SPRING IS HERE AGAIN!

 It seems the arrival of spring flowers has jogged me into writing a post. This, after an absence of 11 months. I don't know what happened. Maybe it was being away from my garden for 3 months last summer, or the daily walks and hikes which take up most of the morning. Maybe it was the long breakfasts after the morning exercise... they certainly eat into your day, or maybe it is my shortening attention span for everything I do. Could it have been our purchase of a new trailer and the planning it takes to book campsites. Or was it quite simply the ease of posting a few pictures on Instagram and the scrolling that goes along with it. Sheer laziness?

So here we are, our third spring in the desert. It has been a magnificent winter with lots of warm sunny days but no rain all winter long. My newly acquired rain barrels filled up during a rain in November. I emptied the contents into 50 gallon milk jugs and used the rest. Since then not a drop. And no rain in the desert really means no rain and no spring wildflowers. Of course we have a drip irrigation system but it has been very difficult judge how often to run them. I fear not often enough. Even with all that warmth the budding of leaves and the opening of cactus flowers did not happen earlier. It has been right on schedule. 

For any gardener seeing that first green leaf begin to unfurl brings enormous relief. Relief that the lack of rain did not kill it. The first to break were the two Wonderful pomegranates, purchased for $5 each from our power company. The one from the first planting produced one tiny pomegranate last year, too late in the season for it to mature. This year I have counted 14 flowers on that tree and one is starting to swell. Undoubtedly I will have to protect it from birds and wandering javelina. This morning I noticed 1 flower bud on the second pomegranate, planted a year later than the first. 

The next, of the deciduous trees to begin leafing out were the desert willows. Similarly purchased from TEP. I have 4 of those all of which are coming along nicely. We removed a Texas olive from this spot in favor of desert willow. 

And another deciduous Sonoran tree is the Arizona wild cotton, Gossypium thurberi. Growing to about 10' 

this tree was nearly eradicated because of a fear of the boll weevil which had attacked the cultivated cotton fields. It turned out it was not the same weevil and the cotton tree is now returning. I first saw it growing at Tohono Chul garden and was able to buy one from their garden shop. I look forward to its pretty white blooms later in the spring. 

   

                                                                Arizona cotton tree

                                                               Cotton tree bloom from last year.

And then the cactus begin their spring routine. They sit quietly all year until the first buds start to appear. At this point they need to be checked every day as if you blink you can miss them. 

Yesterday the first bloom on the ladyfinger cactus, Echinocereus pentalophus, followed today by two blooms on another plant. 

And then a cluster open on another plant.

When we moved here I brought a number of plants with me. One was the Myrtillocactus geometrizans, or

bilberry cactus. I had planted it alongside the garage, far too close to the wall. Unfazed it began to send out arms and last year produced a pup and yesterday I noticed flower buds. This morning when I took David over to show him one of the buds had opened. It is not showy as many cactus flowers are but certainly welcome. 

A purchase last year at Tohono Chul plant sale. 

                                                           Echinocereus engelmannii

It is a great time of year for the aloes to bloom and for the first time in its life the Aloe vera, I brought with me in a pot and planted in the ground, is blooming. I found the perfect place for it alongside the fence where there was another Aloe vera clump. Both have produced many pups. 

The large stand of giant aloes in the back garden have bloomed with one side taller than the other. I can only assume that the uneven growth is due to the lack over overall watering provided by rain and one side receiving some irrigation water. I would love to divide this aloe but it looks like a daunting task which would likely damage the symmetry of the plant. 

It is visited by the hummingbirds and Gila woodpecker. 

New blooms on the mammillaria open in tiers every day for several weeks. 

There is sure to be something new every day and it looks as though tomorrow it will be the first flowers on the Gymnocalcium baldianum.

IT'S BEEN A MOST UNUSUAL SUMMER

I think it has been a most unusual year-weather-wise.  First we had unseasonably warm temperatures with no rain in February. That was enough to kill some plants in my garden, because I was gone for 5 weeks and the watering system was off. Then we had a spell of temperatures over 100º- 16 in all. The rest were in the 90s which feels cool! Then came the rain and lots of it. Somewhere in the region of 16" in less than a week. Are we done yet, I wonder?
But that rain has been a blessing for some plants and the death knell for others.

Cactus and succulents like dry conditions. Correct? But when the rain comes they burst into flower. First you might notice a slight protuberance on the stem. Sometimes smooth and sometimes fuzzy. It's a signal that within days a glorious flower will arrive.

Is there anything more beautiful? Each day a new cactus opened.

Echinopsis oxygona

Gymnocalcyium baldianum

The flowers on the stapelia, Stapelia gigantia are jostling for position. I kept my eyes open for maggots but this time it would seem no flies visited. A blessing.

Day lilies have burst into bloom again. I always worry about out of season blooming thinking that maybe there will be no spring bloom. Sometimes this happens in the fall with my Philadelphus but it has always bloomed again in the spring again. I certainly hope this will be the case with these day lilies which have been putting out blooms every day for over 3 weeks.

Ditch lilies are blooming on the ground because their foliage is now hidden by the ever increasing size of the Philippine violet. The flower stems just grew out along the ground until they found the light.

But among all the good surprises there have been some bad ones. A few cactus have rotted inside and the gopher plant, despite being planted in very free draining soil is rotting. I have noticed a lot of splits on the stems which may result from them taking up to much water. Rather like tomatoes which split after too much rain.

I have actually pulled a couple out because I can see they are a lost cause with many of their leaves brown and stems rotting. I am so sad because come spring this is one of my favorite plants lighting up the garden with its chartreuse blooms.
But our lakes are full and the landscapes are green again so the loss of a few plants is a small price to pay. Although I have heard recently that a lot of post oak tress are dying and they are blaming inconsistent weather patterns. I hope the same doesn't happen to the live oaks too or we are going to see vast changes in our landscapes.

TODAY WAS THE DAY AND MAYBE TOMORROW TOO

For one brief moment the sun came out this morning. It was long enough for me to wander onto the patio to put a few cactus out in the sun. You would have heard me exclaim out loud as I turned to the Echinopsis on the table. I bent down to smell the flowers' sweet fragrance. Wonderful!

I missed the first blooming of 3 flowers a couple of weeks ago, but the great thing about this plant is that flowers come in flushes. But how they sneak up on you. When I last looked I thought it at least a couple of days from flowering. How wrong I was. The first sign that the plant is about to flower is the appearance of a fuzzy nubble. Each one of those spots you see on the plant could potentially produce a flower but I have no idea what triggers a bloom. The fuzz begins to swell, a stalk starts to grow, a small bud forms on the end and then seemingly overnight the stalk lengthens and it flowers.

The flowers on this plant opened during the night and may have had nocturnal visitors. None of the previous flowers have ever produced seed pods.
This plant was a chance find at Lowe's one Mother's Day weekend a few years ago. It has bloomed every year since.

The name echinopsis stems from two Latin words, ekhinos meaning sea urchin or hedgehog and opsis meaning resembling. Because there are more than 100 species and hundreds of hybrids it is sometimes hard to identify and plants are often sold a Easter lily cactus. Mine have never bloomed at Easter and I believe this one to be Echinopsis subdenudata.
I have a second but different one which is about to bloom. Tomorrow morning will I wake up to a red flower? I see a little pink on the petals. This plant has a different history. Garage sale! It was a mother plants with babies all around but as I drove home the pot tipped over in the back of the truck and everything came out including the mother and all the ants that had decided to move into her rotted, hollow interior. I separated everything in the pot, dried everything out and for a few days and then replanted in pumice. This is the mother and this is the first year she has sent up a bloom. First she got busy making new babies.

I am awaiting the ripening of seeds on this little cactus, Gymnocalcyium baldianum. The seed pod is almost bigger than the cactus and baldianum sounds like a good specific name for this little cactus.

If my other echinopsis blooms tomorrow I will add it to this post.

WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT

It's about the 3" of rain in my garden this past week. The garden is screaming into action. One plant we always expect following rain is the rain lily, Cooperia drummondii, (Zephyranthes drummondii) The flowers pop up within two or three days of rainfall opening during the night. If you look at the flower closely you will see that there are three petals and underneath three sepals, all of which are white. This rain lily has a very long calyx which distinguishes itself from the other white rain lily seen in Texas.

But that's not the only rain lily that showed up today. This yellow Zephyranthes sp. popped out of the ground in the sunken garden.

Will there be more tomorrow? I think so. They are popping up all over the place.

The Euphorbia has put on new growth and added leaves.

The Texas barrel cactus, Ferocactus hamatacanthus, is opening its first flower of the year with two more to come. This cactus is sometimes referred to as a giant fishhook cactus because of the hooked central spines. It has hooked me several times even pulling itself out of the ground when it was younger. Hardy for our area.

Another flower bud here on this unnamed cactus.

And four flower buds at one time on the Echinopsis.

A new bud on the Gymnocalcyium baldianum. I look forward to its red flower.

Toadstools fighting for space.

Of course everything else is going to start growing too and that means weeds and weedy plants. Bluebonnets are already germinating by the hundreds and fig ivy, Ficus repens is about to turn this garden wall into Angkor Wat.

It's going to be another busy week in the garden.