Yard Surprises

We came home to lots of not-so-wonderful (ha!) surprises. I've started getting out in the yard now and finding both kinds of surprises out there as well. The nice ones? Mostly what didn't die. Not so nice? What did, of course. And depending on my mood, the amount of yard work ahead can go on either list. That mood of course fluctuates with the amount of heat out there and whether I feel like going out early in the morning.

Let's end on a happy point, so I'll start with what didn't make it. So far that list is small,  just like the plants were. There were three struggling young octopus agaves in the back yard when we left that now aren't even a dead reminder. At least somebody cleaned up. Add those to the two which died last summer and it means 7 babies remain, in various states of health, depending on how far from a water source they are, even if that source is roof runoff. The original, supposed to die without any new bottom shoots after flowering, defiantly sent out a healthy offset, already bigger than the original when it was two years old.

The blue super thorny agaves planted in a row along the house with the original octopus have both bloomed. The dead first one was removed last year. I cut the blooming stalk of the second one before it bloomed and it is looking healthy. It should be dead too if I understand these agaves at all. Other kinds like ones in the backyard along the fence send out lots of ground offshoots, but these aren't supposed to, kind of a relief from the close contact stabbings from the originals. I haven't checked to see if any babies have emerged from where the first of the blues bloomed, because, frankly, it's just too darn crowded there. With the first dead parent gone, a pair of lantana volunteers took up residence last year. My original intent was to let one live, but I've changed my mind. They need too much pruning, getting leggy awfully fast. Put those on the to-do list.

So far everything across the front yard seems to have survived, especially the weeds.  Soon as it gets cooler, or within 30 days of the next nasty letter from the homeowner's association, they will get removed. I plan to start using a pre-emergent on the front yard to cut those things down. Double jobs for the to-do list. The volunteer prickly pear, emphasis on very long pricklies (spines), has about doubled its number of pads over the summer, but failed to produce successful fruits. There are however shriveled miniature ones needing to be plucked away by a long tool. More for the to-do list, starting with locating a tool to pluck those safely. Hmmm, really, really, really long tongs? Are there any gauntlets on the premises?

The job that just kept gnawing at me since the car pulled into the driveway this month was the ponytail palm. While it's still alive, I've left three years worth of dying and dead leaves on it in order to protect new growth from the four months of hot sunshine they get where it is planted. New growth tends to sunburn after 8 months shade from the house. So with a comfy chair, scissors, and huge bucket, all the totally dead-back-to-the-trunk old leaves and most of the nearly dead ones still clinging stubbornly got removed, either by hand or scissors. This plant has history. I picked it up in Wisconsin when the Walmart there had a sale on multi-trunked ones. Of the ones I bought, this is the one survivor. Its 5 trunks became 4 the first year when I got too enthusiastic about yanking handfuls of dead leaves away and one trunk came too. Root it from the break? Epic fail. That's when I gave grooming it a long rest. There was now way more brown than green on the plant, and it really bugged me. Vowing gentle care to both myself and the palm, I grabbed a chair, a 5 gallon wastebasket, and later a scissors for neatening, and dove in. There seemed to be more trunks than I remembered, making reaching around them to gently to ease dead leaves away a little more complicated in the angles my fingers needed to bend to reach. By the time I moved to the other side, settling my chair  down again and clearing my view on this side, there were definitely more trunks! Healthy ones! One even had two brand new ones branching low off from it. These may not survive, having been completely shaded for their first two inches of growth, but I hope the sun is low enough now that they will. If so, they make ten (!) trunks on this ponytail!  Neglect becomes her.

I did make sure not just to clean up after but to put the big chickenwire cage back around it to keep the rabbits out. After about two years of ignoring ponytails planted in the ground, they decided those actually produced edible leaves. That's how the others died, in one overnight binge. Only one of those got replaced, so far surviving with a little less summer sun than the big one, and inside another really good wire cage. Scratch that job off the to-do list for the done-did-it list.

Last spring I had removed an orange-blooming aloe from the back yard,  after it got knocked over and separated from its roots, bringing it into the front yard but not actually planted, just stuck in a coffee can of potting soil and watered a little here and there. I figured it wouldn't live over our summer away, but stuck the can next to where rain runs off the roof just in case. Today a live aloe got removed from the can and planted into the front garden. This is as hardy a variety as the large yellow blooming ones which thrive there. Rabbit proof as well. (I licked my fingers after working with it and OMG! I wouldn't eat one either!) I plan in cooler weather to dig more out of the solid row of them in the back and bring clumps to the front where they will alternate with the yellow clumps. You'd have to pay attention to figure it out because the oranges ones finish their blooming several weeks before the yellow ones start. Another one for the to-do list.

The red yuccas have bloomed again over the summer, so there are a large number of old flower/seed stalks to clean out of those two clumps. I can delay till the newer stalks have dried out.

Time for the back yard. First thing I saw across the yard was the orange-blooming Mexican bird of paradise bush, spread taller and in a wider fan than I'd ever seen it, entertaining local bees and hummingbirds. To the east of that, my desert willow was just finishing a major bloom. This has only ever boomed in the spring! All four of our ocotillas, though not blooming, were fully green through their length with their small leaves. My totem pole cactus, the only cactus allowed in the back yard because it has no needles to plague any dogs, and started with short stubs from a neighbor pruning back his clump, has gone from 5 little stubs to being tall as our fence - 6 feet - and both branching and sending shoots from the ground.  Note when I say it's the only cactus allowed, our perennial roof cactus which totally ignores my edict,  growing from a crack between the metal sheet patio roof and a front cover sheet of metal, no gutter at all to hold soil or water for it, is back again and as big as I've seen it. It grows where it's hard to get close enough to pluck or cut out but we'll figure it out again. I wonder if salt would discourage it? Maybe next fall I can remember to bring down a small container of brush killer to try. Note: make a to-do list for supplies for the next year's to-do list. Let's hope I haven't quirkily decided by then to keep the damn thing. Imagine if it gets tall and flops over, swinging down and impaling somebody in the process. Put "don't get that quirky" on the to-do lists as well.

My orange bells bush and the red version next to it were in full color and also feeding the aerial neighborhood pollinators, including hummers. Can't prune those back till blooming is finished. I mean, I could, but....

The palo verde and mesquite trees are not only leafed out (microscopically) but much more branched out, so more there for the to-do list. I do try to keep thorny trees pruned to the point where one can approach without getting stabbed. I'm still studying the mesquite, however, because it does not grow with a straight trunk but a series of very horizontal branches going off in nearly right angles in all directions from other branches in other weird directions. It is nearly twice as wide as tall right now. This will be wonderful once it's gained some height, and it's doing a good job now of shading a nice portion of the yard that the dog walks through to get to her favorite bathroom site so I don't have to worry about her burning the pads on her feet. But what to prune where? It could easily turn into a major puzzle tree, with no kids visiting to appreciate it. I see tall mesquite trees out and around the area, nice and tall and looking actually like they might have  consented to a straight-ish trunk in their long distant past, but how? Give that to-do list some study - a great excuse for delay.

Next to the patio two plants have gone crazy. One we nicknamed a pencil plant since all its branches were like fat green pencils, branching, growing tall until curling and flopping over during dry spells, making room for the next tall growth to fight it's way into the light, then flop in turn. Other gardeners call it a slipper plant, with blossoms that are weird little things which manage to produce a drop of nectar to attract hummers, ants, and whatever. Not flowering now, but the clump has spread twice as far out from the edge of the patio as before. We are stepping on it.

The other plant isn't much bigger, just loaded in blossoms or their wilted remnants when we came home. That's the San Marcos hibiscus, a Mexican desert plant that resembles no hibiscus I recognize, and somehow manages to tolerate the tiny winter heat island near the house as good enough. Those flowers are yellow with red or nearly red centers, wilted the next day, later developing into an interesting hard seed pod.

The large pine tree had a good summer, with very few new dead branches, though its usual annual supply of dead needles coats much of the back yard. The dog can't decide if she likes or hates those. Much depends on how wet they are, and since it had rained just before we arrived, and again  a couple days after, it took her a bit to decide again that the back yard was her space. Two years ago I'd hired a crew to blow them out of the back yard, but somebody brought a rake instead. I had to spend a couple weeks raking the rocks back into their border areas in the yard, and noticed just how many of the yard rocks had gotten raked up and tossed out with the needles. Those things are expensive to replace, and as I specifically asked for blowing, not raking, that crew hasn't been invited back. Last summer a friend of Rich "helped" clean up the back yard... with a rake, of course. I hauled one of those yard waste bags of needles to the front for the garbage, and boy, was it ever heavy! Of course more rocks were back out of their designated curved beds and mixed in the rest of the yard. I debate with myself if it is worth putting raking on the to-do list or I should just let the rocks mix chaotic colors.

There is a bush along the back fence which wasn't the one I thought I'd bought, but decided to keep anyway. The plan is to prune it into a more rounded short tree shape. Late spring I'd started pruning  branches way back so they'd branch  out, fill in, and start to behave, but upon our return, they were back to stabbing way out in all odd directions. Much more pruning will be going on the to-do list there. Plus, part of that wild growth is due to the back neighbor getting his irrigation line for his closest orange tree punctured when some hired crew came in and "weeded" the area on his side of the fence.  Our bush I'm trying to shape, as well as a thick coating of weeds which spread from their yard very thickly over a segment of ours, are thriving with the new water supply. Even the pine tree is getting a good daily drink now as the water spray covers a wide swath of the ground all the way to its trunk. They should be back next month and when I see them out and about I'll be sure they know how much water they are wasting. Last year something similar happened to a lemon tree in that yard, resulting in a dead tree from overwatering, along with a venerable old cactus nearby. I wish I had their phone number. These are the same neighbors who shared totem pole cactus pieces with us back when. Weeding that large and growing patch on our side of the fence is on the to-do list, but it'll wait till the water leak is stopped. I'll let the pine have a lovely early fall too. Selfish? Maybe, but what else can I do?

Sure, the list is long. But cooler weather is on its way, I'll be feeling better even than I already am, and by then most of the crap with the house will be fixed as well. 

Sure it will.