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Arp TX News

Jul 6, 2021

Henry Homeyer: The 'no work' garden - Concord Monitor

She has purchased lots of annuals and is growing most in pots (hence the need for daily watering), along with a few easy perennials.The house is L-shaped and defines two sides of the space, with a low railroad tie retaining wall for the third side; the front is open and once allowed her to park her car right by the side door to the house. No more.In addition to the annual flowers, she has a few perennials growing in the ground and lots of whimsy. She stops whenever she sees a “FREE” sign by the side of the road. A chair with no seat? Bring it home, paint it bright blue, and put it in the garden. See a sculpture of a head, or an interesting vase at a yard sale? Get it!The annual flowers she generally buys as hanging baskets because they have well established plants with blossoms from day one. Lots of color. Supertunias, verbenas, and marigolds of various descriptions are some of her favorites. When she gets them home she takes them out of their horrid plastic pots, and puts them in nice ceramic pots. If she goes away for a few days, she has someone come by to water.A vining or trailing plant she likes this year is one I have never seen before. It has bright red trumpet flowers and is a Proven Winner trademarked plant called Lofos Wine Red, a Lophospermum hybrid. Keep it in sun wi...

Apr 4, 2021

No 'super bloom' but wildflowers still coming to Anza-Borrego - Los Angeles Times

Borrego area for 43 years. She’s become pretty good at knowing when it’s going to be a banner year for the famous rainbow-like carpets of blooms that include sand verbena, desert bluebells, chuparosa, brittlebush, Spanish needle, desert apricot, desert lavender and Baja fairy dust. Desert sunflowers were some of the early bloomers at the Arroyo Salada in the Anza-Borrego desert in 2019. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) Those rain-fueled super blooms occurred in 2017 and 2019, and they each drew an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 visitors during peak season. The 2017 bloom, nicknamed “flowermageddon” by some, was such a legendary tourist magnet that weekend traffic backed up 20 miles on Montezuma Valley Road (County Highway S-22), the road that leads into the 630,000-acre state park in east San Diego County. Knaak said visitors arriving this month won’t see fields of color, but they will spot pockets of flowers and annual blooming shrubs, especially if they venture to the shadier areas that retain some moisture, such as Box Canyon, Rainbow Canyon and Hornblend Canyon. “We don’t want people to get their hopes up too high,” she said. “Right now people are reporting patches here and there, especially in the area we call south of Scissors Crossing. They’re seeing some nice blooms. Not big fields or anything, but people who are into botany are finding them.” An Ocotillo plant with some red flowers sits on the western edge of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in 2013. (Charlie Neuman / San Diego Union-Tribune) In a phone interview last week, Knaak said the forecast for the rest of the peak season wasn’t looking great. Then she called back 20 minutes later with joy and excitement in her voice. “Do you hear that?” she asked, holding the phone to the window at the history association’s office, where a roar of rain was coming down. “It’s pouring. This is a game-changer.”Accordin...

Apr 4, 2021

Flowers welcome first bees of the year - Mount Airy News

Alaska fish emulsion. Saving spray bottles for summer growing season. When you finish using spray bottles of window cleaner, carpet spray, tire spray and other spray bottles, save the bottles and sprayers. After you clean them, you can use them to mist seedlings and plants or to use for just the right amount of mist or spray for insect pests on plants and flowers without getting it in areas where you don’t want it. The spray bottles can be labeled with a permanent black marker. You can use one for rose spray, another for water, and another for Japanese beetles, and one to spray tomatoes for wilt or blossom end rot. Keep a supply of spray bottles handy for all kinds of spraying chores and be sure to label all bottles. Keep spray ready mixed in the bottles and all you will have to do is have a bottle filled ready to shake up and use. Trimming panda and asparagus ferns in prep to move outside. These ferns have been wintering over in the sunny living room during autumn, winter, and early spring. As we prepare them for a move to the outside dock in late April, they will need to be trimmed and shaped and feed them with liquid Miracle Gro plant food. Before their move outside they may need a quart of extra potting medium for an extra boost. Making a chicken parmesan casserole. Finely shredded parmesan cheese enhances this chicken casserole and gives it extra flavor. You will need one four pack of Tyson chicken breasts, one package of Pepperidge Farms cornbread dressing, one eight ounce pack finely shredded parmesan cheese, one can Campbell’s cream of chicken soup, one stick melted light margarine, half teaspoon salt, half teaspoon pepper, one teaspoon poultry seasoning, one tablespoon mayonnaise. Boil chicken breasts until tender, skin and debone. Cut chicken into chunks. Place chicken chunks in a 13x9x2 inch baking dish or pan. Mix cream of chicken soup, parmesan cheese, mayonnaise, salt, pepper and poultry seasoning and spread over chicken chunks. Mix cornbread dressing with melted margarine and pour over the top of the casserole and spread over it. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes. Hoe-hoe-hoedown. “Looking good in mink.” A wife was trying on a floor length mink coat and she admired how she looked in it. ” If my husband dosen’t like it, will you refuse to take it back?” “Happy Marriage?” The minister was visiting with a couple in his church. The minister asked how everything was going. The lady of the house replied “The devil is still giving me a hard time.” From the kitchen the husband’s voice rang out, “Now you just hold on, you’re not that easy to get along with yourself!” Enjoying the full worm moon The full worm moon of March will shine down tonight on trees with newly forming leaves and earth worms becoming active in t...

Apr 4, 2021

Will late rains bring a wildflower super bloom to California deserts this year? - Desert Sun

So we have received less than one-third of an average year's worth of rainfall."No flower carpets this yearAs the author of three wildflower books covering the American Southwest, Cornett likes to stay positive when rains do come, but he said this year's storms are too little, too late. He and other area biologists blame climate change for more frequent, more severe droughts, depriving even water-savvy desert plants of the inch or so they need to bloom. Jim Dice, reserve manager for UC Irvine's Steele Burnand Research Center in Borrego Springs, agrees this year is bleak if you're looking for rolling carpets of orange poppies or hot pink sand verbena. He recalls that about 30 years ago, "the March skies opened week after week, and by the end of the month into early April, we had carpets of wildflowers.""So it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility, but it's pretty unlikely," said Dice. "Even in the worst years there are wildflowers, but there are not going to be any carpets like you see in what people call the super bloom years."The scant precipitation through the winter months means a super dud of a season in many places. The Antelope Valley live camera webstream shows dry, dun-colored fields. There are no traffic jams near Lake Elsinore on Interstate 15, like there were two years ago, when pounding rains on Valentine's Day and through the winter led to spectacular super blooms dubbed "Flowermageddon." A few blooms in Anza-Borrego State ParkBut at Anza-Borrego State Park in Borrego Springs, bits of scarlet fluttering atop spindly ocotillo stems right now aren't birds, they're flowers. Fat yellow creosote buds got a good soaking in early March, and desert sunshine had them popping open within days, with hungry bees crowding in.Perennials like ocotillo likely have enough moisture and sugars stored in th...