The last of warm weather performance.

A few pics of summer growth, before winter droop and or winter loss.  Many plants never out grew the damage from last winter.  Overall, last winter was fairly normal or on the warm side, but had a damaging early cold spell that killed or set many plants back in the spring.

  Other than the slow growth in the beginning of the season, the hardest thing(s) the garden had to endure was a mob of voles that over ran the garden.  Voles are an animal that has little respect for it's surroundings.  They don't just eat parts of the plants, no they kill the whole plant even if it is not palatable.  Plants seem to die without reason.  They chew everything at the base until it simple brakes off, or they eat all the roots until the plants rolls across the yard like a tumble weed, and people wonder why I like snakes in my garden.   

" Mini-Rita"

     

Cylindropuntia imbricata, garden volunteer  

 

One of the coolest yucca I have.

Yucca thompsoniana x elata or is it elata x thompsomiana?

Agastache

Yucca rostrata, three crowns on this one.

A bad pic of  E. trig. "white sands"

Zauschneria 

Eriogonum Ovalifolium var. eximium 

Opuntia basilaris x englemanni 

Echinocactus polycephalus 

Opuntia basilaris, made it through last winter barely.  Nice blue color. 

Echinocactus polycephalus, going into it's first winter.  It will be cover with the rest of the Echinocactus. 

Yucca rostrata/thompsoniana

Agastache sp. Smells like bubble gum.

Yucca brevifolia

Quercus gambelii, an amazing plant!

Yucca elata, bloomed this year, will take a few years to get back in shape. 

New mexico privet.  A small wonderful xeric tree/bush.  Wont out grow a smaller landscape.  

Petrophytum caespitosum

Agave newmexicana x utahensis 

Escobaria vivipara

Escobaria vivipara, this one could be dying.  

Escobaria vivipara

Yucca baccata

An old filamentosa, the first yucca in my yard.

Yucca hybrid  

Sclerocactus parviflorus, E. albispinus   

Yucca brevifolia, grew very little this season.  I might cover this one through the winter.

Agave parryi "Flagstaff"  

Yucca brevifolia

Escobaria vivipara

Cylindropuntia echinocarpa, I think.

Yucca baccata

Shepherdia argentea, testing well in the garden.  No irrigation this summer.

Vole cages 

Desert holly

Opuntia marcocentra, Cochise County

Pawnee butte sand cherry.

Eriogonum sp.

Unknown, a little over an inch and not sure it's a wasp, even though it looks like one. 

Yucca hybrid

Escobaria vivipara, volunteer seedling. (lots of seedlings this year)