GARDENING IN ARIZONA

When Les and I moved to Arizona we left behind a beautiful garden we loved! It is something we enjoy doing together. But didn't realize the difficult task we were about to experience. Les and Denny's favorite saying: "I fought the desert and the desert won!" So we immediately joined a gardening club, (where Les very soon became nominated to be the president) to learn as much as we could about growing things in this desert soil. There are two different growing seasons. The things we planted in the spring in Utah, we plant in November and February in Arizona. All the flowers in these picutres were planted in the fall. The vegetables we started planting in February. We will plant summer flowers to endure the hot summer in April - May. We are still learning! Our next project: we are going to do a secret garden kind of look with a pathway and gate and trellis on the side of our house. There is alot of rock there now! We hate that rock! So that should be fun!
This is a picture of our little front court -yard Les did last summer in over 100 degree heat! It turned out so nice! I love flowers! So we plant them anywhere we have the room!

This is one of our flower gardens at full maturity. These pictures will help me remember I can endure the heat in July,August, and September!

Here are some zucchini plants doing well. These were planted right around the middle of February. They are doing great!

A few weeks ago Nichole gave us the name of someone who was building grow boxes. So we now have a grow box filled with tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and all kinds of things planted from seed. We were later in getting it planted than we normally would, we'll see how they do.

It was a surprise to me to learn when we moved to Arizona that about 70% of the roses grown were from Arizona. That is because they do so well all year long here. Just a very short period that they do not bloom continuously. They love the warm weather!(I said warm, not scorching!)So we have loved our roses! They are especially beautiful right now!

These little English Daisy flowers are some of my favorites. They are a litttle tempermental, but do well over the winter. These were planted in November and December. They like the cooler weather. When the heat comes, they disapear quickly.

Here are some of our patio flower pots thriving and doing very well. We will give a progress report on our "Secret Garden" Project. I know Les is excited to get going on that. He has already purchased the trees. The first thing we have to do is remove all of the rock! What a project! Should we really tell people we bring dirt and Nutra-mulch from Utah?