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By Mom Unplugged, June 3, 2007 8:56 pm

We are back from Phoenix and plugged in (to the computer) again!

Thanks to air conditioning and swimming pools, the children and I somehow survived temperatures of over 100 degrees without melting. However I must say I am happy to be back at my cool (elevation 7,000′) mountain home! No wonder so many Phoenix residents come to my town for the summer.

When most non desert-dwellers think of Phoenix, lush gardens are not what comes to mind. However there are some truly lovely plants that grow very well in the arid climate of the Arizona desert.

As proof to any doubters out there, for this week’s Sunday Garden Stroll, I chose some photos of a garden at my Phoenix hotel.

Lush Lantana (a shrubby perennial in Phoenix)

The Lantana and Lavender were absolutely stunning together.

Some appreciative visitors to our breakfast on the patio. It’s baby quail season and this pair was followed by nine babies all running along behind as fast as their little legs could carry them (poor Mom!).

If you enjoy gardening or looking at gardens, please visit A Wrung Sponge. Cloudscome is hosting a “Sunday Garden Tour” meme. There is a Mr. Linky where you can find links to other garden posts, or post a link to yours!

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By Mom Unplugged, May 30, 2007 12:11 pm

Today the children were excited to discover the first bloom from one of the perennials we planted last year…this lovely Columbine!Try gardening with your children! Read my recommendations here.

We are about to leave for a much hotter place and shall be truly unplugged for the next few days (I do hope we’ll be plugged into an air conditioner at least!)…

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By Mom Unplugged, May 28, 2007 10:20 am

A bare-root Rose de Rescht - ugh!! But, there is at least a tiny sign of life (see the little red shoots)

One of the tasks I accomplished these past few weeks was ordering and planting my new roses. For any interested gardeners out there I ordered:

• From David Austin: Mme Alfred Carriere, Roseraie de l’Hay, Graham Thomas, and Rose de Rescht.
• From High Country Roses: Pat Austin, Ballerina, Louise Odier, Buff Beauty, Henry Hudson, and Frau Dagmar Hartopp.

Being an extreme nerd, I research extensively just about any project that I undertake. Last summer I bought some rose books (see bottom of post for titles) and tried to find suitable roses for my conditions. I searched for some shade tolerance (due to all my Ponderosa Pines), good disease resistance (I have too many other needy creatures to mother without fussing over roses as well), and decent repeat bloom (if I am going to all this trouble, I don’t want to have just one show of flowers per year). After nearly a year of reading and note-taking, I came up with the selection above.

I figure that one example of each rose should be an interesting experiment. I will see what does well and what does not and can replant accordingly if necessary.

The only problem is that the David Austin roses were sent as bare-root roses and thus require a lot of imagination to visualize the beauties they will (hopefully) become!

Much of gardening involves delayed gratification which is not really my forte. I don’t mind hard work, but I like results…and I like them NOW. Therefore I am not sure why I like gardening so much. I guess because the results are usually very much worth the wait.

Plus, I have a good imagination and can look at my wooded lot seeing not trees and rocks and lots of dry dirt, but an English rose garden, misty with dew. OK. I know my piece of high-elevation Arizona forest will never be a dewy English, cottage garden. But, I can always hope!

A more hopeful sight, these roses were shipped in pots and look like real roses already, albeit small. This one is Buff Beauty.

Ballerina

Books that helped me:

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By Mom Unplugged, May 18, 2007 10:51 am

It is the last full week of school here and my daughter and her Montessori class have been taking many field trips. One was to a local tree farm where they grow Ponderosa Pine seedlings for use in reforesting areas burned from wildfire.

The nursery kindly sent each child home with a baby Ponderosa Pine, and even some seeds to plant. My daughter’s little tree measures just 8 inches and may one day be over 100 feet tall!!.

We planted the tiny seedling yesterday. Knowing how tall it could ultimately grow presented us with a bit of a challenge to find a bare spot. We have plenty of huge Ponderosas around the property already. But we found a nice place in the front yard that is not too close to the house or the other trees. Here it is in it’s new home.

The mother of a third-grader in my daughter’s class had a marvelous idea. When her son was in kindergarten, he received a Ponderosa seedling. The family decided to plant the tree in the forest near a geocache site so that they could easily visit it again. They visit the tree regularly and now, after four years, it is over three feet tall and doing very well!

Below are photos of the pine seeds (I had never seen Ponderosa Pine seeds before - they are quite small) and some mature trees in our yard. The last photo shows the roof of our
two-story house to give you a bit of an idea of the mature trees’ height!

Today they are going to an alpaca farm. I hope they don’t send each child home with a baby alpaca. I’m sure it would be awfully cute, but I think 3 kids, 8 cats, 2 birds, and 2 dogs are enough needy creatures for this mother to manage!

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By Mom Unplugged, April 10, 2007 10:05 pm

I never would have thought it possible, but kids really can take care of a small garden, and enjoy it too! See my post Kids and Gardens and Spring, for a personal story.

Here are some tips that I have found helpful for gardening with my two oldest children (ages 4 and 6):

• Give them just a small area each and start with a small number of flowers. We did six flowers each. Anything more might be overwhelming.
• Annuals are great because they provide immediate and long lasting flowers, and you have the fun of choosing new varieties each year. Seeds take a long time for short attention spans, and perennials often don’t have a long flowering season, plus they don’t always look their best the first year.
• Kids love gear. Get them their own little kid-sized gardening gloves and they will be in heaven.
• For older children, or for a family project, you could try a themed garden. Here are some ideas:

1. Butterfly Garden - There are lots of resources on the web regarding what to plant to attract butterflies (check out The Butterfly Site - Gardening or The Garden Helper) . Choreopsis, Butterfly Bush, and Cosmos are some good ones to start with. If you can, and you really want to get into it, try to identify butterflies that are native to your area and also include plants that those species of caterpillar like to eat. Make sure your garden is in a sunny spot as butterflies only feed in the sun. Also provide a flat rock for warmth (the butterflies will sit on it and keep warm). You could even raise some butterflies to release in your garden. We did that last year and I was just as fascinated (if not more) than my kids! Check out a Live Butterfly Garden to get all you need to raise some Painted Lady butterflies, including mail-away certificate for larvae.
2. Scented Garden - Choose plants that have nice smells. Herbs, lavender, mint, and scented geraniums are good ones to start with. Be careful with the mint as it can be very invasive. If you don’t want it to take over your garden, then plant it in a pot. Just make a big enough hole, and stick in the plant, pot and all. It will look normal from the surface, but it won’t be able to spread. By the way, you can really have fun with scented geraniums. There are some that smell just like lemon, and even a variety that smells like chocolate (check out Scented Pelargoniums or Mountain Valley Growers for more info!).
3. Fairy Garden - Pick fanciful flowers: I like snapdragons (show your kids how the flowers can open and close like bunny mouths) and pansies (they look like they have faces). Anything small, and dainty, and lacy is nice too. Queen Anne’s Lace, Alyssum, Lilly of the Valley. Your kids can decorate the garden with little fairy houses made of sticks and rocks, with perhaps some acorn cap bowls of water for the fairies to drink!
4. Colored Gardens - Pick your child’s favorite color and plan a garden using all that color. You may or may not want to include white flowers or green foliage for contrast.
5. Night Time Gardens - White gardens really stand out at night. Plus some flowers only open at night. Night Gardening, The Evening Garden, and Moon Garden Flowers are good resources.
   
6. An Edible Flower Garden - Herbs are an obvious choice here, but also include Nasturtium, Borage and other edible flowers (research this carefully first since some flowers can be toxic if eaten!).

The possibilities are endless, so just have fun!

Of course, as with any garden, the key to success is two-fold: 1 - Speaking from experience, I know it is easy to go overboard at the nursery. Do not take on more than you and your kids can handle (making a list ahead of time and STICKING TO IT helps). 2 - Whatever you decide to do, be sure to pick plants that will do well in your climate and yard/soil conditions. For example, don’t pick shade-loving plants for a sunny spot, or sun-loving plants for a flowerbed in the shade. You will just set your family up for failure and disappointment. A local nursery or a book such as my favorite, Right Plant, Right Place: Over 1400 Plants for Every Situation in the Garden, can help with this.

Thanks to morguefile.com and photographer puravida.