When we first moved into this house, I spent almost the entire first year just studying the way the sun and rain played on the property.
After the first couple of winter rainfalls, I tried to walk in the back yard and quickly learned the foolishness of trying to walk in wet desert soils. I ruined a couple pairs of shoes sinking into the slimy mud that caliche soil makes.
I have a whole shelf in the bookcase dedicated to gardening books complete with a gardening encyclopedia but my favorite book was always the Sunset Gardening for Western States. I looked up every favorite plant I had to see if it would survive in the harsh high desert climate. I was disappointed to learn that Jacaranda Trees and Bougainvillaea were no match for the extremes. Instead I learned to love the native plants and drought tolerant plants. I was delighted to learn that roses love the dry heat and do pretty well with proper nourishment.
Over several years I worked to create a large drought tolerant band along the perimeter of the back. Lots of bulbs were planted in the first years and they produced very reliably year after year, until we moved to Idaho and let the plants fend for themselves when the automatic watering system failed during our absence.
The roses managed to survive despite the prolonged neglect.
Roses require work. Pruning is something of an art. Make a cut in the wrong direction and your bush grows all wrong. Leave a bush unpruned and it becomes over grown and the blossoms shrink for competition of nutrients. Prune it at just the right time and you reap the benefits of an additional blooming cycle.
Today I spent half a day pruning the roses and trees. It was a perfect day for it. The wind was strong but not blistering hot. Deceptively cool with the brilliant desert sun baking my un-protected neck and shoulders. A folly to forget sunscreen before talking my morning walk leaves me with a crisp red reminder of the intense burning power of the sun at these high altitudes.
One of the delights of any day in the garden is to stop and admire the beauty of all Gods creatures that come into the garden. Today's delight was to see brilliant yellow butterfly feasting on the silk mimosa. I tried to capture the moment on video with my cell phone but it didn't do justice to the real thing. Some moments really are kodak moments. This time my kodak was out of reach so my memory will have to do.
August pruning before school starts feels like the perfect way to get my house in order before classes start. Soon I will have to steal time away from the books to keep up with any gardening. But gardening is a creative process for me. Funny thing is when I was recently asked to name things I do to relieve stress, I completely forgot about my love for gardening.
This fall I plan on starting a small kitchen garden using the planter boxes around the patio. Nothing large. Something easy to maintain and accessible from the patio; no worries about sinking down to my knees in slimmy mud.
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