Dormant for almost a year now, the first couple of gazania flowers are in bloom. I expect to have lots more as summer approaches. This gazania plant is behind the house where it doesn’t get the punishing high-noon Arizona sun. Perfect for producing lots of these pretty flowers. Click on the image to enlarge.
Two years ago, when Bob and I were just buying the lot to build our retirement dream home, the wild cacti on the hill and in the wash behind the graded part of the lot were teeming with cacti flowers. That’s still true today. I walked up the hill a bit to get this image of a beautiful cholla flower. If I recall correctly, a reader and commenter on our other website says this is a buckhorn cholla, a.k.a jumping cholla or a dozen other names. Whatever it’s called, the flowers are gorgeous. Click on the image to enlarge.
Ron, one of our friends on the River, made this cute little yellow birdhouse for us. Today, I took it out to my “musical mesquite” tree, where I hang wind chimes and other colorful decorative things, and hung it on one of the branches. We want to hang it higher in the tree to encourage birds to occupy it, but we left it where it was when a wind gust came up and knocked over my mini-greenhouse up in the courtyard. We ran up there and cleaned up the mess in the courtyard. Amazingly, we did not lose any of the plants in the courtyard or in the greenhouse. Click on the image to enlarge.
We bought this Bishop’s Cap cactus near Chandler, Arizona way back in 1998 or so. We had it in California for those many years before bringing it to our Arizona home last year. I must say it is very happy here having almost constantly producing these beautiful flowers, not only in spring but several other times of the year. Click on the image to enlarge.
Since the Red Birds are coming back to the courtyard, it won’t be long until the beautiful flowers start appearing. I posted this item exactly a year ago today explaining why I just LOVE these plants and their flowers . . .
This is probably my favorite desert shrub. The shrub is called “Red Bird of Paradise” or “The Pride of Barbados.” They are native to Central America, parts of South America and the West Indies. Desert Tropicals, a Phoenix based garden information website, has information on cultivation and care of these pretty shrubs. They recommend planting them six feet apart and after summer in November or so, to cut them almost to the ground to keep them compact. In mid-spring, they will grow quite rapidly to between six and fifteen feet high.
I took this photo today while we were in Glendale, AZ, doing some shopping. Very soon, we will be having our landscape contractor install several of these around our house. Click on the image to enlarge.
Before we left for California last month, there was a white-tailed antelope squirrel burrowing under the quarter minus landscape topping in our courtyard. The burrowing would have endangered some of the shrubs in the courtyard, so I caved in the critter’s excavation, patched up the holes and covered it with a large flower pot to keep it from trying to burrow there again.
When we got home last week, there were no signs of additional burrowing, so we thought the problem had gone away. Yesterday, however, Verna saw the little critter gnawing on a decorative scarf she tied around the neck of a small statue of a coyote. So, I set the little Havahart rat trap next to the statue and baited it with a couple of dog kibbles. Sure enough, the trap sprung this afternoon with the critter inside. I took the trap over to the neighbor’s unimproved lot and let the squirrel run off into the underbrush.
I do not know if catching the squirrel will discourage it from returning to the courtyard, so I set the trap again. We’ll see what happens. Click on the image above to enlarge.
