Here's my tiny little stapelia flower (I gotta get a tennis ball!!)

Grant, love the spider lilly, so pretty. I have that cypress vine, it's very hardy and I'm finding it all over the yard. It's a pretty and delicate vine with such bright red flowers.

Pulled most of the tomatoes and Zuc's. The cantaloupe is still going strong, along with radishes and grapes. The comirce pears will be ready in about 2 weeks.
Planted acorn squash seeds and black seeded simpson lettuce seeds. Next week it will be Kohlrabi seeds, turnips and spinach.
We put in extra lettuce this year, has everyone seen the price of that stuff lately? In Nov we will put in the garlic.
Its time to turn the corner, winter is coming and our oriental pear tree just lost its leaves.
PS as usual Grant you plants a beautiful
Camp Verde

This post was edited by campv on Tue, Sep 2, 14 at 17:22

Grant, you're the only gardener I know who has such cool looking plants popping up year around! Love the pretty red flowers, what an amazing garden you have.

Nice stapelia flower mary, you and grant seem to have a knack for growing them, they look really exotic.

I'll be trying a fall garden this year, camp verde. Love your name, that and Jerome are my favorite places north of Phoenix.

Here is a variegated alocasia.

Beautiful bloom, Mary, I love it. Stapeliads are just so fun aren't they? Fun updates, campv! I'm envious your zukes and tomatoes lasted this long, but I know you're cooler than we are. Sounds like you're already in full swing for autumn. I'm trying to hold off for a few more weeks!

Love that variegated alocasia, dusti. I'm a huge variegated plant nut and yours looks great!

Thanks for the nice comments on my pics, I appreciate them. These spider lilies are pretty easy to find and they really do well with minimal care. The biggest challenge is to not dig them up when they're dormant in summer, LOL.

Here's a quick pic from this morning showing a black swallowtail butterfly taking a quick rest on some Bauhinia galpinii foliage in the garden.

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My variegated form of "Turk's cap mallow" (Malvaviscus drummondii) keeps on blooming away under my 'Ruby Red' grapefruit tree. Such fun little blooming shrubs for this climate.

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The chocolate daisies (Berlandiera lyrata) are blooming away and really DO smell like chocolate, especially on a warm morning. They make my morning coffee taste like mocha, hah! Such great perennials here.

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There's a lot of other stuff in bloom too of course, but no one needs more pics of my oleanders, lantanas, vincas or daturas, LOL. What's looking good/bad/awful in your garden??

Happy gardening all,
Grant off to the doctor to get my arm x-rayed after a BAD fall yesterday, grumble grumble, hah!

Here is a link that might be useful: Pics from my little garden, September 2014

That's awful news grant, you need to be in top form, the gardening season is coming. :(

Glad you like variegated plants, love em too, they add a nice spot of color even without blooms.

Here are more of the variegated, an aloe and my whitest Sansevieria, the cool looking stripey white and green leaves are unusual and it's as easy to grow as any..
Hugs, dusti

To quote Springsteen, "Is there anybody alive out there?

Hey Grant, hope you're doing well and your arm is healing. Updates?

Lazygardens gave me good advise on what to plant, and I'll post a picture tomorrow. He knows his stuff.

Looking good is a Bat-faced Cuphea. I love these cute little plants and have several. They are tough and undemanding, perfect for summer. I forgot to water one and it was drooping this morning, now it's good as new.

I recently planted these damianita daisys, recommend by lazygardens. They have a nice look, and I'm sure will be easy to take care of..

I extended the daisys and hope they make a nice ground cover. Also, planted another autumn sage, thanks lazygardends. I know you have been in the landscaping business, and really know what does well in AZ and what doesn't, since I've read your advise to other gardeners.

Yup, my right arm is broken, ugh. Thanks for asking. The good news is that I'm left handed, hah. Still, it hurts like a bear but I know people are dealing with a lot worse things. I guess I won't be shoveling any gravel any time soon, hah!

Love the variegated plants, dusti, so fun. The sansevieria sure looks like 'Bantel's Sensation', one of the best variegated forms. Love yours and the nice variegated aloe too. I'm a variegated plant nut for sure.

Your new garden area is looking awesome. So fun to see! Thanks for posting it, keep the updates coming. I love Salvia greggii too and always keep some growing in my gardens. Mine are all really waking up for autumn now and making lots of pretty blooms. So fun.

In terms of pics, let's see, here's one of my hand-pollinated stapelias in bloom this morning (S. hirsuta x S. gigantea seedling #8). It's got the large size of gigantea and the color/pattern of hirsuta. Wilson the tennis ball for size:

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Here's something that does NOT look good, but I don't expect it to in late summer: hybrid Aeonium 'Voodoo'. like all of my aeoniums, it enters a heat induced semi-dormancy in summer and wants shade and only enough water to BARELY stay alive, LOL. It and all the others do this every summer but if it can survive this month, it will be happy by October and glorious by Thanksgiving. Not pretty right now, lol, but I wanted to air my Dirty Laundry.

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Here's my old, dangling Huernia procumbens with quite a few flowers:

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And finally, one of the tiny, but vibrant blooms on Portulaca pilosa, a weed in much of the SE US, but a nice little garden plant for me.

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I DID get over half an inch of rain last night (Sept 6th) which was nice. What a great monsoon season we've had this year!
Happy gardening all,
Grant

My royal poinciana making a comeback. I thought it was dead after winter but it made it.

Look, taro! I highly recommend trying to grow this. Very easy to grow from supermarket taro. I just threw them in the old pot where that squash was. Leaves are delicious.

Ouch, sorry to hear about your arm. Look on the bright side, you didn't break a leg and have to wear that awful Frankenstein boot, lol.

Thanks for the compliments on my garden. Am trying your Gomphrena, not the fireworks, but strawberry. The plant is heat tolerant and blooms well. Have an Albelmoschus manihot in bloom, will try and post a picture this week. Also trying a Turks Cap, yours looks really good. This is the lull before the busy season at work, will try and sneak in a few more pics.

Toucan, (my favorite screen saver is a Toucan I took in Costa Rica, there is no cooler looking bird) I like the idea of growing taro, but read it's more of a bog plant..

toucan,
I have a taro growing in a container too. Just curious how do you eat the leaves? When I searched the internet, I only found that the leaves are used as wraps.
ange2006

Ange2006 and Dustin: you can definitely eat the leaves. I thought taro had to be grown in bogs too but I found out you don't have to and some varieties don't grow in bogs. What varieties grow in which, I don't know. I just know that the small taro you can get in Asian markets grow can be grown in a pot. Their leaves look like large phantom ears so look ornental if you don't want to eat them. I'm growing them to eat because they reAlly taste great. Although I'm just starting to grow my own, I've read that the leaves need to be handled with gloves and blanched first before use.

Here are some links for recipes and info:
http://www.staradvertiser.com/features/20110601_Slow_ono_luau.html?id=122915903&mobile=true

http://www.specialtyproduce.com/produce/Taro_Leaves_3409.php

My phone changed the word Elephant to phantom. Any other grammar and misspellings in previous post I will also blame on phone. Hee hee.

Hey toucan, thanks for the links on taro, I'll try some. Didn't know they were so easy to grow.

Here is the Toucan I took in Costa Rica, and grant, just so I'm not off topic, there are lots of tropical plants in the background. :) You chose a really cool name, this bird is surrounded by rainforest, a great place to visit sometime..dustin

Thank you, Toucan. I grow taro for the roots, glad to find that the leaves are very nutritious and tasty.

What a beautiful toucan. I haven't seen that coloration before. Would love to go to Costa Rica and see all the wild life and plants. Dangerous to go to a tropical country and then try not to plant those things here. I always hope the plants can adapt.

Started the fall vegetable garden prep (weeding, pulled overgrown/volunteer/dead plants, fertilized with BioFlora Crumbles) . Picked up pak choi, Wong Bok Napa cabbage, Copenhagen Market cabbage, Bachelor Buttons edible flowers, Montebianco fennel, Russian Red kale, Gigante di Napoli parsley, Snowball cauliflower, San Giuseppe romanesco cauliflower, Quarantina broccoli rabe, Dukat dill, beet greens, chives, and mint. All from Vilardi Gardens.

Divided my I'toi onions (started with 2 bulbs last fall)

I cut back sage, oregano, sweet basil, Genovese basil, and Thai basil which had become overgrown. Pepper plants were leafing out again after the recent rains, and my artichoke was coming back nicely.

I still have plumerias blooming or forming inflos, including today's San Diego Sunset.

Nice garden Lynne, everything looks healthy and yummy. None of my plumeria are blooming now, that's a pretty one.

Here's an Albelmoschus manihot in bloom, it's a kind of hibiscus, unusual looking plant.

Yes Grant, you are exactly right, the sansevieria is Bantel's Sensation, how do you know this stuff..

Garden looks .... SOGGY ... and overgrown! And the pool is a mess.

The queens wreath seedlings have become a ground cover under the arbor, the buffalo grass is long and silky and spreading outside the sprinkler zones, some "Needle Grama" grass has erupted all over the uncultivated sections of the yard, mesquite and feathery cassia seedlings are popping up all over the place and I have weed control to do.

Storm took out a few branches, and half of my biggest Desert Willow was twisted off the tree.

Maximilian Sunflowers are doing OK. The biggest one is about nine feet tall (staked). The goldfinches sure like the seeds.
Lazy, sorry to hear about your Desert Willow. My ten year old Eucalyptus spathulata lost a couple of four inch limbs leaving it forever ugly so I cut it down.

Great new pics and posts all, keep them coming! Love the toucan, toucan, hah! Thanks for the sympathy on my arm, it hurts like a bear but I'm trying to get back in the game, hah. Definitely could have been worse!

It's fun to see the autumn plants queuing up. It's putting me in a veggie gardening mood, hah. I did plant some hollyhock seeds this week (some are already sprouting) plus some 'Cocozelle' heirloom zucchini seeds (also already sprouting). Fun.

Thanks for confirming 'Bantel's Sensation' dusti. What a great variety that one is!

Love all the great new pics. The veggies look great, the plumeria is gorgeous and those maximilian sunflowers (and their friends) look great, Jon. So fun to see who is growing what.

I've got tons of pink rain lilies (Zephyranthes) blooming all over the garden, plus this fun small orange/yellow one too:

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Harrisia jusbertii, the big gangly cactus, has been making several hand-sized blooms this week. They smell like hot plastic mixed with mothballs, so no need to plant them where you can easily smell them, hah!

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Finally, my Gossypium thurberi plants are really blooming right now. Fun shrubs/VERY small trees (if trained) with lots of pretty rounded hibiscus like flowers in late summer/autumn, plus one of the few plants to provide true rich autumn foliage color here. Easy and fun!

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Happy gardening all,
Grant

Here is a link that might be useful: Pics from my garden Sept 2014

Yay, it's finally dragon fruit season!

Kevin

I can totally sympathize, lazy! Got a ton of palo verde seedlings popping up everywhere. The damianita daisys I recently planted are doing well, but need a lot of water. Why don't you post some picts of your plants? I don't remember seeing any on this thread. Sorry about your Desert Willow, I lost a nice mesquite, sometimes gardening here gets expensive.

Love the orange rain lily, grant! Very nice addition. Your garden is superb as usual. Take care of that arm!

Love the dragon fruit, Kevin!

Here is a picture of one of the bat face Cuphea, they are all blooming their heads off now, and have such cute little faces.

Here is another desert rose in bloom. Easiest plants to flower for me when the heat gets past 100. They've done great all summer.

I was out weeding palo verde seedlings this morning, and saw this pink Turks cap in bloom. It's easy to grow, thanks Grant, glad I tried one!

Seems everything is blooming, four o'clocks are blooming next to the Turks cap and in the planter, a Black and Blue salvia is ready to bloom, the cuphea in front of the Turks cap is covered in blooms, a tangerine vine is starting to bloom in the back, and beside it, a Crinum Lily that doubled in size over the summer, no blooms, guess that's a spring picture. The blue pot has a Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow plant, blooming different shades of purple and white.

Really nice to have pleasant mornings and the plants have definitely responded. Makes the trouble of gardening worth it, don't you think? I bought a composter recently, working on the first batch, can't wait to treat them to good (free) soil!

Wonderful looking dragon fruit Bolt! Love it! My plants all got zorched by the odious winter of 2012-2013 but are slowly coming back. Yours looks great! Have you eaten it? Was it as good as the store bought ones? Nom nom nom!

Great new pics, Dusti! Love the cupheas and the pink Malvaviscus. I really need to add pink and white to my "collection" of two varieties, hah. I've got green leaf with red flowers and variegated leaf with red flowers, plus a seedling from a seed I planted last autumn that's about 8 inches tall now. I imagine it will be red which is fine with me. I need more though, they're really great plants (I fell in love with them at the wonderful Tucson Botanical Garden where they have some awesome plantings of them).

Anyway, your garden and plants all look awesome. How long have you had the Brunfelsia, and has it stayed happy? What conditions does it get? I've always been scared they would want more humidity than we can give it. We'd love to see/hear more. So nice to see the pics and updates all.

The morning weather is great, isn't it? Even the warm afternoons aren't as warm for as long. Now if we can just get rid of the humidity, hah.

Uber-quick pics from the garden: my variegated leaf Malvaviscus drummondii is blooming away under my grapefruit tree. I'm glad the variegation isn't burning in the partial sun it receives:

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Japanese honeysuckle (I know it's a weed in many places) is starting to bloom for autumn. Such a fun fairly well behaved vine here, and nicely green all year.

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Ruellias in pinks and purples are blooming like crazy:

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LAST autumn's sowing of hollyhocks is doing great and is really perking up with the cooler weather. They're in full hot sun and get no automatic irrigation. They did great even though I have five one-week trips this summer. Such little troopers that will definitely bloom in late winter/spring.

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Finally, some NEW hollyhock babies planted ten days ago. I planted a bunch from my own plants, plus some I picked up during a road trip to Santa Fe, NW a month ago (harvested from alley/parking lot plants, not from anyone's garden of course). Plant hollyhock seed now and you'll have nice plants that will coast through winter. Some will bloom their first spring, and almost all will their second spring and beyond. So easy and SO many great varieties out there.

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Happy gardening all!
Grant

Here is a link that might be useful: Pics from my garden, Sept 2014

Hi all, my Bauhinia galpinii is making a nice show of blooms this week so I thought I'd share a pic. Great small shrubs here for hot, sunny locations. I just give mine sunshine, fairly regular water, and some type of acidifier in spring/summer (Miracid usually) to keep it happy and blooming. Here's a quick pic from this morning. Happy gardening!

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More taro

More squash

Wasn't the rain wonderful? I was out in the garden weeding just now, and all the plants look so happy.

Love that Bauhinia galpinii, grant and even asked for one at a nursery earlier this year, and was told they were sold out.

The Brunfelsia or Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow plant you asked about, is easy to grow. All the plants in front of the lattice are less than a year old, but the plant has stood up to the hottest days, aside from feeding and giving lots of water when hot, I did nothing extra. Didn't know they were fussy.

This is a fun plant, because the leaves change from purple to white!

A Chinese Lantern hibiscus just starting to bloom. Have several hibiscus, but this is my favorite. Love the little red, hanging lanterns. In the background is a rare, rain drenched plumeria, lol.

Hey toucan, thanks for posting a picture of the taro! Very nice. Your post just came in, not much luck with squash because of the rabbits, but I can pot up the taro, going to try growing some.