Wednesday, May 11, 2016

March, April, where did you go?

March and April were nothing but a blur.  Busy time at work and in the garden.  It's the windy season and keeping the yard free of tumble-weeds is a full time duty.  I've already cleared 90% of the garden beds of weeds and now going into May you can't tell.  I need a cattle type fence around my yard, something I can plant vines on, but mainly to keep tumble weeds out.   


Echinocactus polycphalus, covered.


Echinocactus polycephalus.

Opuntia engelmannii x basilaris, covered.  This may do fine uncovered, seems to be hardy.   

E. "inermis"


Yucca filimentosa, heavy frost damage.

Yucca faxoniana, dead or rotted to the ground.

Yucca thompsoniana/ rostrata, will recover. 

Agave parryi, covered and doing fine.

Corypantha type cactus.

Hesperaloe parviflora, covered and still major burn, but will recover. 

Oputia "minirita"  this was covered.

Yucca torryi, barely alive.  I might replace it.

Yucca elata, major burn.  I removed some leaves so air could help dry the rot out.  Must have helped, it's recovering. 

Yucca faxoniana, covered.

E. "white-sands" 

Yucca rostrata, doing ok.

Opuntia basilaris, did fine.  The damage is from last summer's sucking bugs. 

Yucca torryi, recovering, but might not live through another winter.

Echinocereus caespitosa

Yucca gloriosa variegata. Recovering.

Opuntia basilaris, that I thought would be dead.  

Echinocereus dasyacanthus, I think?  may be dead?

My big Yucca brevifolia, massive burn on crowns, but is recovering good.  

Yucca brevifolia

Agave hybrid, damage, but going to be fine.

More damage on some of my Yucca brevifolias. 


Opuntia engelmannii type, recovering. 


Yucca elata, with leaf damage.

Yucca elata, I have two like this one.  I planted them nowhere special and they look great!

Yucca elata, leaf burn

Yucca brevifolia, I have never seen damage on this plant before.

Agave palmeri, covered and slowly recovering. 

Yucca brevifolia, heavy damage.  This plant has always done fine in past winters.

Yucca brevifolia, top rotted off.

Echinocereus reichenbachii 

Yucca recurvifolia

My recycled pipe railing I've been working on.


Just to show some viewers how bad the winter was.  This are native cactus and half this plant is dead.

Yucca baccata, looks fine.




Surprised this is pushing new growth. 

More Yucca brevifolia damage pics.




Not a good pic, but this was the fourth gopher snake I have seen this year. 

Crab-apple blooms.

Penstemon acuminatis

Native phlox 


This is one my wife ran over, it was a sad day.