While I don’t have a pomegranate tree myself, I have propagated many for Mission Garden here in Tucson, along with various other fruit trees. A few are propagated by seed, but most are by cuttings.
The trick with full sun is that when trees are newly planted, they really should be protected with shade cloth for a couple of weeks, and then gradually removed for a few hours each day for about a week, and then they should be good to go.
This is the procedure I use for figs, citrus, passionflower vine cuttings and so forth.
At my house and at Mission Gardens, garlic is planted and grown in full sun for the entire time they are in the ground, so there must be some factor that is different in your garden. Perhaps water? A well watered plant can withstand sun that will burn or kill underwater plants.
You can ask Filaree for recommendations as to what varieties of garlic they would recommend for your conditions. If you wait until autumn many of the varieties will be sold out, so you might want to put an order in by midsummer. l’ve already put mine in!
I am taking notes here! Everything I’ve read says that I should plant in July, is that also what your experience indicates? Should shade cloth cover the entire tree like a tent or just the leaves and branches? We have gotten snow at least once each winter for the last five years, will I want to cover the tree to protect it from freezing?
As I mentioned earlier, I don’t really care about the fruit but I want abundant flowers. How would you suggest I feed for this?
Thanks for all the great info, I’m considering myself to be very lucky to have found a localish expert!
(When one is driving from Phoenix to Prescott, most of the drive is up a couple of mountain. We live about three quarters of the way up the first mountain, a few miles north of Sunset Point. The Saguaro line is about 10 miles south of us.)
You should plant before the real heat of summer. Where I live, small trees were planted starting about a month ago, and still are being planted up into mid April. Shade cloth should cover the entire young tree including the trunk.
I live in the Sonoran desert; my growing conditions are much different than yours so I can’t really be a localish expert! But I have lived in areas close to your climate.
Thankfully, it has rained for the last two days cause it looks like I’m going to be digging the hole tomorrow. It won’t get that hot that quickly, but digging in damp dirt is easier than doing it when the dirt is baked dry.
You know how to grow when the days and nights never get lower than 80F, most folks don’t have a clue about how hard gardening is during extreme heat. Our summers aren’t that extreme, but they can still take your breath away if you aren’t ready before opening the door.
I have (or have had) some of those figs. Olympian in particular has been a reliable and productive variety.
The new cultivars I’ve concentrated on this year in raising cuttings have been those reputedly hardy in borderline areas like my zone 6B garden - Improved Celeste, Gino’s, St. Martin, Teramo, Col de Dame Gris, Takoma Violet and some others. I’m looking to plant out a dozen more fig trees in protected spots to complement known winter survivors like Chicago Hardy.
Your climate offers much different conditions than mine does here in the Sonoran Desert. I’m testing varieties that might do well in our heat and aridity. Low temps are not a problem at all. There are reasons that Black Mission is so popular here!
I am trying to find figs that originate in the Near East and N. Africa as possible introductions here. Souadi is an example that I’m growing right now, but haven’t fruited it yet.
I do have Celeste, Col de Dame Noir, Takoma Violet and even Chicago Hardy among many others. I consider them as trials; who knows which ones will thrive here? Celeste should do well as it tolerates heat, but apparently its tolerance for low humidity is unknown. Right now it is young and wants to drop most of its fruit, so its continued existence in my collection is questionable.
'Tis the seasons … not for Santa and ornaments, but for GARDENING!
A few tulips are poking up their first points. I went to admire them, saw my raggedy dead thyme from last year, and thought, “Hmm, wonder if it’ll come back?”
Upon closer inspection, it already has! There’s little new leaves near the base.
Ditto the sage - I chopped back the winter-dry stems (I am a lazy gardener, if you haven’t noticed) and saw bits of green, just like in “The Secret Garden.”
Now I’m inspired to go haul out my seed collection and start getting spring going. I’m in western Michigan, and we got hella snow two days ago, though the ground is warm enough that it didn’t stick. I think that was winter’s last “Oh, and another thing!” for this year’s argument.
Well, my plan is to head to the local nursery, get some big clay pots, soil, fertilizer, and some vegetable seeds and grow stuff out on the deck. We don’t really have a good place in the front or side yard for a garden, and the “backyard” is literally all deck, but it gets all the sunlight back there, so I’m working with what I got. This has been the plan for at least 2 years now, but I’m definitely going to do it this year. Planning to go to the nursery this weekend, in fact. Have the money set aside and everything.
Just looking to grow some tomatoes, some cucumbers, a variety of herbs, maybe some green beans. See how that goes, then expand in the future if it goes decently.
Well, I bought 3 large wheeled planters and transplanted my strawberry plants and perennial herbs into two of those. The third one will host a couple of chili pepper plants when the weather gets warm enough for those.
The tomatoes are planted in their containers but are on the front porch right now to keep them warmer. They’ll move to the back in a couple weeks.
Basil and dill plants have also been purchased and are being moved around as the weather dictates at the moment.
The raspberries are pruned and the blueberries have been flowering. One plant looks like it won’t be very productive this year - every few years it wants to grow more than it wants to flower, but that’s fine. The other plant should have plenty of berries.
I put some wildflower seeds in a raised bed in the fall and there are some little plants coming up in there now. Hopefully they are the wildflowers and not just some random thing that’s decided to seed itself there!
'Tis the seasons … not for Santa and ornaments, but for GARDENING!
A few tulips are poking up their first points. I went to admire them, saw my raggedy dead thyme from last year, and thought, “Hmm, wonder if it’ll come back?”
Upon closer inspection, it already has! There’s little new leaves near the base.
Ditto the sage - I chopped back the winter-dry stems (I am a lazy gardener, if you haven’t noticed) and saw bits of green, just like in “The Secret Garden.”
Now I’m inspired to go haul out my seed collection and start getting spring going. I’m in western Michigan, and we got hella snow two days ago, though the ground is warm enough that it didn’t stick. I think that was winter’s last “Oh, and another thing!” for this year’s argument.
Correction. I now have 12, as in TWELVE(!) chili pepper plants. Six cayennes and six jalapenos. I am trying to support our new local farm/gardening store and they were selling these in six-packs only. I am going to end up with buckets of peppers.
The first tulip has bloomed and the next batch of daffodils is starting to flower. A friend took all of our succulents and the Christmas cactus off our hands.
If you had asked me eight hours ago about my gardening so far this year, I could have told you in five words: well, the medlar’s in leaf.
However, this afternoon I finally got my lazy arse in gear and sowed for germination: squash, pumpkin, courgette, cucumber and two types of lettuce. And okra - hah! I tried okra (gumbo?) last year, reasoning that in an excellent summer you could probably just about grow it in pots outdoors - and what a coup that would be. It was the worst summer for decades. Well, I got half a pack of seeds left…
Last frost round these parts (some distance south of London, England) is mid may, so there’s no need to open up the beds on the allotment/community garden yet. Seed potatoes are chitting nicely.
Of, I forgot - I tend to think of gardening as simply vegetables, but a couple of weeks ago we put in a hedge - 24 photinia plants. It’s a COVID thing, unlikely as that sounds - round here, too many people without a clue went out and got themselves a lockdown dog; they have no idea of etiquette or how to control it. Eventually we just got pissed off with people using our grass as a dog toilet. Get Off My Lawn! Yep, that’s who I’m turning into.
I have cages for my peonies. I don’t really care if the peonies flop over. The cages are to tell people not to step on them, and not to let their dogs dig there, or do their business there. It’s not a covid thing, it’s an “I have neighbors with dogs” thing.
So this year we I have planted a cayanne pepper and a new jalapeno plant.
Some sage and a couple of basil plants have gone in some plant pots.
A few random flower things in the front garden.
I started some roma tomatoes and cucumbers from seeds ,and I just transplanted to outside.
Unfortunately I was a bit premature with the cucumbers and a day of strong dry winds wiped them out, so I went off to Lowes to buy a new one while I get a few more going from seed to take over when the first one dies off.
Survivors from last year , the fire brush looked dead but now has some shoots comming through. A jalapeno I thought was dead but didnt tear up is showing signs of life. Both haberneros died , but I just saw a ton of tiny shoots coming out the ground so some of the habs fruits that dropped off and got burried in the soil must have started sprouting , so I may be in for a ridiculous number of haberneors .
Again
Some phlox plant we had in pots also looked dead but i planted them in the ground and are also showing a few shoots comming through.
The azealas out front just went nuts with blooms, all looks very nice , for the next week or so.
So far I have started a ton of seedlings indoors: eggplants and peppers and tomatoes. They have to live on a covered greenhouse shelf on the unheated (but enclosed) back porch, because it’s the only cat-resistant place in the house. There are 8 trays so far, plus overflow on top of a bookshelf, and I haven’t even potted up all the tomatoes yet! I swear, I planted 2 - 3 seeds per cell in recycled flats, and jus about every damn tomato germinated. I had to have a friend take most of the peppers to foster them (she didn’t mind at all - she didn’t get around to starting any herself this year). Most of these seedlings are destined for a seedling swap run by a neighborhood gardening group; it’s their biggest fundraiser of the year. But we will keep enough for 2 raised beds of tomatoes and one each of peppers and eggplants. I also gave away 8 each to 2 different friends yesterday and today.
Tomorrow, weather permitting, I will weed the long bed next to the garage, dig in some compost, and plant radishes and turnips and various greens (it’s too shady there for much else). And weather and back permitting, I will rebuild the other brick raised bed on the other side of the garage, which was done initially with construction adhesive and is now falling apart. This time, with concrete! Have to do it before the peas go there, trellised against the wall of the garage with a trellis made of 1’2" galvanized conduit, nylon netting, and zip ties.
The front and side yards are coming along nicely - I have been adding perennials bit by bit, as gardening friends thin theirs out. Tom Scud just transplanted a Rose of Sharon to the side yard that a squirrel or something must have planted right next to one of the raised beds in the backyard. And I am dying to see what will come back of the 3 giant bags of wildflower seeds that made a lovely pollinator garden last year; some varieties were annual and some were perennial, and the bees loved all of them. I think I will move some wild geraniums that I planted along the side of the house when we first moved in to the edge of the front and side yards; there are some bare patches there where Tom Scud dug in some edging last year, and those spread nicely and are not so tall that they will flop onto the sidewalk, plus they are colorful and low-maintenance.
Then there will be some sunflowers along the fence in solidarity with Ukraine, and I will move the ferns that are there now into the shade in the front yard, where they will be happier anyway.
Waiting impatiently to see what comes up in the 6 milk jugs of flowers that I winter sowed! There’s a lot of purple coneflower and milkweed in there. I’m aiming over time to add a bunch of low-maintenance natives.
