Desert Bloom

I was talking with someone about roses the other day. Ok, we were both bragging about our roses, and how well they grow, despite our challenging environment. As flowers go, roses are impressive. For good reason; they’re gorgeous. They’re among the most widely celebrated flowers around. Not that everyone grows them, for many reasons, but they’re not all as hard to grow as you might think. Despite record breaking heat and life in southern Nevada, my roses continue to survive. Not that they’re thrilled with drought and record high temperatures, but unlike too many other shrubs, they won’t just keel over and die unless their soil’s dry.

The other day I was speaking with some folks who were complaining about trying to grow plants here in the Mojave Desert. After the first comments — “You mean you can actually grow anything here? It’s so dry, and hot, and the soil is so poor, how is it possible?”