Accessible Gardening: #21 Practical Matters for Phsically Challenged Gardeners, 2 by Agavegirl1

Agavegirl1 wrote:
Good Morning,
another day in the tile-grout mine. Sigh, huuuge eye roll! But it is going well as we have over 1/3rd of the living room tile mortared. My husband will be mortaring another \'chunk\' of the living room while I put grout down on what has already been laid. We are \'shuffling\' the furniture, what hasn\'t been placed in the extra rooms, around from space to space as we work in increments. More than all this labor I am absolutely dreading the cleaning of the house afterwards! Dust, dust, dust, dust! SIGH!!!

As for the plants, yes they are incredibly different. They fascinated me completely and utterly when I moved here and captivated me with just how different and bizarre they were. I had never seen anything like them either. Had I not known I was on Earth in the S.W., I would have thought I was on Mars! The sheer scale of them as \'plants\' NOT trees like the Saguaros, the shapes, their sense of symmetry, line, rhythm and proportion was intriguing.

I had never grown up with these or visited the S.W. personally prior to moving here. Although I served at Ft. Huachuca, AZ in the military I had been off the base very little and when I was it was relatively sub-urban and to the mall! (LOL)

These plants were not the usual flora and fauna I had grown up with. Elms, Oaks, Maples, Ash, etc. and the explosion of color in the fall. Fall is my favorite season and every year my mother sends me a shoe box of leaves to enjoy! I send her cotton bolls, seeds and pods--which is a major crop in AZ! Who knew, right?

Spring and into Summer I grew up with Daffodils, Narcissus, Lilacs, Tulips, Lily of the Valley, Hyacinths, Lilac, Iris, Crocus, Peonies, Crab apple, Apple and Cherry blossoms. Here the blooms come out in winter and early spring. Huge, brilliant color in a \'brown-brownish/greenish\' place. Only fleeting and transient;; a week at the most---maybe a month or two if it is a Saguaro. The bloom you see on my Torch Cactus above is already withered, and ready to drop off.

There is no fragrance to the flowers despite the temptation to bury your face in the bloom in anticipation of something wonderful. The humming birds have a field day with them, however, and are an extra bonus. :D

The plants \'grow\' and spread and reproduce all year long EXCEPT summer where they go dormant and into hibernation as opposed to winter! Let\'s not contrast the heat ( 80 degrees in January and 90 degrees in February) vs. the cold, mountains of snow, sleet, freezing rain and Artic temps all day long.

I never dreamt that something could stand in a 100 degree plus heat all day long and STILL be green WITHOUT gallons of water everyday. Most of them \'hate\' water so to speak. Bone dry lack of humidity 3%-13% versus thick 40%-70% walls of it back East. (This I AM loving!) Rain is an \'event\' here! We stand outside and play in it like kids! (LOL).

Here\'s some new pics and some I\'m sure you\'ve seen before of exactly why I fell in love with cacti, aloes and agaves! I do, however, still envy your explosion of seasonal color and scent!


Boggles the mind when you think about these things and even more so when you think about what I grew up with in Ohio and PA. These were the reasons I got into gardening. Mostly because the plants were just \'freaks\' and I was intrigued by them and their survival mechanisms.

Pics-1-3 a rather unusual Agave I spotted in a public parking lot.
Pic 4 Look at the size of the plant in the red pot. Now compare that to the fact my husband is 6\'6\"!
Pic 5-me by the little \'bubble bed\' I planted. All so cute and tiny, all so different; all so many different blooms on them.