FAKE IS FINE....SOMETIMES

 I have had a few fake flowers and plants in my time but these days I am very selective in my choices. Gone are the days when I had the fake ficus in that dark corner. And gone is the lovely azalea basket. A friend once told me he was surprised at me for having such a thing. Me a gardener. 

They have some very fine metal agave in our neighborhood and the club house has a beautiful art sculpture which looks real from a distance and even up close. I actually had to touch one to be sure. They actually fit well into the landscape and the agave create a uniformity in a series of of planters in the center of the road as we enter the neighborhood. 

 

I had been toying with the idea of putting some such metalwork in a very difficult place in the garden. We inherited a tall planter to the left of the front door. Open to the sky the space is narrow and receives sun only in the late afternoon. The previous owners had never done anything with it and it had become a depository for discarded water bottles. Wouldn't it be so much easier to put a metal agave in there-if I could just find one. Last week while visiting a nursery and having nixed a number of pieces David beckoned me over to see the perfect one.

 It was a saguaro. What could be more perfect and I did not have to balk at the price. A good sized plant and soil would likely cost more. I'm not sure whether  should treat it but for now we went ahead and 'planted' it.

 

We had to rack our brains as to what we were going to fill the pot with as well as how best to secure it. In the past I have filled pots with plastic and bags of mulch. They didn't seem stable enough. It was our son who came up with the idea of using masonry blocks. We headed to the local store and purchased 2 blocks and a tile to make a platform. We robbed our dry creeks for the rock to secure and cover the base.

The added bonus is that we now have something to look at through the window just inside the house.

WAIT A YEAR, THEY SAY

 I'm sure you have heard this piece of advice given when you move into a new house. Take the time to understand the passage of the sun through the year, mark the various micro climates around the garden. When the garden is already planted watch through each of the seasons as plants come and go. Catalogue which plants you have, which will stay and which will go. All the while planning new areas and new plantings.

Sound advice but not for me. I will say I complained the first time I saw the house. "It's already planted. There is no gardening to do" How wrong I was. After moving in and taking a good look around I very quickly saw there was no time to lose. Most of the agave have reached a point where they need to be removed. So far we have removed 3. There are at least 3 more to remove. One monster, one large one and one smaller one at the back. If David thought he would never have to remove another agave after the tens he removed at our last house he was wrong. Thank goodness we kept the chain saw and the pick axes which I insisted on bringing.

Why would anyone plant an A. weberi so close to the fence? It had grown so big that growth of the Texas Mountain laurel planted next to it had been compromised.

I cut off the leaves and then called in the big guns to get out the root. 

Next to go, this monster. I have always thought A. weberii to be pretty innocuous as agave go but these ones have small teeth.

This time David didn't beat about the bush but got out the chain saw, making quick work of it. 

 

I have my eye on this spot to plant either a new calamondin or an satsuma tree. The shops are full of citrus at the moment so I shouldn't have a problem finding one.

I have begun work on making a retaining wall around the mound. Originally the area was piled up with rocks, which prevented us from walking down the side. Now with the soil retained further back I can use left over rocks to make a pathway. 

I am not 100% happy with the rock work but I must make do with what I have on hand and these angular lumps of granite are not as easy to work with as the flat limestone stones I have used in the past. Still I am hoping that succulents and cactus will soften the edges and find a happy home in the nooks and crannies.

After reorganizing the rocks beneath the roof scupper outfalls I will get a few bags of gravel from the local big box store to put down on the rest of the pathway and between the cracks.

 

There is more rock work to do here but I am making a list of plants that I hope to introduce to this part of the garden. Most are desert dwellers. On my list are,

Agave parryi, var, truncata, Artichoke agave,  Euphorbia resinifera Moroccan mound, Echinocereus triglochidiatus Claret cup, Echinocereus engelmannii Engelmanns hedgehog, Aloe x 'Blue elf', as well as many flowering perennials with which I am familiar like Melampodium leucanthum, Blackfoot daisy, Tetraneuris acaulis, Angelita daisy, Damianita and Berlandiera lyrata, chocolate flower.

Let the shopping begin.