Prickly pear and dewberries, among other things ...

This past week has been fairly stormy, but I was able to get out into my garden some ... here are a few of the things that went on last week:

My nectarine tree arrived! This is a dwarf Mericrest Nectarine from Stark Bros.  My husband and I planted it in the back yard, between the pomegranate and the mulberry trees.

I absolutely love nectarines, so I'm pretty excited!

The flat to the left of the tree has a bunch of roselle hibiscus (Hibiscus sabdariffa) seedlings in them, which I started from seeds I got through Baker Creek. This is the kind of hibiscus you use in herbal tea.

I didn't get as good a germination as I would have hoped, but I do have a half dozen or so seedlings from the packet.  The roselle doesn't do well in zone 7, so these will be potted plants ... I'm going to put them in various places and see where they do best, once I get them put into more permanent containers. But so far they seem to be happy on my back porch. :)

My prickly pear has bloomed! I was surprised to see that this one was yellow - I had always thought that prickly pears had pink blooms, but apparently they come in a wide variety of flower colors.

This plant is quite funny - it sort of "shrinks" in the winter ... all the leaves droop, turn a dull gray-green, and curl up a bit ... then the whole plants pops back up and starts putting out new leaves once it gets warm again!

Home Depot didn't have any more of the nice colored gravel that I started this with, so I'm looking for something similar to finish filling around my plant.

My dewberries are ripening, and I spent part of an afternoon last week picking them on the front yard side of the fence. I got almost two quarts of berries, and I haven't even started on the back side of the fence yet!

And just the other day, I picked our first bit of salad from the front yard ... which was a first for us! Go, edible landscaping! :D

 

So ... how was your garden doing last week? Anything interesting to show us?

Edible bouquets: you can grow that!

Growing edible cut flowers is as easy as growing the flowers themselves, as long as you do so without using chemicals on the plants.

It's fun to be able to go outside and cut flowers, some for your vase and some for your plate, plus it saves you the money of going out and buying them.

What edible flowers are you growing? How do you use them around your home? Do you have any photos to share?

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You Can Grow That! is a campaign created by garden writer and master gardener C. L. Fornari. On the fourth of each month participating garden bloggers write about something you can grow. Stop by the You Can Grow That! Facebook page to read all of the posts.

Get great-looking edging fast

I went outside this past weekend, and there was a lot to be done.

It's finally nice out. You go outside to tidy up after a few weeks of bad weather and then you find something like this:

You know a border is in there somewhere ... but where?

Aha! There it is! But look at all the weeds on the side next to the walkway ... the thought of pulling out each bit of bermuda grass next to the concrete was daunting.

I was looking at this and thinking, "there's got to be a better way" ... and I was right!

First, you have to have the right kind of edging, and it so happened that I did:

This edging is modular -- each piece slides into the other. You notice that one end is thinner than the other? The thicker end has a hole running along its length; the thinner one doesn't. I'll show you how this works in a bit.

This particular edging I got from Gardener's Supply, but if you search on Amazon.com for "pound in edging"you get a whole variety of shapes and sizes.

The first thing you do is to push back whatever you don't want next to the walkway.

You see where the white arrow is pointing? There is a hole in the top of the edging piece there. The black arrow points to the end of the other piece, where the edging is narrow. The narrow side slides into the hole in the wider side. I didn't get a picture of the process, but here's what it looks like after you push the piece in:

Then you just keep going along the row until they're all done, cut back the worst of the weeds, sweep up a bit, and there you go!

Not perfect, but much better than it was!

Is this incredible or what?

I ran across this website that sells decorative tiles for ceilings ... this photo shows a beautiful screened patio ceiling with one style of these tiles installed. There are hundreds of styles there ... I'm like a kid in the candy shop. :)

And here's another one! Can you picture your sunroom with this ceiling! Beautiful!



The possibilities are endless! Tiled garden walls, porch ceilings, garden decorations ... I just got one of their sample packs to use individually in my garden. I'll let you know how it turns out ...