Mr. B's Garden: Spring plant swap

Members of the Phoenix/Tucson area Dave's Garden on-line community held our Spring Plant swap this Saturday and about a dozen members were in attendance. Our gracious hosts, Linda and Ken have such beautiful gardens and getting a tour would have been reason enough to go, but they also made pizzas in their wood-fired oven situated in the front yard and they were delicious. There were lots of neat plants available, as well as some seeds and I managed to snag two Stapelias brought by Detrick, but he wasn't able to identify which species they were; guess I'll have to see if anyone on Dave's Garden can help with that. I also snagged a nice Brandywine tomato plant, a couple of kohlrabis, a couple of hollyhocks, a clump of Dwarf White Ruella, a dragonfruit plant, a sweet potato vine and a large bunch of Snowdrops.

Linda and Ken's gardens are rather impressive and prove that you can have a lush setting even in the desert. The front yard features graceful steps leading to the front door and a wonderful brick terrace partially screened by a low stuccoed wall; this terrace is where their amazing wood-fired pizza oven is located. The landscaping draws your eye from one planting area to the next and consists of open areas interspersed with planting beds with flowers such as irises and daylillies with vegetables interplanted with them. I found this to be a unique approach, since I tend to separate my veggies and flowers, even if the beds are in close proximity to one another. The backyard makes the most of the limited space with a bed along the back wall that includes roses, grapes and elephant garlic, as well as others. There are two more beds which again intersperse veggies amongst the irises. They have several fruit trees, including a "cocktail" apple tree, a peach, a nectarine, an orange and a gauva. They also have a nice greenhouse, a composting area, a small veggie garden and a pond. The most amazing thing, at least to me, was the fact that they grow amaryllis from seed!