This morning instead of blogging about my garden I went to Walmart and bought 1 gallon forsythia plants for $3.00 each. Forsythia are one of the few flowering bushes that meet the stringent requirements necessary to be added to my backyard. To thrive in the high desert a plant must be able to survive -20 winters, 100+ summers, high winds, low precipitation, and full sun. To be added to my garden it must also be pretty (or at least very interesting)! Here are a couple of flowering bushes that have made the cut:
This is a Butterfly Bush and it lives up to its name. It flowers through out the entire summer. Sometimes Rew and I lay on our backs and watch the butterflies fluttering from one bush to another.
Russian Sage is my favorite high desert flower. I love the tall purple spikes that adorn the bush all summer. Behind the sage is a small Sugar Maple tree. After reading Red Leaf, Green Leaf with Rew, we had to get a Sugar Maple.
I picked my first two squash last Saturday and was able to serve them for dinner that evening. This is yesterday’s haul from the squash patch:
The radish seeds that I planted last week have sprouted. Wow, planting seeds directly in the ground does works! I plant 10 seeds every 7 – 10 days (I usually start them inside), so that I have a steady supply of radishes through out the summer.
My pumpkins are really doing well. I have found 5 pumpkins so far. I will definitely not have to buy any this year. My biggest concern is that I planted 2 pumpkin plants, 1 zucchini, 4 summer squash, 1 watermelon, and 1 cantaloupe in a 4′ x 8′ raised garden bed thinking that they would have enough room. Well they have filled the entire box, climbed the 3′ high chicken wire and are now spilling over the top. I hope that this does not negatively impact the plants production. The baby pumpkins seems to be a pretty good size so far:
The raspberries have been trickling in very slowly, but there is hope that we may actually harvest enough for a pie. Many of the branches of my 7 raspberry bushes look like this:
Yesterday I had a stern talk with my cucumbers and today I went out and they had finally flowered! I might actually get cucumbers this year…
If you have or know of any flowers or bushes that meet my requirements, I would love to hear about them. Please leave a comment or a link, so I can add more diversity to my flower garden.
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Angela Barton says
Thanks Alea. That makes a lot of sense. They're still youngish, and we're in a drought and just going through a heat wave.
They seem very hearty- I'm looking forward to having them get big and beautiful like yours. I hope.
I did suspect that the flowers have to be pruned because our neighbor has a big one and the plant looks healthy but most of the flowers are dead. But at the Huntington museum and gardens, the butterfly bushes only have nice looking flowers, no dead ones, so I figured they must do a lot of pruning.
Alea says
This might be because your plant is young and/or still smallish. The older the plant the longer the flower spikes. Each spikes has hundreds of little flowers. They start opening from the bottom and work their way up. It takes my plants over a month to complete this process, by the time the top ones have bloomed the bottom ones have closed. All of the spikes are in different stages of opening, creating a continuous show.
Butterfly bushes do not shed their flowers, so you have to prune them. Also, they will stop flowering during heat waves and draughts resuming again once the crisis is over. In some locations they flower in the spring and fall for this reason.
Angela Barton says
Your butterfly bush looks great!
I had to replant ours in an area with more sun in the backyard. In the shade they didn't grow, but also didn't die so I knew they were hearty. Of course I found out they need a lot of sun. They started growing immediately, but the flower only lasts a week or two and then goes black. I wonder why. The leaves and plant seem very happy and healthy.
Struggler says
I'm glad the squash made it in time!
And shame on me, I never knew that's what a baby pumpkin looks like.
I think we have Russian sage too, it's a lovely plant.
The Thrifty Countrywoman says
Great deal on the forsythias! Our cukes haven't flowered yet. This year we're about a month behind. Today the high is in the 50s!
Shana says
Very nice!! Ours is growing well too but we do have a little better climate or more forgiving anyway.
Porch Days says
So exciting to have picked your first squash! My produce seems to be lagging.
Melissa says
Everything looks great! We'd like to grow raspberries, but just don't have much space.
BTW, the only reason I lasted two weeks at the dentist's office was that the entire first week was "classroom" learning about teeth. That was the easy part!