Spring Equinox, March 20, 2018

This Pinon Pine adjacent to our driveway was pruned, fed
and a rock wall built by the "Professional Landscaper."
Such fortune to have my very favorite tree
already growing at our new home.

March 20, 2018, marks the point of equal daylight and night time; in other words, Spring is at her zenith ushering in a new life cycle and bringing new opportunities. Here at an elevation of 6900 feet cold nights with below freezing temperatures continue, hence the landscape still looks like it is Winter. 

Each morning now we take this walk along the Acequia Trail
which is cement and to the left side of this picture. We walk
along the dirt path depicted on the right of the above picture. 

However, the day time is glorious with sun and temperatures rising into the high 60's. To take advantage of this wonderful high desert time of the year, outside Work has begun on the garden, mostly in the enclosed backyard. 

Last week 10 cubic yards of organic compost were delivered from Payne's Soil Yard. A number of wheelbarrows full of this rich organic matter was spread beneath plants previous dug into the front yard where MUCH gravel and landscape cloth had to be moved to be able to actually reach the soil. An agave plant was brought to us from one of our gardening focused neighbors' garden,

Parry agave(Agave parryi)

a cactus was moved from the aspen tree plantings, which also are going to be dug up and a new home found, 

Does anyone know the name of this cactus?

a Desert Holly, aka Redberry Mahonia (Mahonia haematocarpa), purchased from Plants of the Southwest, 

This is a full grown Desert Holly growing along the driveway into the Plants of the Southwest.

and the Pinyon Pine (Pinus edulis) purchased in this past late November from Payne's Nursery 

have now been planted, fertilized with mushroom compost and earthworm castings, mulched with cardboard and compost and watered.

The front yard was landscaped by a "professional landscaper" who was also one of the sellers of this property. His idea was to bring in truckloads of gravel according to our neighbor across the street who watched the process. The plants he chose to plant are not native so one afternoon all the lavender, nonnative grasses and echinacea were dug out and place in a cardboard box with a sign
"Free Plants" and set by the street. Luckily for all, the woman from form + function came for a consult for removal of all the led lights (and fixtures) and expressed delight in taking away to plant in her garden all the dug up plants. 

Other unresistable recent purchases at Plants of the Southwest:

Santa Fe cholla (Cylindropuntia spp.) said to be endangered in Santa Fe.
The flowers are peachy rather than the usual yellow).

Curl leaf Mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius) is a bush seen
with its stunning seed pods along the Lundy Canyon walk towards
Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierras.
I am so delighted to find out that many of the High Desert plants
I loved in the Eastern Sierras have sisters here in the Santa Fe area!

Rubber Rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus nauseous) is ubiquitous in and around Santa Fe.

Weeds, mostly fox tails, have been dug out of the backyard and sticky seed pods have been raked up to provide a safe haven for Shasta. And the HUGE project of moving the rock that had been put in place by some previous inhabitants of this property has begun. 

Shasta with her well loved Christmas reindeer from Holistic Hound
(her inside stuffed toy outside) enjoying her new backyard

Plans are in place for three raised beds using hardware cloth and cement blocks as we did at MuRefuge.

Later this week we plan an excursion up into the mountains to Tooley's Trees in Truchas, New Mexico, to purchase fruit trees and habitat plants. It will be great to see more of "the Land of Enchantment" now that we are settled into our house.

As we all embrace Spring with open arms may we all