Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

The Dainty Sulfur (Nathalis iole) flies year round all over Arizona, especially on mild days. The western pygmy blue (Brefidium exile) is the smallest butterfly in North America. It’s found flying year round as well, all over the Borderlands and beyond. The photos are mine. The flowers are a zany colorful selection of Gomphrena globosa.

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! The photo is mine (tripod, shutter timer, running back and forth) of me and Marian (Ms. Mesquitey!) and our magnificent tree, taken just before we headed down the mountain to have lunch in a woodland with some Mexican jays.

I’ve written a few Growing Native episodes about sycamore trees over the years. There is just something about these large riparian trees. Oh, and if I mention sycamore trees in a conversation with friends I get wonderful sycamore stories. Yup, there is just something about these trees. It is interesting, by the way, that the sycamores described In this episode are out on that gravelly plain. They gotta have their feet in water and it will be interesting to see how they’re going to fare through drought and the not too far away big agriculture. Hey, I’ll keep you posted,…

In the summer it’s easy to spot a stand of horsetail milkweed (Asclepias subverticillata) along the side of the road with its slender leafed stems (almost whorled) and white flowering umbels, but also because of the butterflies that flutter out of the stand as you drive by. Maybe a good plant in a butterfly garden? Hello? The photos are mine: an open milkweed pod (follicle) and some sandhill cranes.

I remember now that I had recorded an episode about bush muhly (Muhlenbergia porteri) several years ago, so it must have been time to revisit this beautiful native grass. From late summer into the fall this tangled grassy mound sets seed and the stems change color. I said light purple in this show, but I’m thinking pink might be a better color description. How about reddish? I dunno. I’m pretty poor with colors, so check out the photos below. There are over forty species of Muhlys in Arizona and around the southwest. And, many of those species are in the…

Doing an episode about desert broom (Baccharis sarothroides) is a November tradition. And, so is singing a verse of an old hymn that I like to fool around with by.changing nouns and pronouns. The melody of the song has had quite a journey from a Dutch folk song of the early 1600s to the early 1800s when Eduard Kremser wrote the hymn using the folk song melody. The hymn is known as the Kremser and starts with the line “We gather together.” I so love the line in the song, “the wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.” Hello! What you…

Seeing persimmons in an abandoned orchard at the Chiricahua National Monument pulled up a childhood memory and later I found myself pulling books off shelves and reading about the genus Diospyros and some of the worldwide species. With all my new knowledge I probably could have rattled on for several more minutes in this episode. Luckily for all, I contained myself, but you may want to look up some of the different species of Diospyros and their fascinating histories. The American persimmon, Diospyros virginiana, is found from Connecticut, south to Florida, and west to Iowa, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma. It’s found…

When I was making the “dried seed to collect for display” list for you I should have said “screwbean mesquite beans”, not “seed,” but the twisty twirly clusters of beans that hold the seed. You probably already have those on a shelf, right? Also, can you believe I forgot wild cotton, Gossypium thurberi? Talk about cool pods! Well, to be continued. Hey, the photos are mine. That is some dry Dysphania graveolens that my partner, lover, significant other, Marian put in a gourd vase. I love the pine needle collar she wove around the top of that gourd.

Out in the borderlands near me I find mariola (Parthenium incanum) on the gravelly slopes and plains of the Desert Grassland and Chihuahuan Desert. I love finding it mixed in with so other desert plant species. In the photos below you can see evidence of that kind of fun mixture…a plant geek’s delight! Hey, if you’re out cruising the Sulphur Springs Valley in the winter you’re gonna find cranes out in fields or in the sky during the morning and in the afternoon, but listen, between eleven-ish and two-ish they’re back hanging out at their roosting spots. The White Water…

The photos are mine of Verbesina encelioides. Although it’s quite pretty, “a common weed of roadsides and waste places.”* *Kearney and Peebles, Arizona Flora