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These are some pictures that show what I have been doing lately– this amazing work I love that requires no words and lets me think in an entirely different way…….

Of course with the monsoon rains at their end, all green grass will dry and turn brown.  Our world down here on the Mexican border will remain mostly brown for another ten months.  How to work with that brown-red dirt?

By-the-way, in the corner of the yard in this picture (above) is a Honeysuckle on left and a Jasmine on right with a lovely Lantana starting here, buried in the grass…..

The little purple tips of this fall blooming sage coming into its showing time gets rain from the gutters, packed full at the roots with Bermuda grass that can NEVER truly be eradicated once it gets a hold — only pulled, cut, dug out the best I can.  There’s the adobe form, an array of junk I always seem to collect around me as I work and move move move forward until a project nears completion —

I dug 8″ – 10″ ‘holes’ around and in between my newly planted perennials, sloshed some cement into a soaked mud slurry, leveled it off and randomly placed in stones — sort of like a creek bed.  I doubt either weeds or Bermuda can perk their way through this ‘pad’ once it hardens.  All the water that collects in these pads will flow onto the perennials when summer rains come.

My little wall around the perimeter is made from the adobes I showed pictures of last summer stored against the wall of my house.  They are too sandy and fragile to use to carry much weight, but are perfect — again — for a Bermuda defense wall.  There is creeping Bermuda outside my fence, but hopefully I can catch its nasty little runners as they come OVER the top of my little wall before they can take root on my GOOD side of the fence.

I have a colorful rooster picture I found somewhere years ago hanging on my kitchen wall by my microwave.  As I have studied that brightly colored picture over time, I found a perfect blue tucked in among the rooster’s tail feathers.  I took the picture to our local hardware store the other day and perfectly matched it with an outdoor paint.

Again (as I did with the turquoise on the back wooden fence), I mixed about a quarter cup of paint with two cups water and made a stain for my boards I am experimenting with in the front landscaping project.  Once the boards are stained, I wipe motor oil on them to bug and waterproof the wood.

This trench forms the ‘U’ around what you will see next.  That ‘dirt’ is a red clay, very dense, that turns into ROCK when dry.  No plant roots can penetrate its depths.  I have removed it from my trench as I did out back, and today’s work will be to remove weeds from the area in my back yard I get refill dirt from — that will also get hard when wet if not mixed with organic matter, but that contains far more sand and is Bermuda free.  I figure it will take about eleven cubic yards today to refill this ‘U’ trench.

I am working, also, at figuring out how to install drip irrigation.

There are two silver Texas Ranger plants along this little wall — this next picture shows one I have started in the back yard.  They are a rain-prophet plant, gaining and losing their beautiful, delicate lavender flowers many times in a season as they predict the coming of moisture (though I haven’t seen a drop of the rain they are prepared for now!)

This is looking north east.  The stones I embedded in my adobe walkway are mostly buried, but add strength and durability to this area where the heavy monsoon rains are going to rush.  I moved and moved and moved the gravel (sifted from the dirt in the back yard when I was working back there) until I knew where I wanted it.  The blue board laying on its side is meant to contain the gravel so it doesn’t get kicked here and there where I don’t want it to end up.

Once I am done with the adobe work, including doing my best to create drainage ‘channels’ to let the water run off when it rains and not flood the colored boards, I will try to scrub and clean the boards so that their color shows more brightly.

In the left corner of this picture is a yellow climbing rose.  I bought it four years ago and didn’t remember it was a climber.  Every year I have trimmed it incorrectly, so now that I understand how to maintain a climber I am hoping to restore this one.  I have plans (again, cheapest possible on my budget) to build it an arbor over the end of the sidewalk.  Currently there is no gate on that end, but I plan to build one after I tear down the broken old shed in the back yard so I can use its wood.

This is the most light (morning) that this area gets, but I decided I can find something to put here next summer — hopefully begonias and geraniums.  This is where I ended last night, so these bricks are still quite wet.  In a few days I will be able to add bricks to either end to add some sculptural height and interest to this little wall without cutting much light.  Unfortunately my much-moved-around-gravel is very dirty and lots of it is sunk in wet mud — but…..

Again, the water runs off of the front house roof line here (no gutters).

And, just a quick shot — the back adobe walkways survived the monsoons just fine!

There are lots of pomegranates ripening.  Right in lower center is the little cedar tree my sis brought me!  AND, without the amazing garden cart my other sister gave me for my birthday I could not be doing the front project as hauling all the dirt in 5-gallon buckets all the way to the front yard would be more than I could do!  ‘Harvey’ the garden cart is a miracle on wheels!

ALL the plants will do so much better on drip — long story why that is — saving it for later!

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