Fall In The Desert

It seems to be officially
fall here in the desert.
The ash trees are turning yellow and red and the Chinese pistache is also turning red. And my lemons are something to behold. I think they are a bit ahead of schedule. There are several hundred on my tree. I now have to think of creative ways to use some of them. Mostly they are given away. The nice thing about lemons is they will stay on the tree for a long, long time. I made some chicken picata the other day, with lemon juice and white wine. It was quite tasty.

With the advent of cool weather, some of our plants are bursting into bloom. It's an anomaly that many things stop blooming in summer but respond to cooler weather. I have a lovely array of things blooming 12 months out of the year. The excessive heat is gone and our days are gloriously comfortable. It's a bit chilly in the morning but shirt sleeve weather in the afternoon.
We've had about an inch and a half of rain in the past two weeks and that is contributing to blooming in several species. One is the little fuzzy blue flower called Boot Hill Eupatorium amongst the Radiation lantana. It's a little hidden treasure that you have to walk near to notice. The nice thing about cool weather here is that we can plant annuals that would be crispy critters here in July and August. I like to add pansies and stock to some of the pots that have succulents in them. The pansies will bloom until the weather gets hot in the spring, around March or April. All in all, this is the nicest time of year, after spring of course. It's a very lovely time of year to visit as well. All of you snow bunnies should think about a nice trip to Las Vegas. I'll be happy to show you my garden.