Bob

Last week, we went shopping for some shrubbery to replace the Cleveland Sage Brush shrubs in our courtyard which were not doing too well after the first year or two. We selected these little (for now) bottle brush shrubs which will (hopefully) display more of these little red flowers as they mature.

On Monday, Verna and I removed the old sage shrubs (mostly dead) and replaced them with these three, which were in five gallon containers from the nursery where we bought them. I managed to locate the irrigation feeders and placed them where they would drizzle the little shrubs when the irrigation timer setting turns the water on.

These shrubs supposedly will grow to three feet in diameter and two to three feet in height. I will post pictures of them again next year when they mature. Click on the image to enlarge.

Our neighbor, Tim, that lives across from us did a job last fall clearing some property for a construction project. Two of the victims of that clearing of natural desert vegetation were ocotillos that Tim brought for us to add to our xeriscape rock and cactus garden. We planted them at that time and today, we noticed that new flower pods are growing on the tips of the ‘canes’ of the ocotillos. This is very good news since the two of them went into shock and lost their green leaves a while after we planted them.

Now, we will see these flower pods grow and produce the little red and yellow flowers characteristic of the ocotillo. After that, the monsoons to come will likely restore the green leaves that these two lost over the winter months. Click on the image to enlarge.