Coming along.
When I moved from the third world overcrowding of the Bay Area, CA to the halcyon open spaces of Scottsdale, AZ in the fall of 2016, I made a couple of pleasant discoveries.
Homes were selling at 80% off Bay Area prices and there were dozens to choose from which met my dictates. Best of all, they invariably came with large patios and gardens.
So choice was abundant and selection easy. I settled on a home some twenty years old where the seller had expanded significant sums in remodeling the most costly areas in any home – the kitchen and master bathroom. And throw in new walnut and travertine floors throughout. I’ll take it! That seller had more money than sense as he made no return on his expenditures, the home selling, as these things do in a perfect market, at market price. The home, however, had one glaring omission. After twenty years the two previous owners had done nothing to enhance the dreary ‘builder standard’ plants when it came to landscaping. The irrigation system had more holes than a Swiss cheese and the handful of sorry looking bushes dotted the yard like so many fallen soldiers.
So after my splendid gardener, Luis, dug the whole place up, running new irrigation lines and replacing the busted solenoids on the water valves, I set to deploying the check book and procured some 75 plants all told. The focus was not just on filling empty expanses of the gravel beloved of Arizona’s developers, it was as importantly to add color. Quite how the previous owners managed to enjoy the southerly view from the covered patio resplendent with dramatic daily sunsets, while gazing over an expanse of unrelieved white gravel, beats me.
Now, some eighteen months later, those missionary efforts are beginning to pay back, and the garden is resplendent with color. My new plant loss rate was 10% – not bad – and some of those were because I had incorrectly specified the heat ranges for the locations chosen. Easily fixed.
Cape Honeysuckle.
Purple Lantana.
Bougainvillea.
Little John – a gorgeous flower of spectacular complexity.
Arizona Lemon tree. This one went into serious transplant shock
but I managed to nurse it back to life and it’s on the growth path now.
Orange Tree blossom.
A Pink Oleander, as tough as they get. They come in white, pink and red.
Fishhook Barrel cactus, a cactus which leans strongly into the sun. You really want to avoid those hooks!
Creosote bush.
Yellow Lantana. One of the only plants left from the previous owners’ depredations,
this one started blooming nicely. It’s called regular watering.
Desert Ruellia.
The technique here is interesting. I used the fine 180mm f/2.8 Nikkor at full aperture with an MFT adapter on the Panny GX7, hand held. Because the depth of field is so shallow, I moved the focus collar on the lens while banging away on the shutter release, some eight snaps per final image. In each case one of these was critically sharp, as you can see. Mild vignette added in Lightroom – the Nikkor does not vignette!