The clouds came over the mountain....

I monitor the possiblity of rain by looking to the North in the afternoons during monsoon season. The clouds gather over the Catalina mountains most afternoons and then move in over the town to hopefully bring some rain. We've had an awfully dry season so far this year but I keep hoping for a downpour!

Good-bye July 2009 and Happy SkyWatch Friday! To see the skies around the world please visit SkyWatch Friday!

Pretty, Pink and confusing....

I bought this little cactus a few months ago, and it was labeled a "Rose Plaid" cactus, which upon some research seems to be the Gymnocalcyium quehlianum. However it looks exactly the same as this Gymnocalycium Stenopleurum that I posted about some months ago. It seems the more I try to understand and learn the names of my plants, the more I get confused. Some days I feel like I should just give them all proper names- say Genevieve or Wilfred...and forget trying to sort out their family trees.

Happy Cactus Monday! Visit Teri's Painted Daisies and see other amazing and beautiful interpretations of thorns and flowers.

Blue Eye Moo

For reasons I cannot explain, this big oaf of a dog, Moo, who I did NOT want, continues to find her way into my heart. In spite of chewed up shoes, bug parts wall to wall, and her inability to understand that she is no longer the size of Miss P, I really do love her. She is smart, sensitive and so personable. I can't help but smile along with her.

The saga of the spiders...Chapter Two: The spiders get new homes

Last year my dear friend who lives in NYC sent me two little spider babies from her houseplant. They have come quite a long way, and were recently planted alongside my house, in their own cement tubes...I hope they do well planted this way...we will see.

One of them is quite a bit larger than the other with many babies, but both are doing well, and enjoying being desert spiders. They have great memories of the big city though...they tell stores about the views of the Empire State Building they had...and how their home was way up in the sky! Their stories keep those baby spiders entranced during the long hot desert afternoons. I've seen the butterflies pause and listen too....
Happy Saturday!!!!!!!!!!

Rat tail cactus at dusk as monsoon clouds gather

We have had lots of monsoon clouds and a little rain this last week. Even without the rain the clouds are a wonderful change from the hot hot sun.

My rat-tail cactus is changing once again. The tips of almost every long tail are splitting out now into three or four tails. It may be because they got bumped quite a bit when I tried repositioning it so it didn't attack everyone who walked up to the front door. To see other perspectives on the sky from around the world please visit SkyWatch Friday.

Under the Olive tree- the land of the lost succulents

The area beneath my Olive Tree is ever-changing. I've tried quite a few different plants in this bed that didn't work out. Here are some pictures of what the area looks like today. The tumbling pots that I learned to make from my fellow bloggers are in the first picture below. I bought the plant in the top pot- I think it was labeled a rainbow plant. The second level is a little string of pearls succulent and at the bottom is my Mother of thousands..which I actually got way back when it hitchhiked along with another plant I bought. It has really grown. I hope it spreads into the area below and takes over the half bare spots in this bed.

I like to think of the one side of the bed as the "land of the lost succulents" as it is where I stick the little succulents that seem to be on their way out. More than once they have taken on a whole new life. They seem to like having their roots all crowded out be Olive tree roots- which seems to ruin the whole experience for other plants.

These are all Stapelia- given to me by a fellow Tucson gardener. I can't wait for stinky blooms!

And this next picture was a surprise- I had planted some Callidium bulbs in this area last year, but never pulled them out before it got cold last winter. I thought that anything under 50 killed these guys-but one hardy little guy made it through and is just coming up now.

One of the perils of being planted under the olive tree- being tasted by a Cactus Wren or a Curved Billed Thrasher. I have families of both in my yard and the young birds seem to love this area. They poke around and pull out the little plants quite often. My little living stone plants have had bites taken out of them more than once.

I hope you enjoyed the little tour of my Olive tree bed- not much blooming there these days but if you visit Ms Green Thumb Jean's you are sure to see many lovely blooms from other parts of the world. Happy Bloomin' Tuesday!

The hairy ones

Terri's cool picture of the "old man" cactus last week inspired me to show the hairy cactus that live in my yard. I'm not sure of the IDs on these but I love them all!

Happy Cactus Monday! Please visit Terri's Painted Daisies. for other Cactus Monday posts!

The fruits of my passion

My Passion Vines thrive while many of my other plants wilt or fry in the desert heat. This one is growing up over the security bars on my office window and had started to try and grow in to the cracks where the window meets the frame, so I pulled it away at the top and started training it along two strings of twine that stretch from the security bars, over to the top of the bird feeder. The vine is growing crazily now along these strings, crossing over and making a little canopy. I was delighted to find two little passion fruits the other day- so far I've had hundreds of flowers but no fruit since the little empty one that was on the vine when I purchased it over a year ago.

I drove home from Maricopa last night in a huge sand and wind storm. Two semi's ahead of me collided which was scary, but no one else hit them. I got home to some rain and I can almost hear the weeds growing outside this morning. :)

Bird baths and a surprise visitor at the feeder

Quite some time ago I mentioned that I was going to review a garden product. Well has time ever gotten away from me, but I haven't forgotten so here goes. I was really excited to get a new bird bath for my bird area. When it arrived I found that although it was beautiful, it was not at all well designed, nor practical. The basin portion is nice, but very, very shallow. It dries up by noon in my desert area. The real problem was with the base, which consists of two identical pieces that slide together. I noticed that they had holes in the feet, to stake them into the ground, but they also had the same holes at the top, as though they were supposed to attach to the basin part. However they weren't-the pedestal was just designed so that the two pieces were interchangeable- but the holes at the top were not used for anything- and in fact the basin was supposed to just rest on top of the pedestal. I could see the monsoon winds, or even a cat tipping it right over. And to top it off as I slid the two parts together, one foot hit my tile floor and chipped right off.

The company was amazing about replacing the broken part- no questions asked, and a new pedestal soon arrived in the mail. I ended up using the basin part on top of one of my cement tubes, which is a much steadier base for it. As you can see from the pictures I have the pedestal holding a potted plant under the olive tree, but it is tippy and will probably not last in that function. Anyone have any ideas on what I can do with these pedestals?

I guess the moral of this story, is to be sure the company you are ordering from has good return policies-and I give them an A+ for this. My son bought me a concrete birdbath for Moms day so I use both the shallow basin in the cement tube and a bigger bath now. The birds love me!

Look who was dining this morning at the feeder. A little white and blue parakeet!

He flew up into the pine tree overlooking the feeder for awhile.

And then came flying back to the feeder...he is out there now chowing down. I wonder how long he has been on his own and where he came from. I hope he finds the wild life wonderful!

A Cholla flower for Cactus Monday

I have two kinds of Cholla in my yard- the chainfruit Cholla I've shown previously that has the pink flowers and this one that I have yet to identify. I love the yellow-orange flowers. Anyone able to ID it for me?

Happy Cactus Monday! To see other cactus themed art and photography please visit Teri's Painted Daisies!

The many faces of the green envy zinnia

My experiments with Green Envy Zinnia seeds have been fun to say the least. I've had one perfect bloom and many weird blooms. There are still buds developing so there may be more that actually look like zinnias but so far the odd balls are winning about 20 to 1.

Here they are planted in one of the small beds I am using for seed experiments.

And I also planted them at the base of the bird feeder in a cement tube that my neighbor gave me. He gave me a bunch of these and I am still figuring out how to use them all.

Here is a current view of the bird feeder area.

Hope we all survive the hot temps coming this weekend here in Arizona. Happy weekend!

Monsoon skies in Tucson Arizona

The amazing sunsets of our monsoon season just don't seem to quit. We've had some rain too which helps the cactus and other plants store up moisture for dryer times. I haven't played much with my new camera- being more comfortable with my little point and shoot, but I got it out the past couple nights and took these shots of the sunset.

Happy SkyWatch Friday! To join in yourself and to see the amazing views from around the world visit SkyWatch Friday.