Our Garden in Dubai this month. March 2019

We've had endless rain and wind and with it comes sand. Sand, everywhere, everyday that has to be swept up or it starts to take over the house.

The front balcony, closed now till next winter, but it will have random clean ups.

The balcony off the bedroom.

Daily sweeping of the sand.

Front door

Sand seeping in through the doors and windows.

Hose pipe to clean bedroom balcony then the patio has to be cleaned afterwards.

And then it rained the following day.

The sand carried in the rain sticks to everything like concrete.

A nice few dry, not too hot and free from wind days to do some gardening.

Lawn reseeded.

Outdoor plants thriving.

And then finally no more rain, no more wind and the garden is set up and operational. 

The only downside, it's now 36c and too hot to be sitting outside during the day.

The rest of the month is looking better and there is always the evenings, after sunset. I'll just have to light some citronella candles to ward off the mosquitos. 

The balconies will have to wait till next week.

Creating a garden in the desert.

I've been gardening in Dubai for 3 years, growing a variety of things in the sand, from plants to fruit and vegetables from seed with varying successes. You can read more about my efforts at gardening and places I visit, in the Gardening tab by clicking here.

We moved house in December 2017 and all we had was a sand pit, patio and 2 steps down. Part of our rental agreement was to landscape the garden.

A couple of weeks after moving in and unpacking, I started paying attention to the neighbours gardens and I knocked on a few doors to ask if I could have a closer look. Everyone was keen to show me their designs, share their experiences and pass on contact numbers.

Once we'd settled on a contractor we were happy with I provided him with a simple design, agreed on a price, paid half up front for materials and he promised the job would be done in 5 days. 3 days later the work was complete and we were happy with it, so we opted to contract him to erect a fence as we were concerned that Bob may be able to jump the wall and to date we'd been unable to leave him unsupervised in the garden.

I explored the options for fencing, I wasn't keen with what the neighbours had erected, the full fence panels aren't actually permitted, the bamboo looks tacky as does the garden canes with artificial flowers and the other style of fencing wasn't that much cheaper than what we opted for.

Having priced up fence panels (there aren't many options in Dubai and they've very pricey) the contractor said he would make, paint and install them in a week and I'm pleased to say not only did he stick to price, design and deadline, but all the mess was cleaned up and all I had left to do was put the plants in we'd brought from the previous house and purchased from a local nursery.

The garden is finished now, plants are in, the grass is suffering a bit with Bob using it to pee on and the water pressure is low making watering a longer job than need be.

The cat has enjoyed her time in the garden on a lead with her new dog harness (she's a big cat).

Creating a garden in the desert. Summer in the sand.

The garden is doing much better at this time of year than I thought it would be. Average temps are in the high 30s and with the sun being so high, it's on the sand pit for most of the day. There's some shade in the mornings outside the kitchen door, but by 10am the shade has all but gone.

I've been getting up at 5am to work in the garden, around sunrise, mainly to tackle the weeds. The squash I planted from seeds was flowering a few weeks ago and had grown, taking over the bean plants, which had died. I was really surprised to actually find a squash.

Sadly the aubergines had gone past their use by date under all the weeds. But I grew 3 from seed, so next year, now I know these types of vegetables do grow I will keep a closer eye on them on.

There has been an abundance of chillies, also grown from seed.

The street is also full of dates growing. The palm tree we have in the garden doesn't produce dates. We need to get someone in to sort our palm tree out.

There are still plenty of flowers in the garden and a rather unusual plant, that has grown from somewhere, looking a bit like a bulrush, but green. There isn't any water round here and I've no idea where it came from or what it is.

The best part about gardening in Dubai is that we employ a gardener. I use the term loosely as what he actually does is chase the leaves, petals around the garden with a hose pipe and mows the lawn randomly. So I give him something to do, which is cleaning up behind me.

The house plants are doing well, as with the garden, they actually need less watering in the summer. I need to sort the climber out in the corner, it's just growing and growing. The Christmas tree doesn't look like it's going to make it.

Fresh cut flowers are imported and are quite expensive, almost 3 times the cost of buying a bunch in a UK supermarket.

I'm also surprised at how much colour there is in Dubai at the moment. These Delonix regina - Royal Poinciana, Flame of the Forest trees are producing a lovely orange flower and look stunning at the moment.

There are two areas of the garden I need to do some work on and plan more carefully and introduce some ground cover in the 2nd photo.

How's your summer garden?