Not All Pests Are Animals or Insects...

Well, I want to start off the post with something pretty. The Dragonfruit, which go very quickly from bloom to ripe, are ready. I picked this one and another one this weekend. This particular variety has a deep, dark, hot-pink flesh inside its fruit.

I wish it would produce more. The plants, a cacti, have little thorns that keep the animal pests off so I don't have to worry about the squirrels or deer getting to them. They also are very drought tolerant, which would make them ideal if they produced more fruit.

Speaking of pests, this morning I saw a lady come down to our back wall and snatch a large cluster of flowers from our plumeria tree. As you can see above, it grows a bit over our back wall. There's a public jogging trail on the other side.

I guess, I don't mind them taking whatever grows over to the other side, I just hope they don't harm the plants or think they can reach over the wall and take whatever they want. 

How do you feel about parts of your plants that grow beyond your property?  Is is open season on whatever grows there?

In other parts of the garden, you might have heard that California is in the worst drought of our history. The state has announced fines of up to $500 per day for visible water wasting. That's in addition to a conservation rate of 20%...we must cut back 20% on our water use.

I wonder about that last one. I've been trying to cut back for years. In fact, I qualified for a lower sewer service rate because we cut back 20% years ago. Do I now need to cut back another 20%?  What about those around me who haven't cut back at all.  Do they get to waste more water than me?

I tell you, the more I think about it the deeper the confusion is. 

Here's our lawn, which I have on a timer. You can tell it's suffering from lack of water, I'm just trying to keep it alive enough to come back when the rains do. It gets 10 minutes of water very, very early in the morning so that all the water is soaked in before the sun comes up. 

This is typical of what the lawns in our neighborhood look like right now.

A couple of people have stopped watering altogether but that brings up a lot of dust. What to do?  I think I might swing by the city hall someday and see what they will allow me to grow there instead of grass but that also might cost quite a bit.

Darryl
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