Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

Cactus wrens were one of the first Sonoran Desert birds I learned when I arrived in Tucson to go to the University of Arizona. They are such rascals! Oh, and I grew ironwood trees when I was working in nurseries in Tucson. My goodness that spiny desert native did not like to be tamed in a nursery bucket. Anytime you trimmed a branch, five new spiny shoots would grow out by the cut. Ha! I loved it!

The photo of the cactus wren is from the Tucson Audubon Society web page and the photos of the ironwood tree and blossoms are mine. I love the Sonoran Desert.

The photos are mine

Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays!

I have a bunch of photos from Christmas tree hunts and most of them are 35 mm slides. These few here were taken over the last several years. I always try to capture Marian measuring the tree…when we remember the tape measure. I love these photos for obvious reasons, but look at the country we’re in. Rugged and Beautiful.

I was reading a Christmas card from some very dear friends and in the hand written portion of the card it mentioned this season as being the “holiest of times.” The phrase resonated with me as I realized that we do live in the holiest of times… always. All the flora and fauna in the borderlands are sacred and we do live in the holiest of times. This episode of Growing Native could have gone on for a very long time, but I stopped at 5 minutes. I suspect you have your own list of holy moments and sacred places and things.

The photos are mine

The vast landscapes of the southwest are to die for and every once in a while I capture one with my camera. More and more I remind myself to just take it all in. Shout and exclaim, repeat the words “beautiful” and “oh my” and share with someone you love.

Oh, and try not to lose your cool over an invasive species that shows up. Easier said than done, I know… I know.

American Threefold (Trixis californica) is a great little native and it has been grown and sold in the nursery trade, so I’m not the only one that thinks it’s a cool plant. It’s a low plant with a woody base and so it’s considered a subshrub, but hey, it’s a little shrub, so how about “shrubette?”

The photos are mine except for the flower close up. That photo was taken by Patrick Alexander. I like it because it shows the clefts on the lip of the petal (ray). My photos were taken in the Galiuro Mountains and Patrick’s photo in the Tucson Mountains.

I always want to add an extra T when I write Yucca baccata, but no, two Cs and one T is correct. The specific epithet baccata is from Latin and means berry. The 6-8” long fleshy fruit look more like bananas than berries, so the common name banana yucca gets it right.

Anyway, I hope you’re getting some time away from your home and out into nature…out into the wild. Get out and make some biome memories and we’ll compare notes soon!

The photos are mine and taken at the base of the Winchester Mountains.

There are around 30 species of Porophyllum, the majority of which are found in Mexico and southward. Around me in the borderlands of Arizona Sonora there are 2 species; yerba de venado or Porophyllum gracile, a perennial and P. ruderale, the annual version jabbered about in this episode of Growing Native.

Porophyllum ruderale has quite a range from the mesas and mountains near me and southward to South America. That explains why one of the common names for this plant is Bolivian cilantro. Oh, and that’s only one of the common names (there are many, as it does cross a lot of borders!), here are a couple more: yerba porosa or pápalo. Now you know.

The photos are mine of the plant with dry seed heads on a rocky slope in the Galiuro Mountains.

The loose rock fandango can get pretty elaborate with elements of modern dance, hokey pokey, ballet and of course some jazz hands thrown into the mix. The expression “dance like no one is watching’’ comes to mind and I certainly hope so.

The photos are mine. I thought you’d like to see the fraction of the Galiuro Mountains (Galuros!) I poke around in. Shin daggers are Agave schottii and the photo is of just a few of them. Multiply those by several hundred thousand and you get an idea of what you’re hiking in on many mesas and slopes. Yikes and ouch!

But listen, walking slowly and observing the flora, fauna, geology and distant vistas is the most wonderful thing and life is beautiful. Yeah, it is.

Xanthisma gracilis is an annual and found all over the southwest and into Mexico as well. Duh. A common name is slender goldenweed or spiny zinnia. I do love the botanical Xanthisma. It sounds like a medication, doesn’t it, and if you did a little homework you’d find out that it does have some medicinal uses.

I was driving to Bisbee recently and saw stands of flowering tarbush and that is what somehow inspired this show about the different biotic communities that surround us here in the borderlands. Tarbush, Flourensia cernua, and creosote, Larrea tridentata, are the predominate plants in that wonderful piece of Chihuahuan desert scrub just outside of town. That’s two species that also might be fun to do a little homework on and find their medicinal uses as well, so now you have an assignment. Oh, and if you get out of your truck and wander through that desert scrub it only gets better botanically. I do recommend that.

The photos are mine. You can see the classic aster flower head of the Xanthisma and also the nodding flower heads of the Flourensia that the specific epithet cernua is refers to. The phrase nodding heads reminds me of Art History 101 at the University of Arizona and my nodding head during lectures.