after the rain delay

The rain last week­end cleared out long enough for us to install the shade panel we’d constructed.

The fence you see faces north by north­west. Any­thing grow­ing in the bed is in total shade for sev­eral months. About this time of year, though, the sun swings north, and things start to get sun expo­sure in the later parts of the day. We removed the termite-munched patio cover that shaded the del­i­cate plants last fall–it had to go–but sud­denly time was of the essence in restor­ing shade.

This is where a few shade denizens live in the bed…

…along with John’s col­lec­tion of orchid cac­tus, Epi­phyl­lum, that he’s amassed over the years. We also have a small assort­ment of hang­ing tilland­sias and some trop­i­cals, includ­ing a few sur­viv­ing orchids from my rabid orchid-growing days two decades ago.

This week­end has turned rainy again, fill­ing many of the holes in the shade screen with water. It’s slowed down mov­ing the plants to their new home, but I won’t com­plain about the water we’re getting.

We’re already two inches ahead of the entire rain­fall for last sea­son (July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009). And last month’s rain accu­mu­la­tion alone, 5.4 inches, came close to the 5.5 total for all of 2009. Still we have a cou­ple inches to go before we can even claim an aver­age rain­fall year.

This season’s rain is fill­ing up ver­nal pools after sev­eral years of dis­ap­point­ments. Fri­day I stopped by some pools with a biol­o­gist to scope out a poten­tial field trip for the local native plant soci­ety. Ver­nal pools are among the most threat­ened habi­tats locally. The occur on our mesa tops, areas that prove irre­sistible to devel­op­ers because they’re flat and require less soil prepa­ra­tion than canyon bot­toms or slopes.

Young plants were every­where, includ­ing those of San Diego mesa mint (Pogog­yne abram­sii), a plant on sev­eral endan­gered species lists. If the rains keep up, it looks like it’s going to be a great year for them.

February 28 2010 06:30 am | Categories: gardening • landscape • my garden | Tags: • • • •

4 Responses to “after the rain delay”

  1. Noelle/azplantlady on 01 Mar 2010 at 9:53 am #

    We too are expe­ri­enc­ing more rain then usual, which is always wel­come here in the desert. I am anx­ious to see the wild­flow­ers com­ing up soon.

  2. Dirty Girl Gardening on 01 Mar 2010 at 4:30 pm #

    Cool project… I wish the rain would stop here so I could get some work done!

  3. Greg on 01 Mar 2010 at 7:24 pm #

    Do your ver­nal pools host peeper frogs or any­thing sim­i­lar? I hope your rain remains a blessing.

  4. skeeter on 02 Mar 2010 at 4:22 pm #

    Rain­ing again in my neck of the woods. I so wish it would hold off long enough for us to clean up a tree that fell a few weeks ago.…

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