| Well, there have been better years.........Lost both Malus Prairie Fires, apparently the Nevada summer heat was a little too much for them.
However, There are three or four whips from the 'native' crab doing quite well. I expect to see a bit more color this spring.
The master plan involving bird seed and attractive lots of birds had unintended consequences. The herds of California Quail who have taken up residence in the back yard have successfully stripped all the green off the perennials and bi-annuals (is that a word?). They also disappeared all the nitrogen bearing clover.
I figured, no problem, I'll cover the entire area in bird netting, which I did. One problem - quail travel in very large families and they apparently don't see too well, so the bird netting is rapidly becoming holier than intended because of lots of stuck quail.
Plan B is.........there is no Plan B yet.
What else...
I planned on turning my tamarisk wind break into a hedge apple wind break and had a couple dozen starts come up in the 'test' bed. I spent an hour or so carefully digging up the starts and placed them in their own individual potting containers - the ones that allow for deep roots and all looked well.
I came out an hour later and someone had carefully pulled up every start and laid it down close to the pot. I looked around and there was one jay and one mocking bird watching me. Felt like buying a shotgun.
Day Lilies -
This is kind of interesting. I wanted to get 100 or so day lilies but wanted to buy in bulk and around here there are no bulk sellers. I found a place down in Georgia that had a few varieties which purportedly do well in the heat.
Not being totally stupid, I picked up 50 instead of 100 and planted them in late July. To my surprise, they were some of the last plants to go dormant. They grew quickly and looked good. It will be interesting to see how they fare
next summer.
-dRahme | 
