Agaves, Yuccas and Red Birds of Paradise

My front yard is slowly turning into a drought-tolerant garden. I now have over 13 agaves growing there, most of them year-old offshots of parent plants. Five years ago I had five agaves.

The African daisies are slowly dying off. As perenials they have lived their normal lifespan of four to five years. A few newer plants are still thriving and most likely will go to seed, but I am no longer wishing for more new growth. I feel about African daisies as I do about the coreopsis: they are prettier in someone else's yard.

The garden is clearly in transition, just as I wanted. I don't want petunias or zinnias growing, plants that need more water than the lavender, salvias, lantana, verbena, orange honeysuckle, penstemons and Red and Yellow Birds of Paradise. What is growing there now are all offspring, or young seedlings from fresh seed, most of them strays. I have done little to the front yard this year as far as planting new bushes. (The exception was yesterday's transplanting of agave offshoots) and the natural look seems more attractive, more normal in this high desert. I have the showiest front yard in the street. The red, yellow and orange lantana are getting large enough to demand attention. The black swallowtail butterflies love those flowers.

The desert willow seedling that found a home near the four-year-old mesquite tree is now six inches tall. By the end of the year it will be a foot tall; next year it will be three feet tall. There are also various seedlings from the blue and yellow palo verde showing themselves throughout the gravel. In another five years the front yard will be canopied in various feathery shade shrubs and trees, just as I like it to be.

My one concern is my older yucca. It has brown spots on its older leaves. I've cut off the fungal spots and am keeping an eye out on it for the next year. The yuccca is now about three feet tall and four years old, planted in the spring of 2005 when I was conducting all kinds of experiments in the front yard.

It looks like Hurricane Jimena is going to bring rain this way by the weekend. I hope so, as the Bermuda grass is drying up again.

As for the vegetables, it's been a dismal harvest. Only the green peppers seem to have done well. Tomatoes, squash, carrots are rotting or growing mold before they are ready to be picked. This fall I'm going to do a thorough fertilization and organic treatment of the beds.