The Latest Project

 

 

One of the things about having gardening as a hobby is that the projects never end.  Ask my husband, they never end.  I always have some new idea and some plant that will need to be planted, potted, moved and transplanted.  My son thinks I’m crazy but it’s what I do and how I relax.  It’s not relaxing if I can’t go to work on Monday exhausted from all the work done in the yard over the weekend.  You fellow gardeners know what I mean.

 

 

I decided that I just couldn’t live without a Meyer lemon in my life and so a new project began.  Well it actually began when I put my Cara Cara orange in a pot and put in on the deck, and thought it needed a friend to balance things out.  I’m all about balance you know, ha ha.

 

 

Be careful when selecting potting soil, I grabbed a bag at the store, read the ingredients and it contained bio-solids, not what I want my sweet lemon growing in!  So read the label, make sure it has good stuff in it that your plants will be happy with.

 

 

This project also involved digging up and transplanting a Phormium and Pygmy Date Palm,  and planting Disneyland roses, but more about that in another post.  I used plastic pots for these two citrus because I wanted to keep the soil moist longer.  The orange was in a clay pot and it just didn’t do to well.  Maybe because I didn’t water it properly, so the plastic will help and by keeping them in a high traffic area of the yard  I will be better reminded of their watering needs.

 

I like how it turned out and I think the orange and lemon will be very happy together.    Now I have one of each lemon, lime, and orange, I’m a happy girl.

 


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Been a Little Busy

 

 

 

April had so many happenings that I am still in a cloudy, foggy, haze.  Sorta like our May gray, June gloom type weather here in San Diego.   This is a list of what happened around here in no particular order, because my brain doesn’t know how to work in any type of order anymore.

 

1.  Blew the transmission on my trusty old vehicle, so much for trusty.

2.  Went to visit family in Utah.

3.  My sweet mom came home with us and stayed to visit for a couple of weeks.  I don’t get to see her near enough.

4.  My sweet, beautiful, daughter was in a high school musical.  Do you know what goes on to make a high school production happen?  It’s not for the lazy or faint of heart. 

5.  My crazy, fun, brother and sister-in-law came to visit.  I think I’m still trying to recover.

6.  I had a birthday, I think, someone told me I did, I’m trying to forget.

7.  Was talked into trying oysters for the first time.  Ummmm, I’ll get back to you on this one.

8.  I now drive a cute, white, fun Ford with a great sound system, I may be older but never to old for loud music.

 9.  Had my toes painted with shellac about a month ago by my awesome sister-in-law who just did it for me because that’s just how nice she is.  

10.  Got to visit the ER and the late night clinic to get my daughters’ foot x-rayed to see if it was broken, and just less than a week before opening night.  Luckily nothing was broken!

Of course, there was the usual stuff like working, chauffeuring, hosting, cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc…..

So, please excuse me for being a little absent and distracted and just plain busy.  You all know exactly what it’s like to have so much going on that you feel like you just want to bury your head in the sand and disappear.  But, I’m over it and rested up and looking back it was a great month. 

D

 


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Glorious Spring Spectacular

 

 

Spring has sprung and the flowering trees in Utah are crazy pretty.  Every where you look there were these beautiful trees flowering like mad.

 

 

Every neighborhood we drove through, the streets were surrounded with these trees.

 

 

Pink ones, white ones, fruiting, non-fruiting, just gorgeous.

 

These are a great addition to your landscape even here in San Diego we have all kinds of amazing flowering trees.  It’s easy to forget how spectacular these look when they are in full glory but in the spring when they are going off we should add them to the list of things to be planted.  At the nursery the bare-root season has ended but you can still get these beauties all year in different size containers.

Plant one and you won’t be sorry.

D

 


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Wordless Wednesday


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Spring Break and a Road Trip

 

 

 

We went on a little road trip for spring break to see our family in Utah.  We have driven this same drive so many times that I’ve lost count.  But no matter how many times we drive, it never changes, it’s always long.     

So we drove….

 

 

and drove……

 

 

and drove……

 

 

and drove…..

Las Vegas looked cool from the road, but we didn’t stop we just drove by,

 

 

 

and drove by this,

 

 

and drove by this snow in Southern Utah,

 

 

and as we were driving we saw this pretty sunset,

 

 

drove by Salt Lake City,

 

 

drove by the Great Salt Lake,

 

 

and then we drove back,

 in the snow – that was fun,

 NOT!

And now after all that driving it’s back to work.

Happy Monday,

NOT!

D


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Rose Love

 

A few days ago I started cleaning up my roses.  This time of year they are ready to start growing and flowering.  Mine have some rust so they need to be pruned, fertilized and treated with something that will get rid of the rust.  There are many products out there on the market that will work.  More on that later.  Today I just want to remind you that if you have rust like this:

 

 

Prune leaves that have rust and dispose of them in the garbage.  And make sure to clean up any leaves on the ground that have rust.  Rust is an airborne spore and you want to get rid of any leaves that have it as soon as you see it.

 

 

Roses are heavy feeders and are relatively easy to grow.  They need sun, water, feeding and pruning to be their best.  Try to use organics to keep the soil microbes happy.   When watering its best not to do an overhead watering, and water deeply and less often to  encourage a deep root system. 

Happy plantings!

D


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Morning Madness

   

Why is it that every morning seems to be the same?  I think I’m doing great on time then I get in the car and realize that I’m running a little late.  And then I start to get that feeling, you know, like you’ve done something wrong, a little like you need to step on the gas a little bit, a little like you need to start coming up with reasons on why you’re late, and then you think - maybe today I’ll get lucky and hit the lights green. YEA RIGHT!

 

 

 

 

Have you ever tried to take a picture of an intersection from your car? 

 

 

And then there are these guys, who are always at it, same place almost every day.  You would think these people would get it by now.  I guess not everyone’s like me, going the same route everyday.  But it’s a school zone so it’s a good idea.  It was hard to take this picture it felt like I was breaking the law. Are there laws against taking pictures of cops giving tickets?

So anyway,  I’ve counted the lights from my house to work and there are twenty lights, TWENTY,  so you can imagine the stress level I’m on when I keep hitting all of these lights RED, ugh!  Makes me crazy.  And then I look at the clock and now I’m really stressed.  Am I going to be in trouble?  Fired?  Written up?  Oh no, what do I do, what should I say?

 

 I get to work, sneek in hoping nobody sees me and swear that tomorrow I will leave the house earlier.  Really, I swear I will.

 Anyone else have days like these? 

D


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Wordless Wednesday


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Let’s Talk Dirt

  

After having spent several years in the plant business there is one thing that I have learned – SOIL IS KING.  If your soil isn’t at its best chances are nothing’s going to grow well.  Sure you can just put that plant in the ground, water it and see what happens.  It might grow a little but eventually, if your soil is bad, it will die a slow agonizing death.  You might have bad drainage, horrible clay, or rocky soil.  Maybe you are lucky enough to have good soil but most of us don’t.

But you know there’s something going on under ground that we don’t see.  Life.  Colonies of hard working beneficial microbes and mycorrhizae just waiting to make your plants happy.  If you feed them right they will help you to have a beautiful garden.  What they need to be happy is plenty of organic matter through compost, composted manure, organic fertilizers and soil amendments.   Things that they can eat and turn into nutrition for plants. 

When you use chemicals on your soil you are actually hurting these beneficial microbes.  It may seem like your plants are doing well, growing and green, but this will only require more use of these chemicals and after a while you will kill these beneficials.  With these you are only feeding the plants and not the soil.  There is a whole bunch of technical reasons why this is detrimental to your plants and the environment but I’m not going to try and tell you that in this post.

 

 

With the use of organic matter the microbes are able to support a healthy soil that will help your plants grow strong and resistant to diseases and pests.  Over time, if your soil is kept healthy you will find that you have to do less to have healthier plants. You will have to water less and apply fertilizers less.  You’ll have better drainage and watering will be more efficient, water will get to the roots without just rolling off the soil.

Look for products that are organic and contain beneficial microbes and mycorrhizae.  And personally, I don’t like to use any product that contains “Biosolids” which is treated sewage sludge.  I’m all for recycling and reusing but I just don’t want that on my plants.  Look for other ingredients like forest humus and worm castings, kelp meal, bone meal, peat moss, things like that on the ingredient list.  Always read the list of ingredients.  Don’t just pick something that is cheap, read what’s in it, find out what you are putting on your plants.  It’s usually worth spending a little more to get a great crop or beautiful plants.

 Happy planting!

D


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Yes, It Snows in San Diego

 

 

Well, maybe not snow, but as close to it as we can get here in San Diego.

 

 

We’ve had some crazy weather this weekend.  It has been raining, blowing, cold and now hail.  See, we do actually get different weather.  Having come from a place that gets really cold and lots of snow I love this kind of weather, mild with occasional change ups.

D


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