The Gnome is online!

My mom used to have a subscription to Better Homes and Gardens--the ultimate real-life American lifestyle magazine in my opinion--and I used to pore over the pages, scrutinizing the gardens and the plants and wondering why my mother never took their planting advice. Our garden certainly never looked like the ones on the glossy pages. It didn't make sense then, and it took me years to understand (I was a little distracted by other things like school, college, boys, etc--otherwise I would have caught on sooner, I like to think!) that we don't live in anyplace "typically American." Arizona IS in the US, but it's a whole 'nother world compared to Des Moines, Iowa--which is where Better Homes and Gardens is based. A few statistics to prove my point:

average yearly rainfall:
Iowa: 34.72 inches ***Arizona's low desert: between 7 and 9 inches (depending on who you ask)

average high summer temperature of hottest month:
Iowa: 86 degrees ***Arizona's low desert: well over 100 degrees (no matter how hard we try to deny it!)

days of sunshine per year:
Iowa:199 ***Arizona's low desert: 300


Arizona's low desert is NOT LIKE THE PLACES THE GLOSSY MAGAZINES COME FROM! Heck, even Sunset--my personal favorite of regional magazines--is written and edited in California, although they have a low desert edition. No wonder I--and my mother--have always been frustrated by our gardens, or lack thereof. When everyone else in America is enjoying their Fourth of July tomato harvest, we're sizzling and our gardens are filled with bare brown stems. Those beautiful, sculptural Japanese maples that all the books and magazine recommend don't grow here, neither do hydrangeas, elephant's ear, hostas, nor ferns. For gardeners with a Midwest training, this is terra incognita, and we natives get baffled, too.

In my search to create some beauty in the caliche-ridden, clay-bound, weed-infested soil that my house sits on, I've read endless books (most of which were confusing to someone with no training), pored over magazine articles (see the top of the post for the results of that activity), and even took--and passed!--the Maricopa County Master Gardeners' course. (I'm a lapsed MG, so I can't sling around any credentials. I will never call myself one, and I don't aspire to the heights that those great people have ascended. Seriously, Master Gardeners are the best people out there. They are amazing, and dedicated, and kind, and knowledgeable, and I would have remained one had not a birth and the loss of an hour-reporting sheet intervened. I hope one day to atone for my mistakes and rejoin their ranks. I hope there is forgiveness for a lowly gardening sinner such as I.)

In that search I've learned quite a few interesting things--mainly where to go for REAL, and HELPFUL information--and I'm willing to share freely with other misplaced garden gnomes like myself. I'll be sharing the info I find and showing off the results (good and catastrophic) so you can see what really happens when I follow my own advice.

Good luck and happy gardening!