Fall at my house.....

I live in the desert, it is a hard place to make things beautiful....being from Texas I don't like not having flowers...so years ago we made a deal with our yard.....actually we made a deal with the University that they could use our front yard and we would basically do what they told us to do. We had put in a Wetlands.......the first residential constructed wetlands in Nevada....and so our yard was a great fit for wild experiments. They simply wanted us to not use pesticides, and not to augment the soil. We had to see what would really grow here. So they brought in experimental plants and we dug the holes, Sometimes having to jackhammer to make the holes big enough. This ground is hard and rocky.....a true challenge. My front porch.....looks like a home in Texas doesn't it? A gift from my husband....I am so happy he likes it as much as I do....
And so now the flower show starts.....all of these pictures are of the front yard. I just wanted you to see the colors, and the possibilities of drought tolerant plants.

I tried to delete this picture because the palm in the pot is so ugly and I haven't replaced it yet. But it was too hard.....so not everything looks great!




This is the most beautiful plant, the flowers look like wisteria, but of course, it isn't....it does freeze, but all four of mine came back, after a lot of time.....most everything starts greening up in April, this one and the bougainvilleas didn't really start going until June. It does pay to be patient.
Verbena is always a must
You can't see this very well, but this is an African Sumac that volunteered in this place, so my husband bent it way over and tied it down to train it to watch over the wetlands....
the Cannas are what we have in the wetlands right now, we took out all the cattails and the curly willow. Too invasive. I which we had hundreds of different kinds and colors of cannas, but maybe some time.
Another African Sumac, they volunteer everywhere because we mulch the entire front of our yard. In fact so much volunteers that I plant and replant all the time.

The original African Sumac....love the trunks on these treesSee the purple? It is called purple heart and I got it out of a woman's yard I had admired. She just handed it to me and now I have it all over. In the bottom of my pots, in the yard, in water, in the wetlands, everywhere.
This is my favorite bougainvillea, it grows up around the mailbox, the mail man hates it, but I don't have the heart to cut it. It comes back every year.
And here it is again....
I love it....
purple heart and creeping myrtle.....I got the creeping myrtle from a friend, and now it is also everywhere.
Russian sage (smells heavenly) and purple ruella growing inside of it. They were both volunteers.....
Next to the purple buddies is California fuchsia, which absolutely takes over......and the start of the pumpkin story...

Last year we went to Sacramento with the Holley's and we went o every farmers market there was. my husband got several gourds and pumpkins and harvested the seeds......here is what he did with them.......
They are everywhere
all across the front of the yard.....


Is this wild? It goes right across the steps in front of our house.....and there are so many pumpkins and gourds.....just crazy....I wanted to share the fall in the desert....our imagination and a shovel....