Gardens

Half way through our volunteer time here at Santa Ana we had a meeting with the volunteer coordinator. This is a way for her to find out if we are enjoying ourselves, if there is something we would rather do, etc.

Some of the things we brought up are that we would like to lead an extra bird walk on Wednesday morning (in addition to the two bird walks we lead on Tuesday). We would also like to have some additional work in the gardens. The butterfly garden was in very good condition when we arrived in January so there hasn’t been a whole lot to do except water and pull a few weeds. After the freeze a couple of weeks ago we cut back a lot of plants but for the most part the garden doesn’t take a lot of work.


We cut these plants back after the freeze.
They are growing fast now!


The butterfly gardens have really taken off in the last week.


Very nice pond in the butterfly garden.

Sooo, be careful what you ask for! We did get the go-ahead to lead the Wednesday morning bird walk, we were also asked to lead a Sunday morning bird walk AND, in addition to that, we were given 50 trees and 100 shrubs to plant at the volunteer RV campground!

The plants are small, about 10 inches.


150 very small plants!

The ground here is hard as concrete! We have to water the area to be planted, water it again, hoe out the grass, dig the hole, put in the plant, fill in the hole, apply mulch, water and water and water. (I say ‘we’ but the only thing I do is move the sprinkler around, Mark does everything else).


Watering the ground before digging.


One little plant in the ground.


Lots of mulch needed. After the end of this month there won't be anyone here to water these little plants till next October!


Four shrubs planted. Can you see them?

It will take a few years but will really look nice when the plants grow a little larger.