Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

Maianthemum racemosum is in the family Asparagaceae and there are two subspecies of Maianthemum The subspecies out here in the mountainous forests of the western U.S. is amplexicaule, so it reads like this: Maianthemum racemosum ssp. amplexicaule. Between the two subspecies, False Solomon’s Seal can be found all over North America…all over…and into a bit of northern Mexico. So wherever you are, search the rich damp soil of the mountain forest understory. And doesn’t “rich damp soil” sound glorious? It almost makes me want to create a forest garden with that kind of soil and shade here at our home.…

I love that sign. I call it the Robert Frost sign. I think Ms. Mesquitey is tired of me saying that. I love her too.

I love desert ironwood trees….love peering under them to see the plants they’re nursing …love the purple and white flowers and seed pods that follow… never minded the spiny branches tugging at my clothing and sometimes drawing blood… and, love the litter beneath them. The desert ironwood is a beautiful tree…yeah, it is. The photo is mine.

Over the years I’ve found populations of desert honeysuckle with different colored flowers, so I’ve grown plants with red brick colored flowers, with orange flowers and with yellow flowers. I’ve read that white flowering plants can be found. Can’t wait! There are other Anisacanthus spp. and cultivars to be found at your favorite native plant nursery. Collect them all! It was in a conversation with Tucson Sentinel reporter Natalie Robbins that she told me the story of being homesick in New York City and listening to a recording of white winged doves calling. The photos of Anisacanthus thurberi flowers are…

There are 30 species of Dalea found in Arizona, many of which are the the nursery trade because they are so doggone pretty. How cool is that? Very. Feather bush (Dalea formosa) can be found in lots of different plant communities around Arizona, New Mexico and across the border into Sonora and Chihuahua. It sure seems to like warm rocky rubble wherever it is and the gravelly plain at the base of the Dragoon Mountain fits the bill. The photos are mine and taken on the aforementioned gravelly plain.

I have grown New Mexico locust (Robinia neomexicana) in the past for some contract grows and I quickly learned that the spines don’t get any friendlier in cultivation. Oh, and I mentioned that this plant grows in thickets and so where I grew it in our nursery the roots escaped the containers and we now have a small thicket. Yikes! Oh well, we get pinkish purplish papilionaceous flowers in late April and into May. In the mountains it is definitely a May and June bloomer. Fun to photograph, but bring band aids. The photos are mine.

There are a couple other species of Eysenhardtia found over in Texas and more species as you head into Mexico and as far south as Guatemala. But hey, meanwhile here at home if you live in or like to hang out in Bisbee, Arizona you can find kidneywood (Eysenhardtia orthocarpa) along the sides of the road around Warren and San Jose. I’ve come across some nice shrubs on the east side of the Chiricahua Mountains in Horseshoe Canyon and come to think of it I’ve seen low browsed specimens on rocky slopes in the Peloncillos. And hello, there is always…

This was a fun episode to write…well, maybe fun isn’t the right word, but it was great to get excited about hedgehog cactus again. What a hoot! The reference used for the hedgehog cacti jabbered about in this episode is Field Guide to Cacti and Other Succulents of Arizona. A great field guide. I recommend getting the second edition as some changes were made from the first edition. That said, I gotta tell you I never tire of pulling The Cacti of Arizona by Lyman Benson off the shelf. Oh yeah, the species names may have changed, but I love…

The riparian woodland where we were hiking is around 6,000 ft. in elevation and I think that may be the upper limits of the elf owls elevation range. Elf owls (Micrathene whitneyi) winter in southern Mexico, then migrate in the spring to southern Arizona, southwest New Mexico and west Texas where they breed and summer over in a few different biotic communities. Lucky us! I like the elf owl description in my old (1960s) Peterson’s Field Guide to the Western Birds: “a tiny small headed earless owl the size of a chunky sparrow.” The photo, however, is a page from…

Bristlehead (Carphochaete bigelovii) is a small shrub that I’m not sure I would have recognized without the flowers and bristles. I wonder if I’ve wandered by this species many times before wondering what the heck it was. The flowers and bristles that helped my ID are contained in a very cool looking long involucre and I read that the throats of the flowers are “purplish” and the petals are white which may explain my fumbling over the color of the flowers. Anyway, a nice native plant common in the borderlands and especially common if you recognize it. The photos are…