Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

The bird song along that riparian corridor is unbelievable and we spent some time trying to identify certain calls and songs.

I sure talk about a lot different flora and fauna. From three species of quail, to canyon wrens, to Yarrows…

KIDS, COLLECT

THE WHOLE SET!

The afore mentioned southern live

oak is the state tree of Georgia and it makes me irritable that some of the

downtown sidewalks of Tucson are lined with it. The phrase, “sense of place” comes

to mind. Grrr!

And as prevalent as this verbena is in the mountains and hills above us, this is a new species for the creek banks near our home. I suspect seed came down from the afore mentioned hills in the flood of August 2017. That flood created new channels and banks where we now find this beautiful wildflower.

I have had the Gila topminnow going around in my brain for months and this poem may be a work in progress,

If you want to attract black swallowtail butterflies to your personal habitat in southeastern Arizona, and of course you do,  simply plant some plants in the parsley family Apiaceae

When we got back from New Mexico a week later, the wild flower show in Cochise County really took off and as I write this, fields, hills and mesas are glowing gold and yellow.

And before I forget, the book I mention is King Solomon’s Ring, by Konrad Lorenz. It was required reading in Wildlife Biology 101 taught by Roger Hungerford at the U. of A. back in the olden days. It’s still a good read

The book I mentioned a little too quickly is Food Plants of the Sonoran Desert by Wendy Hodgson. If you are interested in edible or medicinal native plants, then it belongs on your shelf or on that pile by the bed.