ESCAPE TO THE DESERT

Although I am grateful for the current rain this week I would like to escape back to the wonderful sunny, dry desert. I shall just have to enjoy the  photographs and memories from our recent 10 days visit. Or should I say 6 days because it took 2 days to drive the 1000 miles to Ahwatukee, where our son and family live, with an overnight stop in El Paso. We spent Sunday with the family and on Monday morning we headed to the Desert Botanical Garden. I had called ahead to reserve an early morning spot courtesy of our reciprocal membership program with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. 

If you haven't seen the Palo Verde trees in bloom then I must tell you they are a sight to behold. 

All along the roadsides from Tucson to Phoenix just a mass of yellow blooms. 

 And I thought my retama trees were a show-stopper. (Recently removed since they died in the severe freeze). The bark of the Palo verde is green and is used by the tree to photosynthesize. This way the leaves can remain small, meaning they will transpire less in the heat and dry desert atmosphere. 

 We have been to this garden many times and although we see some changes from year to year much of the structure and plant content has not changed much from our last visit. Nevertheless I always say when we walk in "This is the best garden I know"! I will admit those palo verdes had me won over on this occasion. That and some of the cactus in flower.

 Should I complain about the fact that my prickly pear blooms are always yellow.

Many cactus and succulents do well with filtered shade, especially in the summer desert heat, and the mature feathery trees provide just the right amount of protection. Birds sit in the trees and drop their seeds and they begin to grow in this favorable environment. Even early in the morning we enjoyed walking under their protection. 

 Or even sitting there and drinking in the cooler morning desert air. Yes. Everyone was wearing masks.

 Out on the trails there were a few saguaros including this crested beauty.

 And this rather unusual one made from axe heads.

As with many public gardens there are often temporary art displays. This one titled, The Earth Has Been Good To Us, by the artist Mashford Kanyemba, carved from Shona Opal Stone.

 and Lonely Flight, by Lawrence Mukomberanwa, also carved from Shona Opal Stone.

I could have snap, snap snapped a hundred photographs with my phone but for once I decided to enjoy the garden as most visitors do and walk around and drink in its beauty. You can read about my previous visits to the garden Desert Botanical Garden Visits Looking back I think I need to get my camera out again!

Stay tuned for posts about visit to the Lost Dutchman State Park, the Saguaro National Park and Tucson Botanical Gardens.

ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH, DEAR FRIENDS.

I can assure you Shakespeare was not thinking bluebonnets when he penned those words. But those words often come into my head at bluebonnet clearing time.

You may recall having seen this photograph earlier this year when the bluebonnets were at their peak. Who could not love this view of the front of our house? But what happened this year? In the past there were but a few bluebonnets in this dry creek. Almost all were in the larger area of granite to the right. It would suddenly seem that they prefer to be in the creek bed and I'm afraid I don't care for all the work that is involved in their removal from the rocks.

It took 2 hours to remove them followed by another hour of blowing and collecting. And then a further pass with the blower.

 On the second day I moved to the area closer to the entrance pathway. First the bluebonnets removed , then the raking of a mass of oak leaves secreted under the bluebonnets and then blowing and gathering. 

And in both areas there were other plants to remove, such as woolly stemodia, Stemodia lanata, that had crept over the wall and set down roots. lantana, Mexican feather grass, Stipa tennuisima,  and weeds. A few like gopher plants, Euphorbia rigida,  and trailing winecup, Callirhoe involucrata, and the native lantana , Lantana horrida, were allowed to stay-for now! 

David took care of the oak sprouts which have really taken over since we removed the failing oak tree. Nothing will stop them.

That accomplished I turned my attention to a bare spot in the corner of the wall. The Anacacho orchid tree, which over the years, had failed to thrive ( probably my fault) expired during the winter. But as luck would have it I had left the little oak tree that had seeded there and I moved a large pot that, was hidden among the trees out at the front, into the bare spot.  

And the color of the pot is a perfect match for the mirror boxes on the wall.

Just the dead fig ivy yet to remove!

And onto the much larger area, once a parking area. The removal of bluebonnets,  raking and blowing of oak leaves plus collecting and disposing took 2 days. Then the weeds. 

As you can see there are just a few plants remaining none of which are very inspiring but I will leave for now. The only plants that are sure to stay are the 4 plains zinnia, Zinnia grandiflora. How I wish there were more. I must look for seeds because the plants are never available at our local nurseries, and they bloom all summer long.

A few prickly pear, A. lophantha and liatris have survived and there are also a few rose campion, Lychnis coronaria, liatris,  and Liatris spicata, which have been pruned by the deer but the other plants have been safe so far. 

I have plans! We have some large flat rocks and I would like to make a walkway through this area with just a few select plants. I realize that it is not the desert but this is a garden I saw recently in Tucson and which I love. Surely I can do something similar? I'm definitely going to try. David!!!!!!

SOME DECISIONS WERE MADE

Our Saturday morning breakfast has become a special event during the lock down. We started to alternate bacon, eggs mushrooms and tomatoes with huevos rancheros and a cafetiere of our favorite coffee. Followed by crumpets! It sets the stage for us to linger and discuss many things.

This Saturday it was about about changing things in the garden to make life easier. We are not getting any younger and there is sooooooo much work required in this garden. Our terrible winter has helped a little Gone are 3 big vines that required constant cutbacks. As well as the retama trees, the Lady Banks rose and all the agave at the front. Although getting them all out was no easy task. All those will mean less pruning this year.

But my willingness to allow the reseeding of annuals like larkspur, nigella, poppies, bluebonnets and blanket flowers in the vegetable garden as well as the continued failure of many vegetables had me rethinking what to do about the 6 square beds in the vegetable garden. I am not going to try growing so many vegetables next year because the battle with spider mites, aphids, squash vine borers, leaf footed bugs and harlequin bugs take all the pleasure out of any produce that survives.It seems I am not alone on this when I mentioned it to my gardening friends.

 

There are many who enjoy this look and it does have its moments but it also creates a mountain of work. Pulling out the flowers will be difficult because I know the cardinals find it a great larder for caterpillars and we watched the goldfinches this morning swinging around on the mealy blue sage and Verbena bonariensis as they harvested the seeds. I couldn't pull them out.

My choices are to remove the beds completely and gravel the area, possibly adding some seating, or to remove everything from the beds and turn them into a potager.  Possibly a center rosemary with other small herbs like thymes and germander, which I know to be more manageable. And I would keep all the pathways clear of annuals(the tough part). 

The decision was to try the potager and if that failed then to take the beds out. I had my work brief for the days ahead. 

I began on the two far beds removing everything including the peas. I will only leave the onions until I pull them to dry. For some reason I couldn't remove a lone foxglove. I also cleaned out most of the plants in the adjacent bed. Once they are cleared I will cover with mulch and then go nursery shopping. Not an easy thing to do this year because of the huge demand. I did manage to put a couple of cuttings of the rosemary from the front before it gave up the ghost and stuck them in the ground hoping they will root but I really would like to start with 1 gallon plants.

 

Earlier in the week David took down the two retama trees alongside the driveway. I don't think he ever liked them. Now, what to do with the stone wall he had built some years ago around one of the trees. The tree had seeded in the spoils we removed from the front courtyard. Barrow loads of whatever which were wheeled out and tipped over the edge of the driveway. And then the tree grew and was so pretty when it flowered.

David wants to dismantle the stone wall and we need a new home for all the those rocks. My suggestion was to make a pathway through the granite in the front of the house and be more selective on what plants grow there. The original plan had been for this to be addition parking but in no time at all bluebonnets invaded and cars were banned. Will I let all those bluebonnets stay? 

Of course that will mean plenty of work over the summer but  working with rocks just happens to be something I really love doing.

THE MOST POPULAR PLANT IN MY GARDEN

This pretty little native flower with the charming name Barbara's buttons, Marshallia caespitosa,  has become a springtime favorite with pollinators in my garden. I doubt their is a plant anywhere that attracts as many diverse pollinators as this flower. 

No one seems to know who Barbara was but the plant itself is named for the the botanist Moses Marshall. The grassy, compact rosette of leaves appear over the winter sending up bloom stalks around April. Through the summer the perennial plant dies back below the ground. It has naturalized very well in my front courtyard and is now ready to be moved to other places.

The flowers have a wonderful fragrance. Is it this that attracts all manner of flying insects? I counted no less than 12 insects on the flowers one afternoon and many of them are new to me.

 

 There must be something really good in there to attract so many.

My original plants came from the LBJ Wildflower Center but since then I have both transplanted and scattered seeds in my front courtyard to increase their numbers.

RIGHT PLANT WRONG PLACE, BLUEBONNET PURGE.

I couldn't help but smile when I read this. They are talking about bluebonnets, our Texas State flower.

"While it may be a myth that picking the beautiful blue flowers is illegal, conservation is crucial to preserving these delicate native plants"

Delicate native plants indeed! Not where I live. And I do believe the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center would agree with me on that. That is why they are smart to make a dedicated bluebonnet patch within their garden because otherwise the plant would just take over the whole garden.

 

That is exactly what happened in all of my inside gardens. I am asking myself why did I let this happen again because I have learnt from experience that if I let them grow in here I will spend hours pulling them after they are spent.  Not to mention the poor plants which struggle to grow beneath them and how it impedes walking through the garden. For the last three days I have pulled hundred, piling them in various places under the trees. If they ripen, all well and good, if not then I still have hundreds more whose seed I can collect for places where I want them to grow. It was imperative to remove them before the rain came....and it di. 4.2" over three soggy days.

Ah! The other plants in the gravel can breathe again. The skullcaps, Scutellaria sp.blackfoot dasies, Melampodium leucanthum, mealy blue sage. Salvia farinacea. These much more mannerly plants who will only occupy a small area. I am more than happy to have them brighten up the larger expanses of gravel.

An occasional ruby crystal grass or Mexican feather grass. 

My absolute favorite fro this gravel garden is the purple skullcap, Scutellaria wrightii, I prune it to a more rounded shape in the spring and scatter the seeds around in the fall.

The other players permitted to remain in this garden are ruby crystal grass, Melinus nerviglumis, Mexican feather grass, Nasella tennuisima and a modest amount of love-in-a-mist Nigella damascena.

I will remind myself next year that this is the look I prefer and certainly saves days of work.