March 2004

April 2006

March 2004

April 2006

Are those yucca rigidas you have there?

I attribute the fast growth and increased leaf hardiness to heavy fertilizing (and heavy watering). I feed all my palms Carl Poole palm food. Starting around the first part of April I give each palm half a cup every two to three weeks. I give my last feeding at the end of August and slowly taper off the watering ending the first part of November.

This will be the third growing season for my palms and desert plants, so if the old adage of, "first year sleep, second year creep and third year leap" applies then I should see some good growth this year. I’m excepting my little Brahea to push out 10 or more leaves this summer.

Abq Abq good eye. I got that Y. rigida at Lowe’s a couple years ago. It was one gallon size and crept along until this spring when it started taking off.

Here are some closer pictures of my non palm stuff.

Yucca rigida

Yucca rigida and Creosote (Larrea tridentata)

Agave havardiana and Angelita Daisy (Hymenoxys acaulis)

Dasylirion wheeleri

Brahea armata

Mexican Red Bird of Paradise Caesalpinia pulcherrima starting to leaf out

Agave perryi

Aloe vera

Like you stated, it takes very little to no water, I don’t water mine at all it gets more than enough in runoff from the other irrigated plants in the yard. I had another one on the other side of the yard that got too much runoff and died by the end of its first year in the ground.

With very little supplemental water they grow surprisingly fast. The one pictured was one gallon size planted in May 2004. They also take pruning very well, and have a nice yellow bloom (mine is almost at peak I’ll post a picture in a couple days).

Here is an interesting picture of a creosote hedge in Las Cruces.