Work in the garden has been intermittent throughout the summer. Watering has been done off and on; the most recent time was yesterday. Most of the plants look surprisingly good! A couple of large barrel cacti were even blooming. Some of the smaller mesembs looked pretty fried, and will have to be replaced. All of the spring-planted native shrubs and trees looked great. Weeds were sparse, except for a few around the plants where they could get water. Most of the Echinopsis were yellowing, due (I think) to the intense sun. I think they will recover.

Today Steve Hampson and I spent the afternoon picking up beautiful rocks that had been donated by a man who was cleaning up a house. These rocks varied in size from large potato-size to the size of a medium sized dog. They look like they were collected by a rockhound. Also donated was a very large Golden Barrel Cactus, which is about 2 feet in diameter and 2.5 feet tall. We're going to need help with this one!

So we are slowly gearing up to begin working in the garden more intensively. Stephen and I worked on making labels for all the plants in the garden and those should be in place soon. We will be installing a drip system at some point, as well as putting in walkways and moving all those rocks into the landscape. I hope you will join us sometime!