Dubai Municipality Nursery and Indoor plants

Peter and I have been fostering dogs, collecting them from Warsan, out in the desert and we came across the Municipality Gardens Nursery. These aren't photos of the actual place as it is government owned and the laws on publishing photo's are a bit hazy, so I've posted pictures of the independent nursery's next door.

You can buy just about anything here, from bedding plants at 40p and fully grown palm tress in pots. It's close to where I work and I intend to call on a regular basis.

 My indoor plants have done rather well, I'm surprised by the basil, but I still have a few empty pots that need filling.

My son bought me an orchid, I've been advised to give it an ice cube once a week so I don't over water it, it seems to be doing ok for now.

I'm running a gardening group as an after school activity and during my research I've found an organic farm, that I need to go and visit, fortunately it's near where I work also, so I'll hopefully be able to pop in during the week.

I've been doing some research on cut flowers, they are very expensive to buy in Dubai and typically only last a few days. Two of my favourite cut flowers are roses and hydrangeas and I learnt these tips that I'm going to try out. I'll let you know how I got on.

How to Hydrate Hydrangeas.

Place each bloom face down in room temperature water and leave to soak for 20 minutes, shake gently and remove any loose foliage.

How to Shock Roses into drinking water.

Wrap the flowers in brown paper, then snip a 1/4 inch off the stems and place them into an inch of boiling hot water. The Shock forces the air out of the stems, leave in the water until it cools, give the stems a fresh cut and transfer to cool water.

Indoor plants in Dubai with HDYGG

I guess there are certain plants you just can't 'over summer' in Dubai. How to keep a geranium indoors.

I decided to try and bring a few plants indoors that I know just won't survive the heat of the summer, but it would appear they just don't like it, so I've moved them back outdoors where they can flower for a few more weeks at least, as they obviously don't like being indoors.

Although the aircon isn't directly over the plants, it's not keeping the house at a constant temperature at the moment and this is obviously affecting the plants.

The daffodil will remain inside, as it was struggling outdoors, but I'm doubtful it will flower.

The other plants have been moved back outside and I've brought in a couple of the basil to see what happens to them.

The geranium appears to be doing ok at the moment, watering is a tricky balance though.

I guess I now have an excuse and several empty pots to fill, to head off back to the garden centre to try my hand at keeping succulents.

How do my seedlings grow?

I started the last seed planting on November 30th, it's winter in Dubai, which is very similar to a UK summer but with far less rain.

It took 8 days for the seeds to germinate.

By 18th December nearly everything was on show

By the 28th December, everything that was going to germinate was here, or so I thought

Now

I really need to find the time to split these seedlings up.

At the back left is rocket, centre basil and front nasturtium. The nasturtium and the sweet pea are doing better than last years efforts as they require temps of around 15c to germinate, but it is doubtful that either of them will flower as all their energy in this climate goes into growing, not producing flowers, but I'll let you know.

I've no idea what these seeds are as the pen has worn off the label with the sun.

1 viola

I had an amazing display of marigolds and petunias during the summer months, when temps reached 50c, it would appear that these plants need much warmer weather in which to germinate. I'll leave them for now and see what happens over the next few months when it starts to warm up.

I've been unable to purchase strawberry plants, it would appear I should've bought them back in September and October, but I was travelling quite a bit then so decided to wait until my return. I've tried growing the strawberries from seeds, but no luck so far.

We've had a lovely crop of home grown tomatoes

Hubby decided to trim the tree, as in the branches were over hanging the shed doors and he could no longer get in there.

I stumbled across a lovely little garden centre and reasonably priced on my walk back from the train station, that I'm hoping to explore a bit more this weekend.

Winter planting in Dubai with #HDYGG

As I've been away during October and November I missed the optimum planting time, so I've cheated a little and bought some bedding plants for the pots and tomato plants for the garden, while I wait for the seeds I planted today to grow.

You'd think the ground would be as hard as rock, in this heat and with very little rain, but my garden is sand, just sand and as soon as you push down on the spade, the ground just gives way, so despite the heat it was really quick and easy to transplant the plants from the sandpit into their new homes.

I also purchased two climbers for the front wall of the house, I'll worry about what is going to support them when they start to grow, but looking at the neighbours walls, all I need is string which I tie to a brick and chuck over into the street for the climbers to cling to.

The seeds are planted and this time they are labelled so no surprises and I'm having another go at growing sunflowers, sweet peas, nasturtiums and poppies. I've enjoyed recycling items around the home, including my old shopping bag and I'm going to feed the birds using seeds, peanut butter and toilet rolls.

I'm a little annoyed with the gardner, which I use in the loosest of terms, he comes 5 days a week, for an hour a day and rather than garden he sweeps, runs the hosepipe for most of the hour, washing things down and once a month, when we have it, he mows the grass. This week he decided to cut back all the neighbours bougainvillaea, which I was hoping to cultivate and have it growing over our side of the wall, it also provide good shade for some of my plants. The main advantage of having a gardener is that I can do whatever work I want, without having to clean up after myself.

While the seeds are growing I'm going to dig over the sand pit and rid it of all its weeds, before the next lot of planting, in the meantime it lights up at night with some outdoor lights, which I will be adding to.

We delayed investing in the garden as we needed to make sure our visas would be renewed by hubbies company at the end of the first year and that the house was available to rent for the 2nd year. our new contract doesn't include a rent increase for next year, so it is likely we'll stay put until the end of 2017.

It is still hot during the day, but the sun now disappears round the other side of the house by 11am daily, which gives plenty of shade for me to be able to sit out in, before it gets dark around 5.30pm so I can get chance to actually enjoy sitting in the garden, rather than working in it.

I paid a trip to Safa Park again this week, mainly to take photographs of the building works and the new canal, they started not long after we moved here. While I was there I decided to photograph some trees. The planting of them appears to be random and I love how the buildings soar upwards and the trees grow sideways.

This weekends plans involve investing in some adult sized gardening gloves, trying to buy some strawberry plants and decide what we are going to do with this patch of sand, currently used by the neighbourhood cats as a toilet. Top left of the photo is a pile of bricks, purchased by the previous tenants to pave the sand over, which we are thinking about doing, which would mean less water being used and we could use the area under the tree which does provide quite a bit of shade in the summer. I'm also off to the Miracle Gardens on Saturday to take a look at the new planting.

Creating a garden in the desert and summer plant camp

This week saw some last minute gardening. I sowed some seeds a few weeks ago I never imagined that they’d actually grow now we are in summer in Dubai. I’ve transplanted them now but I’m in Canada and relying heavily on hubby to water them for 3 weeks.

However, the weeds seem to be growing very well in the sand. I had to finish outside by 8.30am as that’s when the sun hits the sandpit full force and by the time I finished it was 33c with 66% humidity.

My Garden in the Sandpit has been entirely experimental, observing what the municipality is growing, visiting garden centres and just sheer potluck.

The marigolds were a great success, they grew well and flowered for ages, but sadly, this week, I was left with a big gap in the raised sandpit that needed filling.

During my visits to garden centres I’ve been purchasing ‘bargain’ plants. You know the ones no one wants to buy as they are at the end of the season and finished flowering, With a bit of TLC they are thriving and as they are annuals, they will flower again next year and slowly I’m establishing a nice looking flower bed.

Our garden and that of the neighbours is surrounded all year round by these plants, I have no idea what they're called, but they're very pretty.

Bringing the garden inside just hasn’t worked, it looked lovely for a few days, I had to refresh the water daily as it was heating up and the herbs and cut flowers don’t seem to like the constant air con and wilted within 3 days.

3 of the 4 tea cup plants have survived as they are houseplants and the two I placed outdoors in my bargain buy planters from Ikea are also doing well.

I have wondered what people do with their houseplants when they flee Dubai for the summer. Easy Dubai Garden Centre are offering to look after your plants free of charge. You are limited to 6 plants per person and no more than 1.25 meters in height, simply drop them off, the garden centre take care of them for you and you collect on your return.

I have some seedlings that weren't big enough to plant out before I left, I recognise some of them as Basil, but will have to wait and see when I get back what the others are.

Sadly, since taking this photo at the start of the week, the tomato plants are no more. They never really survived the move from direct sunlight to the shade and have failed to flower.

I just have to keep reminding myself that not much grows in a UK winter so why should it grow in summer in Dubai when the temperatures are at such extremes.

Next weeks post will be coming from South Africa and a trip I took in September last year to see the spring flowers in the Western Cape.