Some from my Idaho desert garden.

[Peterthecactusguy]

BTW after re-reading this thread, I have noticed a lot of nice rock in your gardens, did you put all of that in?

[DesertZone]

Very nice garden, I like it all, but I particularly like your trio of rusted metal planters. Is that agave in them, or something else?

Thanks.
The trio is made from old propane-tanks with the tops cut off and the bottoms cut for drainage. The plants inside are yucca nana.
PS. The tanks are rusty because the came from a brush fire area.

[DesertZone]

BTW after re-reading this thread, I have noticed a lot of nice rock in your gardens, did you put all of that in?

Yea..I picked all the rock from around my place and my nieghbors. There is old lava fields around here and I seem to be the only person in the county that wants rock.

[Peterthecactusguy]

cool. I like the landscaping you did with the rocks.

Apparently I am the only person in AZ that wants rocks too. I haven't started doing any of my rock-work yet, but I like what you did.

Those planters you made outta the propane tanks are cool too. I have seen ones that have been in fires before and exploded. Where they were welded together (the seams) always seemed to be the place that they failed if the relief valve failed. Oh well. At least you recycled them and they look cool

[DesertZone]

Those planters you made outta the propane tanks are cool too. I have seen ones that have been in fires before and exploded. Where they were welded together (the seams) always seemed to be the place that they failed if the relief valve failed. Oh well. At least you recycled them and they look cool

Right before the fire got to us I moved them into a small clearing. They were almost empty, but did blow flames from the valves and melt it some. I think they had a safety plug that melt and let the gas excape?

[Peterthecactusguy]

actually they have what is called a relief valve. I think it breaks when it reaches a certain pressure, but yeah that is close to same really. As for the fire was it close to your house?

[DesertZone]

Barely made it out. Burned everything around us and right up to the house but some how did not burn down our house.
My wife was praying hard and it must have worked.


and my house after the fire.

[Peterthecactusguy]

Wow that looks like it burnt up to that road. Were there firefighters there? I suspect that they might have used the road as a fire break!

I of course live in Arizona and we get our own fires. The Cave Creek complex Fire was a big one, #2 in AZ's history that burned over 200,000 acres of land. Most of it was desert. The fire came to within a mile of where I live. I watched as the tanker planes roared over my house and dumped the retardant on the area they were doing their burnout operations from to make the fire lines. It was amazing watching those huge planes dump a couple thousand gallons of retardant on the fire. They were successful in getting the fire away from my small town. It was neat in a weird way but also scary.

One last comment... at night it was really neat to see the fires. You can tell where it's burning because at night there is way less smoke then during the day. During the day we got dumped on with ash and smoke during the time that the fire moved past us to the north.

[John P Weiser]

Close call!!
Looks like your house was a little island in a sea of ash.

[DesertZone]

Wow that looks like it burnt up to that road. Were there firefighters there? I suspect that they might have used the road as a fire break!

There was firefighters, but there was so much fire they could not be every were. The fire already went by our house and jumped the road before we got out of there. I never thought it would come our way. The fire started about 10 miles south of us and then went about 12 miles east of us then come torwards us. The BLM fire complex is only 1/4 mile away from my house but they were all busy chasing fire.

It was crazy. Just glad its over. And yes it was neat in a wierd scary way.

[DesertZone]

You mentioned a defensible space, that was the only thing that saved my place. I clear all the brush and mow a space about 40' out and it seemed to work.

[GermanStar]

Very nice garden pics, but those fire shots give me the willies! When did the fire hit?

[daiv]

Egads!!! That's pretty scary!

[LazyD]

Gosh!! That seems pretty scary - you guys are really lucky!

[Peterthecactusguy]

there is another fire that is less then 10 miles from me along, you guessed it I-17. There have been like 6 fires up there in the past year or two.