Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

The little urban park in Tucson where part of this episode takes place has always been nice renewal before hitting the road for the two hour trip home. The rocky hillside described is in the Dragoon Mountains and is pretty good for renewal as well. Shindaggers (Agave schottii) have yellow flowers on a four to five foot tall stalk. It’s quite striking. Oh, and I said that shindaggers sucker and that’s an understatement. Every fall for years I hunted and hiked the mesas at the base of the Galiuro Escarpment. Sometimes that involved navigating through stands of thousands of Agave…

It’s funny how irritable those relic Parry penstemons from an old roadside hydro seed make me. For goodness sake, why weren’t more regional seeds used in that revegetation job? Short diatribe over. Penstemon species are fun to grow in your personal habitat and seed or plants are readily available. One way or the other you’ll get penstemon volunteers as well. Yay! If you are a beardtongue geek, I recommend Robert Nord’s book called Penstemons. I still pull it off the shelf so I guess that makes me a geek. The photos are mine of Penstemon fendleri, P. superbus and P.…

Fans of borderlands’ flora will tell you there is nothing better than spotting an interesting plant out the window of your truck as you rumble by and shouting, “What was that? Wait, stop, pull over!” A drive-by turns into a stop and go. The sweetbush (Bebbia juncea) that Marian and I saw on the day described in this episode was in rocky desert with lots of mesquite, acacia, tar bush and sumac. Sweetbush seems to like the “rocky” part of rocky desert. The photos are mine of blooming Bebbia juncea in a desert fence line. The American Lady butterflies (Vanessa…

I love following drainages out of the mountains and across the deserts, observing all the plants and animals that follow them as well. Do I always tell you that? Having wild turkeys come out of the nearby mountains and wander by our little homestead reminded me about the magic of canyons and arroyos that cross our deserts. The reintroduction of the Gould’s turkey into the mountain ranges of southeastern Arizona began in the early 1980s and continued through the 1990s. There were failures and successes, but now a days you can’t go into the woodlands or forest of the borderlands…

I like to say the name Phlox. I think it’s the letters p, h and l that make it fun, and yes, it’s probably just me. The name is from the Greek for flame and the specific epithet nana for the plant in this episode is also from the Greek and means dwarf. With that in mind, I suggest a common name for Phlox nana could be Little Phlame Phlox. Yay, and you’re welcome! Oh, and those are my notes rustling in this episode. I was a little disorganized. Okay, maybe a lot. And, the photos are mine, taken in…

The plant Dichelostemma capitatum (synonym Dipterostemon capitatus) has at least two subspecies and is found all over the west. For me this lily-like plant announces spring in the desert and uplands. Marian and I felt so lucky to catch the emergence of hundreds and hundreds of Bluedicks in that oak woodland. The Penstemon species we saw were pretty cool as well, so I’ve included the photos I took of Penstemon fendleri and Penstemon superbus along with the ones of Bluedicks from the day described in this episode. And yes, the common name bluedicks makes me laugh like a fourth grader. I…

Initially the two Arizona state tree palo verdes were the genus Cercidium. That’s the way I learned them and that’s the genus name you’ll find in all the older floras and field guides. Well, not that older, and anyway, Parkinsonia (the Linnaeus name) was the genus of just the Mexican palo verde, Parkinsonia aculeata. Sometime in the 1980s — I think, I dunno, feeling older— when it was realized that all three paloverdes were similar genetically and since Parkinsonia had been named first, that name had priority. Dropping Cercidiun was hard, but hey I got over it and I love…

If it wasn’t for the Gadsden Purchase, coral bean or Erythrina flabelliformis wouldn’t be found in southeastern Arizona or southwestern New Mexico and so we are in its northern most range out of Mexico. It has so much to love…amazing bright red flowers on naked branches followed by fan shape green leaves (flabelliformis!) and then the long pods that dry and dehisce and dangle to display the red seed. Seed so hard that I use a file or grinding wheel to break the seed coat so it’ll germinate. It’s in the pea family Fabaceae and the pea family rocks the…

Ms. Mesquitey and I like the idea of regional crayons. The colors of your home place, of your own biotic community. When we saw the fairy dusters (Calliandra eriophylla) blooming on that rocky slope we realized that maybe it would need a few different crayons. Yay! I don’t know it this interests you, but fairy duster is pretty easy to grow from seed. You just need to get the little bean pods before they snap open and send seed shooting across the desert where native critters eat them. Oh dear! But hey, if you don’t feel like gathering and germinating…

Brittlebush, (Encelia farinosa) loves rocky hillsides and gravelly desert. And though this native shrub has a large range showing up in the Mojave and Great Basin Deserts, for me the bright yellow flowers atop the silvery foliage shout, “Sonoran Desert!” If you’re interested in ethnobotany (why wouldn’t you be?) this is a good plant to add to your journal with its many uses, from chewing gum to incense. And listen, native plant nurseries grow and sell this wonderful wide ranging native, so plant or 2 or 3 in your personal habitat to remind you that the desert is beautiful. Yeah…