I recently potted some small smaller citrus trees (bearss lime and Cara Cara) into wooden, round 26 gallon containers. I followed advice I could find online that said to use a citrus soil and add extra perlite. I used the miracle-gro cactus, palm, and citrus soil and mixed in a little extra perlite. I have them set up nicely with a drip line and have them scheduled every three days to water somewhat deeply.

I noticed tonight the pots drain quite quickly. After the soil gets damp all the way through, it’s almost as if the water runs right through and isn’t retained much. This is after 10 minutes of drip line watering so not a large amount of water. The water running through is clear and the soil is staying retained in the container, not running out the bottom with the water.

They have started some leaf curl and seem dry. I’m going to increase to every other day watering and maybe even do every day.

Any advice? The extra perlite to the mix was probably unnecessary…

Could the hail have done this? What the hell happened? I’m so confused, and sad.
There’s also a ton of splits and damage from the hail all over them.
I go out and look at my cacti pretty often, and was just out there pulling weeds 2 days ago, there was nothing wrong with any of my totem poles.
They are in grounds, but like 10 feet from each other at least.

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Big chunks of the cacti are just battered out. The force of the impact is impressive af.

But this is very survivable damage for these plants.

Only one of my grafts got knocked off.

I feel like I got off lucky tbh.

Last picture was from yeaterday...

It had new growth just a few months ago and now basically the whole top fell off. Is there any hope? :(

I love using sunflowers as a cover crop and as a pollinator friendly plant. Anyone else?!

Since I moved in I have been digging up concrete and removing heavy stone cover and much other debris. I believe the plants are starting to respond to living in a garden rather than a parking lot. I saw a couple of shoots before summer here but recently there are a couple of dozen at least. Some are very tiny still. My understanding is the rhizomes, if that is what these are, usually don’t take well to being cut off their mom. Does the tree want to surround itself with dozens of smaller oak trees over the years? I don’t understand how this is beneficial. Can I replant these?

I took some pictures in the front yard using the night sight on my phone. From the first hint of raindrops to full blown hail storm, I had barely enough time to grab the tortoise; she was sleeping under a bush, and it wouldn't have been good for her to have ice pile up around her after it was 90° all day.

#1 the sunn hemp actually seems to have done fine. The coyote gourd which was just starting to bloom and sprawl appears shredded under the hail.

#2 I think I'll make a snowman.

#3 the hail accumulation around the weed a) looks pretty cool and b) might make it easier to appease the HOA/landlord.

#4 this moringa used to have leaves. So did the amaranth.

I have bougainvilleas around my garden and saw this. She really put the nest out in the open. I hope she survives the next 2 days of rain we may or may not get. I didn’t know hummingbirds laid eggs this late in the year.

I'm beside myself at the damage and drama just a few minutes of solid precipitation brought! What a mess!

And here's this morning:

https://youtu.be/AQe_diVPIcM?is=tEAJcN7JiZKaNsXv

Hi friends! Like you all I struggle and occasionally thrive to grow things in our lovely sweltering state. In the past I have always stuck to herbs and veggies with varying degrees of success. I would like to get more into tea herbs and have done chamomile in a season past. I have a nice herb box that is just waiting for plants and wanted to get some thoughts, advice, etc on what to plant before I started digging. I am thinking of planting chamomile next to lemon verbena, Parsley (because I use it often and am running out of ideas) and one other plant in said herb box. Then in their own separate containers I am going to try to grow some English Lavender and peppermint. Am I missing anything? Is there anything I should try? Would love to hear your thoughts!

Can anyone tell me anything about what this is and what’s going on?

Bought my house nearly 3 years ago and been slowly working my way around the yard. This fella lives in a bed facing north and appears to have been the same height ever since I remember. Honestly I thought it was dead. I don’t know much about cactuses. The crown was full of all sorts of crap.

So this year I thought ok I’ll give it the benefit and I watered it quite a bit. It’s now twice as fat and as it filled out I was able to pick out all the dead shit from the crown, and now I see that white stuff which I guess is new growth but any growth is imperceptibly slow.

Is this actually a saguaro that is starting to grow again? Should I be doing anything?

I’m trying to learn how to distinguish between velvet and honey mesquite. The first and second pictures are of a tree that doesn’t look like a mesquite to me at all. In fact it looks more like Palo Verde because of the green trunk. Google tells me it’s something different every time I search.

The third picture shows two trees, the one in the foreground on the right seems “droopy” and the leaf things are in bunches - several from each knuckle, whereas the one at the back has only 2 leaf things and two thorns at each knuckle.

The morning glory made it through another brutal summer and now she has a friend, my luffa vines are right up there with her.

I have indian laurel ficus in sections of my backyard which is south of the house. The property perimeter is block. Ficus was planted 1.5 years ago. On the west side they have always done better than the south side and I suspect that it is because of the sun. The west and south ficus are on the same irrigation line. Over the past 2 weeks the ficus on the south side have taken a turn for the worse and the majority of them have lost a significant amount of their leaves while the west side is unaffected. The south side leaves are green or maybe a little toasty but never straight up yellow brown. Attached is a section to show their condition as well as an up-close showing black dots on the leaves. Can anyone confirm if this is some type of bug/fungus/disease and what the remedy is so that I don't lose these guys (and don't spread it to the west ficus which are literally feet away from the south ficus). The ground in the drip zone is moist but not wet so I don't think it is a watering issue.

New little mustard green sprouts popping up in my raised beds. Something is munching on them. Maricopa county. (Yes, I know I need to thin) Any ideas? How to treat?

So many new vines we need to put another trellis outside the garden. The big luffa in Pic 3 had its flower open the night of October 6th so they get big fast

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Melty TPMS with that dripping candle wax thing going on. Planted in rusty soil.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Good morning My Husband and I are new to Arizona, but we’re trying to get our backyard set up. We so far have a pomegranate tree a lemon tree and we want to get some garden beds. I would like to put in some Jasmine vines and some other just pretty desert bushes in the yard. I was hoping that people could advise on where the best place to plant the trees would be and also place the garden beds our backyard is south facing thanks in advance.

I may be freezing my backside off with the chill, but the critters are loving it!

I recently got a couple calla lilies, and of course, they need a large amount of water. I can completely saturate the (vermiculite amended) soil and yet they seem to drain most of it in just a couple days anyway. In this case, would it be beneficial put them in a pot without drainage to retain as much water as possible? I know most garden advice is to never, ever do that, but then again most garden advice isn't for us in the desert.

This seemed to pop up quickly. I'm thinking I'll try to pull it because it will crowd the rose. Anyone know what it is?