• About

Garden of Delights Blog

~ Thoughts on gardening and life

Garden of Delights Blog

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Recognition for your work in support of water conservation, sound good?

21 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by ninagarden in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Hi Everybody,

I haven’t posted for a while, so sorry! I have been busy updating my front yard to water-wise landscape.  This is what it looks like six months after removing the lawn, installing a drip system and planting drought-resistant plants. (Some freesia bulbs just showed up to add a touch of yellow to my spring landscape!)20170321_123655 (002)

It was brought to my attention that I can enter my yard into this year’s WaterSmart Landscape Contest! This competition rewards beautiful drought-conscious landscaping created or commissioned by customers of numerous San Diego County Water Agencies.  I have been looking at the past winners‘ pictures and am inspired by the commitment we have to keep our neighborhoods appealing and charming while saving water. Here is a  picture (below) of the progress I have made in my back yard.  Enter your yard in the contest by 4/7 to win more money to invest in your outdoor living space.

20170317_183125

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Visit to the Old Ranch

02 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by ninagarden in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

We sold our old ranch when I was about 30, right after I got engaged on a horseback ride there. After it sold, I did not go back, although I still think about it almost every day. The pictures I have in my mind are very vivid. We had an airplane that we used to fly over it to check on things — many of the images in my head are of flying over its great expanse. No photo could capture those aerial images of great plains of yellow grass with antelope running this way and that as my father chased them with his plane.

So I got the idea lately that my girls were big enough to go on some adventures with their grandpa and that I should visit the old ranch with him and them.  He also became friendly with the new owner who said we could stay there (thank you).

We went for one night last August, and it was still as stunning as I remember and just like walking into my dreams.

Here are some pictures.

IMG_4258

This is the entrance road looking back at the mountains. There was a monsoon that afternoon and even though it was late August, it was very cool.  My oldest daughter and I sat in the car with windows rolled down and tried to take photos of lightning.

IMG_4273

Above: This is the view that seems to go on forever and is forever in my mind.

IMG_4327

This photo above what I did a lot — sit and play in the sand of a dry creek bed while my father hiked around looking for something for hours.  My mother sat in the truck with the newspaper or her magazines and we waited for hours after driving around the ranch for hours. We probably had no food or water either!

Below: these are the corrals at the headquarters. They weren’t as nice when we owned them. That’s horse hill in the background where the horses were kept. I hiked around it and up it countless times.wp-1472844674211.jpg

 

Grandpa and the girls in the Ranger that he learned to drive that weekend. He took off with my littlest daughter around the time it turned dark, and I had a panic, but they came back after driving to the well about a mile down the road.wp-1472844572693.jpg

The ranch dog getting some love…IMG_4285

A lone stallion…

wp-1472844653302.jpg

I even love the road home…

 

wp-1472844324266.jpg

Bye bye ranch. I love you.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

A Visit to Horse’n Around Rescue

08 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by ninagarden in Arizona, cowgirl, horse, horses, ranch, Tucson, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

horses, ranch, Summer

In May, I went to Tucson, and my dad, my niece and I went on a day trip to Horse’n Around horse rescue in Hereford, Arizona. I saw some great horses here, and it is a truly beautiful location — right next to the border with Mexico. In the background of this picture below, you can see the fence. It’s that black line on the horizon. It looks like a train track.

It’s also on the photo behind this giant donkey in retirement from the Grand Canyon.

We were there about three hours and saw all 48 horses. They had some great horses and some sad stories to tell. Like this gorgeous guy below who broke his knee in a team roping competition.


You can’t tell now, but if you ride him about an hour he begins to favor it. He is in a mountain pasture where he has to climb around a little and they hope it rehabilitates him.

Here are two mares I wanted to adopt. The first photo is of horse I keep thinking about– Desert Rose, the appaloosa. The second photo below is a mare named Kaluha that I learned was already adopted this since my May visit — she will be a great horse for someone! Dad liked her because she reminded him of a horse he had a long time ago. He is feeding her in the picture below Rose.

They were from a seizure of more than 40 starving horses at an old dude ranch– so sad.

I may go back and ride Rose soon! She is stuck in my mind, and I keep thinking about her. I love her color and her markings. I love the idea of helping her out. She was so thin when they got her.  Now she has filled out and grown up. She looks like a cowgirl’s horse…

If you are looking to adopt a horse, please consider going to Horse’n Around Rescue Ranch. When you adopt a horse, you pay a fee (basically you buy the horse) and you get 10 hours of riding instruction with your new companion before you can take her/him home. When I brought my horse Bayito to San Diego, I learned that it isn’t very expensive to trailer a horse to Southern California so if you are looking, you might consider one from Horse’n Around.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Happy Easter Weekend Photos

28 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by ninagarden in Australian shepherd, cabbage, California native plants, chickens, dog, horse, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cows, Easter, flowers, horses

It was a fun Easter weekend with the kids, a happy dog, horses, calves & cows, chickens, Easter bunny, eggs and lots of flowers & veggies in the garden. Enjoy!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Pictures of the Ranch

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by ninagarden in Arizona, cowboy, horse, ranch, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

horse, ranch

When I was back in Tucson a couple of weekends ago, I found these pictures of our old ranch near Wilcox (the O-bar-O).  I thought I’d share so I could see these pictures and not forget.

This must have been a rainy year because the grass looks good and the stream is running.

byoungobaro--o-o4o-o5o-ostream

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Cotillion Cowgirl

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by ninagarden in Arizona, cowgirl, horse, ranch, Tucson, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Agua Linda, farm, horses, ranch, Tucson

I inherited some of my Aunt’s photos a few months ago, and looking through them, I was inspired by this fact — my aunt, who was always glamorous and social, who wore beautiful clothes and surrounded herself with beautiful and glamorous things, was also, a cowgirl.

For the first time, as I looked through the numerous photos of her in ballgowns, costumes, tutus, pearls and neat 60s sheaths, I also saw her riding a horse. A horse!

She grew up on the Agua Linda farm south of Tucson and had ranch in her blood. The “farm” was more about feeding cattle than raising crops, and while my grandpa had sold the old ranch headquarters, he still had the Aros Ranch for a while. I never thought of my aunt as a ranch girl so when I found all the photos of her on horseback, I was surprised. I never saw her on a horse, or near one, for that matter.

But in this old plastic bag of photos that I collected from my brother’s dining room table after he retrieved the remains of her estate, I found a few hints of the cowgirl my aunt once was.

Most of the photos, of course, display her understated glamour — many show dinners with my grandma and grandpa, lady’s lunches and social gatherings.

As a stewardess for American Airlines in the 60s, she had her hair styled by Vidal Sassoon, wore her uniform with pride and lived, no doubt, the high flying life of an elite flight attendant jet-setting around the world. Just look at her expression! Don’t you want to know what she is thinking?

auntninaflightattend

Before she left home, she wore quite a few ball gowns. Here (see girl on right) decked in satin shoulder-length gloves, her hair golden and shimmering as any movie star, she posed for photos at parties I can only imagine.

auntninacotillion

But here she is on my Grandfather’s  horse Tom Thumb, Nov. 1958 in Prescott. The faded inscription on the back says something about “camp on Plum Creek” and “just before sold” is written below  in purple pen. I can’t even believe she’s wearing jeans and look at her belt buckle! (That saddle looks oddly familiar. I wonder if that’s the one I use today.)

cowgilrauntnina

Standing in her white satin cotillion gown, pearls at her neck and bow encircling her tiny waist, she looks pensive. I love how the  black tree enhances her white gown and flowers. The picture is inscribed Dec. 1963, and I wonder where she is heading after this photo shoot? Did she have to drive 60 miles to town or was she already at her destination? (I called my mother and she told me that my aunt was probably heading to the Tucson Symphony Cotillion.)

auntninacotillion2

In the photo below, she smiles at the camera while riding a “big red horse,” as I like to call them–where? I do not know but it looks like somewhere near Tucson. Tamarask and eucalyptus trees rise to the monsoonal clouds.

cowgirlnina

Then years later,  in her red slicker and equally red nail polish, she grips the reins on a winter day. I know that signet ring on her pinkie — I hope one of my nieces have it.

latercowgirlnina

In her 50s and 60s she moved away from Tucson to live with her husband on a homestead in a log cabin in Mule Creek, New Mexico. She had acreage, fought brush fires, and hung wreaths on all the gates along the highway at Christmas time. She seemed to love that life just as much as her Jr. League days. Whenever she went back to Tucson, she let you know how much she despised the traffic. She was content with her country life.

She said, “you go back to what you know.”

When she passed away, way too soon from breast cancer, my sister and I drove to New Mexico and cleaned out her closets. While she had adapted her wardrobe to her rural life, she still had many of her clothes from her old self: lace, satin, and many brocade shawls. The main thing that struck me was how many outfits she had hanging in her two walls of closets. Probably five hundred different outfits were neatly arranged on tiered hangers — each hanger held two or three different outfits: pants and a shirt with a matching shawl. She had more shoes than we knew what to do with–many of them mail ordered and still in plastic wrappers–unworn.

Something of the old cotillion girl hid there in her closet waiting for the next ranch potluck, or maybe, an invitation to a fancy gala in an exotic location.

We can only wonder what possessed her to keep all those clothes.

*********

Here I am as a baby in her arms. I am her namesake and I am proud to have been her niece.

 

meandauntnina

Here’s two other photos that I wanted to share–in the first, she’s in some kind of costume that she no doubt invented and she’s holding a cat ( also in costume) and the other is of her and her favorite dog. I’m not sure here it was taken –maybe along the banks of the Santa Cruz.

auntninaandcatdressup
autN&dog

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

WaterSmart Landscape Makeover Class

03 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by ninagarden in compost, drought-tolerant, planning, Southern California Rain, Uncategorized, water-wise garden

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

drought tolerant gardening, Water-wise

It took about six hours to dig up the turf.

Bye, bye lawn. It took two guys about six hours to dig up the turf.

I attended my first WaterSmart Makeover Class a few weeks ago. It was really inspiring, so inspiring that I went home and ripped out the grass in the front yard! Actually, I learned that you don’t have to do that. There is a way to eliminate your turf without the expense and hard labor of digging it out, but that is for the next class.

Workbook for WaterSmart Landscape Makeover Series

Workbook for WaterSmart Landscape Makeover Series

The class is put on by the San Diego Water Authority and started with an overview by the Assistant Water Resource Specialist Joni German. I won’t get into all the details of the drought in the state of California but for San Diego, I learned some interesting facts that explain why my Hydrangeas look dead and my vegetable garden won’t grow the same way it did.

First of all she explained that the rainfall in San Diego this year is actually above average! We usually get 10 inches a year and this year we have had 11 inches already. Then why do my plants look so crappy? It is because our temperatures have been hotter than normal for the last fifteen months. 2014 was the hottest year on record for San Diego. This heatwave, combined with our water conservation efforts, have left my garden looking horrible. It’s definitely time for a change.

Change requires work–and homework. I had to do some drainage testing, soil testing, and draw up a basic sketch of the existing landscape and irrigation features. It was stuff I like to do…

Dig a 12 X 12 foot hole fill with water. Let sit 8 hours. Then fill with water. Let sit one hour. Measure how far water has gone down. Look up your results on drainage scale.

Drainage test. Dig a 12 X 12 foot hole and fill with water. Let sit 8 hours. Then fill with water. Let sit one hour. Measure how far water has gone down. Look up your results on drainage scale.

Next class is on landscape design–I’m so excited. The third class is where we put our skills to work and show our design plans to an actual designer. We each get thirty minutes of consultation.  The final class is on irrigation. If you are considering replacing your lawn with water-wise plants, I highly suggest you sign up for this free WaterSmart Makeover Class. It is a very useful and interesting class and it’s FREE. You can’t beat that. You get dinner too.

The next class is on my 15th anniversary. Your spouse can go with you. I’m sure it will be a very educational anniversary. Maybe I can bring some champagne!

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Goodbye Grr

03 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by ninagarden in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Poor Grr turned out to be a rooster. He crowed from 5:30 am to 6:30 am and just when you would fall back asleep, he would start again!

  

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Water-wise Gardening: San Diego Demonstration Gardens to Visit

13 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by ninagarden in butterfly garden, drought-tolerant, Southern California Rain, water-wise garden

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

drought tolerant gardening, Water-wise

 ( I apologize for publishing this earlier without the text!)

With the turf replacement rebates from San Diego Water District and the state, we are thinking of replacing our turf in the front yard with some lower-water use plants. Since I have a cottage garden, I need to find something in this style. I don’t want rocks like above, but I liked that fake stream, which we might put on our hill one day.

I recently went to the Master Gardener demo garden at the Flower Fields in Carlsbad for a look at different water-wise plants from different regions: Mediterranean, South African, Australian, native… it’s a good way to learn about different plants from different regions but not so much about landscaping.

Over the weekend, I went to Cuyamaca College Water Conservation Garden in Rancho San Diego (www.thegarden.org), which was tremendous and I recommend going.

Most of the pictures are from the Cuyamaca garden. I loved how natural everything was, yet there was still lots of color and lots of green. (The rock stream with the log “bridge” photo at the start of the blog is also shot there.)

Below are photos of plants that want to remember for my yard: African daisy and creeping germander below. My landscaping idea is to replace our turf with patchwork meadow of water-wise groundcovers. We will also add a much needed walk-way meandering through it. The trick will be to find ground covers that look good all year and don’t die down in the winter. I will need some evergreens and hearty heat-lovers.

A very cute bunny topiary with two other cute bunnies on display in the topiary garden.

I like the fern below. Once established, some types of ferns do not require much water. This is a Wooly Lip fern. There is a lantana in the front (purple ground cover).

The blue fescue grass in the lower left of the next photo will probably be one of the main grasses in my front yard meadow.  Then I think I will plant Santa Barbara Daisies and blue geranium incanum  with it. In the lower left part of the photo is snow in summer ground cover, but it doesn’t live for more than a year or so and it needs water. Maybe that’s why it is under the pink bush.

Below are pictures from the Flower Fields Master Gardener displays. The first picture is of native plants, and I like the Dudleya succulent in here this picture. To the left is a native huechera and in the front is a native penstemon. It’s a little sparse for my taste! (And I had that native penstemon and it died fast!)

The plant below with red flowers are  a type of protea from the South African garden–great for flower arrangements, too. These would be good on our hill. The next photo with the “bee hive” is of a herb garden with thyme, rosemary, etc.

The Cuyamaca Water Conservation Garden will have a Butterfly Event in May 9 and also the college has a spring garden festival coming up. They sell plants too.

As I am writing this, I realized I missed the meadow garden. I was on the way to see my horse, and I had three little girls with me so I was in too much of a hurry and a little distracted. Oh well, good excuse to go back!

If you know of any groundcovers that would look good in my meadow, let me know! I want ones that will look good in winter and summer.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

A Visit to Annie’s Annuals and Perennials Nursery

08 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by ninagarden in California native plants, drought-tolerant, geranium, mail order gardens, Sonoma Valley, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Annie's, geranium maderense, Geraniums, little Bill Wallis geranium, Sonoma

WIN_20150220_171443

My garden is in full bloom from the spring-like weather we are having. It is nice to sit and looked out on all the colorful nasturtiums growing on my hill, filling in many of the dirt spots. I spent a few hours weeding then digging up the little Bill Wallis geranium seedlings that had grown in on our path up the hill. I transplanted them to the edge of the retaining wall on the second part of the hill. I hope they grow there. They have a good chance because I can easily water there with the hose in the summer. You can see the strip of growth where that water reaches.

I mention the Bill Wallis geraniums because they are some of the most thrifty and thriving plants in my terrifically difficult clay hill. They came in the mail from one of my favorite places to shop for plants Annie’s Annuals and Perennials. I circle plants in that catalog the same way I used to circle all the toys I dreamed of in my mother’s Sears catalog at Christmas.

Then I occasionally buy a lot–probably too much. Some of the plants I have bought haven’t lived as expected. I find little sticks around my yard with Annie’s name on them marking where I tried to grow things: a cigar plant–it looked so much bigger in the picture; clarksias–they were awesome until they died; verbena bonariensis–I loved those but they died in the drought last summer, etc. Some of the most enduring plants from Annie’s have been these great re-seeding, low water geraniums. They are the native type of geraniums and are purple. Annie calls them”floriferous, fast and easy.” They are heat tolerant and self-sow. The other reseeding favorite of mine is the rare geranium maderense or as Annie’s calls it “ginormous geranium.” Unlike Bill Wallis who hugs the ground and mounds, the maderense is tall and has dark green leaves and pink blooms when you can coax it into blooming. I like it for its dark green foliage and dramatic looks. It needs water and a cool, shady spot.

I have been trying to go to Annie’s for a couple of years because the catalog is so enticing. I wanted to see her gardens and the place where all my plants came from.

So when we flew into the Oakland airport on our way to Sonoma, I knew Annie’s was nearby in Richmond, CA, and I planned a morning stop there on our way back home. It was literally “across the tracks”– two train tracks and back in an industrial zone. My husband said it was built on a parking lot, but I didn’t notice. I was so excited and so bummed that I couldn’t fly home with a couple boxes of plants. If I had been driving, I would have loaded up the car!

Here is the front entrance. Oh so exciting!

Here are some of the beds of plants. Everything is arranged by type of plant: “Rarities,” “Annuals,” “Natives,” “Vegetables,” “Drought-tolerant,” etc.

 

This is a verbena that does really well in heat and drought:

I liked this succulent display:

One of the planted beds is below. I was a little disappointed by these demonstration gardens because in the catalog, they look huge. But this was a serious nursery with a ton of green houses where everything is grown right there. You can’t go in a lot of them. Since the plants are typically sold in small container (4 inch pots for $7.95), Annie has big pots planted at the end of each row (like the verbena I showed above) so you can see what the plants will look like when they grow.

One of my favorite plants that does well in my yard is below: the majestic Geranium Maderense.

Something I wanted to buy…I am really into purple and orange in my garden right now.

I walked around with my mouth hanging open and I could barely ask the salespeople any questions. It was a bit overwhelming and it was probably for the best that I could not load up my car and drive them home eight hours to San Diego. I would have bought way to much and then been in a panic to plant it all!

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow Garden of Delights Blog on WordPress.com

Posts!

February 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728  
« Mar    

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Blogroll

  • 40pluswoman.com
  • Annie's Annuals and Perennials
  • Empty(ing) the Nest
  • Find me on Pinterest
  • Mrs. Lilien Styling House
  • Nadia Knows
  • Seed to Salad
  • The Germinatrix
  • The Grackle
  • theperfectpreschool.com
  • WordPress.com
  • WordPress.org

Archives

Recent Comments

ninagarden on Visit to the Old Ranch
Hot Rod Cowgirl on Visit to the Old Ranch
Marina on Visit to the Old Ranch
Marina on A Visit to Horse’n Aroun…
eastwestwriters on A Visit to Horse’n Aroun…

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Garden of Delights Blog
    • Join 51 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Garden of Delights Blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: