Growing plants and being involved in horticulture since 1980 meant knowing the USDA’s plant hardiness zones so I could jabber to folks knowingly (Ha!) about plant choices for their personal habitat. To make things a little more confusing Sunset Magazine created their own hardiness and planting zones for the Western US. Jeez, Sunset! During my brief tenure at the University of Arizona I learned about C. Hart Merriam’s life zone system created in 1896 and I worked that into my plant blather for awhile. It did make me sound pretty smart. Then in 1994 along comes David Brown’s Biotic Communities…

There are many nations and languages found in the borderlands. The photos are mine.

I grew and sold California buckthorn for several years. Early on I sold it wholesale to other nurseries, but I also sold it at Farmers Markets in Cochise County. I’m a terrible plant promoter I guess and the plant never really got popular, at least in my circles. It’s ironic because in California there are some named cultivars (nativars folks like to say…whatever) sold in nurseries. We’ve had some nice specimens over the years at our little homestead. And birds love the fruit so thanks to them we’ve had some volunteers pop up around the place. The photos are of…

The etymology of the word mistletoe is all over the place and has been traced to Old English, Middle English, Anglo Saxon and old German…a mix of all of the above. I do like the meaning “dung on a twig.” And listen, mistletoe is really an excellent plant for birds, so why don’t native plant nurseries offer Phoradendron californicum for your ironwood or mesquite or catclaw? Ask your favorite nursery person for dung on a twig!

When I would give talks I would always show photos and talk about our regional yucca species; Yucca elata, Yucca baccata and Yucca madrensis… Yucca madrensis, by the way, is the former Yucca schottii, but here’s what’s cool about this resident of the Madrean Evergreen Woodlands; it’s pollinated by a different moth species than Y. baccata or Y. elata. They each have their own yucca moth species doing the pollinating. Cool? Very! The photos are mine.

The Apache fox squirrel – one of a few common names, but always Sciurus nayaritensis…is found in the Sierra Madre Occidental from Nayarit and north all the way to the Chiricahua Mountains where Ms. Mesquitey and I can be found poking around looking at local flora and fauna. The photos are mine.

This is an episode about hearing my heart beat. I initially was going to talk about the noise made by ORVs, ATVs, SUVs and pickup trucks out in the deserts and hills. I fall in the “pickup truck” category. Don’t want you thinking I’m a holier than thou sorta guy…ha! Anyway, guess I’ll pontificate about all that another time. You’re welcome. So, this is an episode about hearing my heart beat while hanging out on a rocky slope in the Galiuro Mountains. The photos are mine.

Monarda species are endemic to North America. As near as I can figure there are fifteen or sixteen species and four of those are found in Arizona. Yay! Monarda fistulosa spp. menthifolia would be a wonderful addition to a high desert landscape…did you hear me say in it grew in pine forests? We’re talking shade, so under a tree or shrub that will get an extra drink. Oh yeah!  And, it’s pretty special to see it in the wild blooming in those shady pine forests from June to September. The photos are mine.

Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) is found from central California, up through the Pacific Northwest, throughout the Rockies (variety glauca) and southward down into our sky islands. We are so lucky to have it as a part of the mixed coniferous forests in the mountains of the borderlands. What a magnificent tree! I highly recommend reading about its ecology and history..a small assignment. The photos are mine and taken the day of our tree hunt. That’s Marian…Ms. Mesquitey… looking over the other side of that deadfall and finding a Douglas fir.

I’ve written a lot of episodes about sycamore trees over the years. Below are some of the things I wrote for  those episodes. “I could look at sycamores all day. They remind me of when I was a kid in Kentucky and the huge sycamores we climbed along the creeks back there. Some big ones were hollow and you could go in them! It was a different species…Platanus occidentalis…this one is P. wrightii.” “Sycamores are the genus Platanus, which was the old Greek name for the tree that is the species Platanus orientalis. There are five or six species found…