to come home through.  We were lucky on our dash home, going up the I-5 with no snow anywhere, except up in the mountains.  While we were away, and snowed in at the KOA in Flagstaff, Arizona, Victoria had a dump of snow that lasted a few days.  The weather is still coolish and we seem to be about 3 weeks behind in our beginning of Spring.
Yesterday, I was to the Rock and Alpine garden club's show and sale.  . no photos this time.  I somehow did not feel motivated.  It was a good show, I thought.  I brought home a few little rock plants.  A salix boydi to replace the one I lost last summer.  When we were away last summer Victoria had a heat wave and the little willow had no water.  I also have 2 more willows... these can grow quite big if left on their own.  One of them I saw at the show had been made into a bonsai ... sort of... just in a larger pot and not trained, but pruned way back to have a good show of the catkins every year, I suppose.  So, now I may put this one into a larger pot with a nice rock for it to spread over.  I have a nice green rock out in the garden that might work very well.  The other one I may try to grow near the pond and have it grow over the rocks of the waterfall.  The water fall is becoming quite mossy, but still needs more encouragement for the moss to grow all over the rocks.  I also got a Japanese quince tree that has some blooms.  This is a very strange shape, with one branch with leaves sticking 2 feet up and the blooms are on another tiny branch at ground level.  I have seen these plants as bonsai also.  I think mine may become just a pot plant that will be kept pruned  smaller too.  With my neighbours butchering my trees maybe I am acquiring a taste for this stuff.  Ha!  :)  I have 2 more lewisias to add to my lewisia patch on the little rockery at the back.  These plants need very sharp drainage.  I got a little androsace camea ssp. laggeri with lovely pink blooms.  This will go to the little rockery too.  And a cyclamen coum.  that needs more shade so it may go in the little rockery in the front garden.  I have a Paeonia veitchii that is to be the size of 20" x 24" with purple red blooms.  I shall have to prepare a good spot for this one in the back garden bed across the stepping stone path from the Harry Lauders walking stick.  I hope to get this area more organized as it has had a year to settle I have watched how it drains the winter wet and where how the sun/shade affects it.  I have a campanula biebersteiniana for the back garden little rockery - 2" x 6",
After the plant show, we went over to Mark and Anya's for coffee.  They live in a delightful older home.  Little Lily is truly a wee sweetie. While we were away Cannor delivered the plants, potting soil, sand and pea gravel that I had bought last week.  So when we got home I moved this stuff to the back.  While out looking at stuff, I found that Mrs. P had someone chop off more of my cedars from on her side.  Now there is no screening left to them at all.  These people's kids kicked the hell out these trees playing hockey by them and now the rest of the branches up to deck floor height are chopped off.  Their ignorance knows no bounds.  Saanich is no longer letting us use plant killing chemicals on our lawns or gardens.  People have to dig out their dandilions by hand, if they want to keep their lawns.  Mrs. P.  has a lot of dandilions!!  That should keep her busy!!  I hope Sannich passes a by-law to be sure every lot has at least 6 trees on it, in keeping with the 'green' approach to our 'garden city'.

Spring, at last

Erythronium or fawn lilies or trout lilies require a long period of growth before they bloom. It takes a seed seven years, usually, to reach blossoming size seven years while the bulb grows deeper and each year -ends up a single Leaf. In the sixth year there are two leaves, and in the seventh springtime there come two leaves with a flower bud between them, and the trout lily finally blooms.  They seem to like to grow in Oak woodlands.,  I purchased my yellow fawn lily from a nursery on Saltspring Isand,  a few years ago.,  It was at the blooming stage when bought.  This little beauty has now expanded to several plants in its clump.  It seems to be happy in the woodland.  The white ones are just a bit later in opening up.  We see a lot of the white variety growing wild here, but I have not seen yellow ones.  I hope this one seeds around.  I will try to take seeds and scatter them where the white ones grow.  Fortunately, there are several patches of these lilies near me, by the river, in the park.

 My first trillium is up and in flower.  Only one bloom, so far.  Its tiny compared to the other one that grows in the woodland area and which I have not seen yet.  They are different varieties.  These trilliums also grow wild in the the parks and are protected.  I have not seen any near me though.  I guess I need to scatter some of these seeds too.

Marsh marigold are just starting in the pond.  With the water fall running, there is under water plants growing and keeping the water clear.  Oh dear, there seems to be a lot of leaves collected in the pond.  I did not see any fish today, except for the one in the deck pot.  I might need a few new fish.  I did see a baby one a couple of days ago, in the pond.

This is a fairly new plant that lives in the front garden little rockery.  Its spectacular against the rocks and the leaf mulch.  While photographing it I notice that the plants around it are sprouting too.  I saw 4 lilies sprouting up.  I need more compost on this little rockery bed.  It seems to have shrunk about 6 inches below the top of the retaining rocks.  .. strange.

This is the brightest and biggest clump of primulas.  The doubles seem to need drier conditions as they are growing better at the back near the woodland,.   The area where this one is is quite damp, as I thought primulas liked early wet feet.  I imagine I will be seeing quite a lot of these at the VIRAGS spring show and sale, as it seems to be the season for them. 

Earth Day - Friday, April 22

 

My yellow plum tree is in bloom.  You see the English Oak and my hedging cedars at the back, in this photo.

I received my copy of Garden Wise magazine in the mail today.  I was moved by the Editorial by Carol Pope, in particular this paragraph: 

"Planting just one tree, I will be siphoning 100-plus pounds of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere every year and adding back enough oxygen to sustain two people.  This wondrous tree will also recycle water, shelter birds and stretch out to help shade our overheated planet."

In this regard, I am extremely upset with my neighbour, Mrs. P.. insisting that I butcher my trees so that she has no, in her son's words "tree shit" to sweep off of her sidewalk.  

So, yesterday, Pat top our cedars down to eaves height imperiling his life by standing on the deck railing, and also dragging most of the cuttings to the green bin.,

In the meantime, I used the pole pruner to cut back my camillia tree way back from her side walk.  Also dragging all debris to the green bin.

Her son, Bill, was very friendly and helpful in using my pole pruner to butcher the English Oak tree that they claim to be interfering with the laundry on their line.  A few years ago, I had an arborist look at this tree with a view to complying with Mrs. P.'s laundry problem.  The arborist is care taker of a heritage tree on what is now the new Salvation Army property.  This protected tree is an English Oak, planted years ago.  He told me to get my neighbors to move their laundry line and would not touch the tree.
Bill also chimed in with the idea that my plum tree in the front was too low and scraped his van when he drove in.  Now to have this tree touch his van, he must be right over on the edge of his front driveway.  And this never happens, because the van parks in the side driveway, as they live on the corner and have two streets for cement driveways.
Today, Mrs. P.  thought she wanted the part of my cedars that are hanging over her sidewalk trimmed off.  Her grandkids beat the hell out of the bottom 6 feet of these cedars over the years.  They had their hockey net set up in front of the cedars and the children would be chasing the balls through the cedars and under my deck, constantly.  These cedars are no longer a privacy screen at the bottom.  I told her "no" as I had enough of her demands.  She said she would hire someone to do it and I would have to pay her for it.  I said "NO" again.  I told her to take a drive out to Broadmead and see how the rich people treated their trees.  She said "No".  Now, Billy Bob had to get into the act again.. no longer the friendly, helpful neighbor.  This escalated into a most ridiculous rant by him, including telling me she was a 70 year old woman, and what have I done for her?  When asked what he had done for her, he became almost incoherent, using the f word on almost every second word of his rant.  At one point he said to me.. get a job, and live in the real world.  Now this is quite amusing to me, since I am damn near as old as this 70 year old mother, the tree killer.  I had had quite enough of them after awhile and suggested that I would have a survey done to show them that their sidewalk was actually on my property, based on the orientation of a retaining wall that Mr. P. built when they first moved here.  Then the old guy came out and had a look at the wall, and that was the end of the spouting off about the 'tree shit'.  You can see the wall in a couple of the photos above behind the cedars that hang over the sidewalk.  The cedars are not out over the retaining wall line.   But besides all this, I simply do not see their need to worry about a few flowers or tree leaves on the sidewalk.  Their background, I think, is from India.  Now I have seen photos of present day India where there is garbage everywhere.... in the streets, in the rivers, ... and they all seem to think this is fine.   Also Billy Bob has spent his entire life under his parents domination... and his children are now in university and they all endure this pecking order.  I don't think Bill and Gerty even have friends of their own, or a life of their own.  It really is sad. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon sweeping off the deck and the patio, leaving the moss intact.  I like the moss and so does pat.  Its lovely and green in winter and is mostly swept up and gone in summer.  I dragged some of the cedar clippings to the middle of the space under the deck.  This is all clay under here and is quite wet just now.  The ferns and other plants are coming up.  I need to clean up the dry stream and the moss garden.  It shouldn't take much time, as it is fairly clean from last year.  I have 7 bags of compost to use around the beds when I get out to work in them.  Our Spring is about 3 weeks late this year.