Quail Creek garden renewal

Bonnie Nowicki

Hello full-time residents and welcome back snowbirds. Your gardens await!

Are you anxious to begin planting, fine-tuning or creating a landscape that comforts and inspires you? Perhaps you should first consider your home interior spaces. Small seasonal changes will brighten up kitchens, living rooms, and even bedrooms. Vignettes or groupings of fall sunflowers and warm-tone flowers, interesting twigs, pods, or branches; plus, decorator jars or whimsical figurines, will give your home a fresh new look. You can also combine seasonal, everlasting silk flowers with real living indoor plants for a unique, personalized vignette.

Now you can begin to visualize your planting schedule and updates to your outdoor landscaping. Do you need extra inspiration or a gentle nudge? Brainstorm with another gardener. Have you ever considered sharing your gardening ideas? Why not start a monthly gardening coffee hour? It can be a casual gathering of a few friends and neighbors or a more structured unit event. It’s a wonderful opportunity to share your gardening enthusiasm, knowledge, and ideas with other like-minded neighbors. Please realize you are a valuable gardening resource. Here’s some other thoughts to get started.

For added insight, observe the plants your neighbors grow, how they grow them, and how they tackle problems that arise. What plants flourish in your particular neighborhood? My trailing rosemary and palms are a healthy green year-round. Provide ideas from your own yard. Putting your heads together to find solutions multiplies the available resources and stimulates the numerous possibilities for a healthy and balanced landscape environment, benefiting everyone.

Some gardeners like neat, formal plant rows, while others take pleasure and satisfaction in a casual meadow look. Most every gardener has their preferences and specialties, and most love to share their prolific plants. We can all learn from each other. Let’s soak up the pleasures of life with other dedicated gardeners. Call your friends and neighbors and start a group this month. Sharing is good for your health.

As I mentioned in last month’s gardening article, the 2020 Master Gardener classes take place every Tuesday starting Jan. 21 through March 24 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with an hour for lunch. The cost is a very worthwhile $200. All classes are held locally and taught by University of Arizona professors and expert master gardeners. Please call the Pima County Extension Center at 520-648-0808 to register. Don’t pass up this opportunity to expand your gardening horizons.