Early Spring in the Desert

Spring has officially arrived in Arizona. This is a post all about the blooming plants in our yard. There are many other plants in bloom around the desert of course, but this is our little piece of the Arizonian beauty. I am gonna tell you a little bit about what I know about each plant.

Here is a Coral Aloe. A plant on no irrigation. It is sensitive to frost, so because it is an early spring bloomer, it is important to protect it from hard freezes late in the season. It almost died the first year it was planted. All of its main leaves split when the water inside froze. Luckily it recovered and has had a couple of pretty blooms since then.

My mom bought me 4 of these (1 has since died) different colored blooming Gazanias. This is the first one to bloom this spring. This plant will have big showy flowers all year long.

Here is an Ice Plant. It is on no irrigation, but seems to do pretty well in our yard.

This is one of the many Salvia Gregii (Autumn Sage), that we have in our yard. They do very well, and bloom almost year around, despite their common name. We have Lipstick Red, Coral, Purple, and Salmon colored ones on the north side of our yard. The purple has never thrived very well for some reason, but the other three do very well. I also have a white one that was transplanted last August to the middle of our yard. It is still alive, but has yet to bloom.

This is called a Bird of Paradise. Although I like to think of it as a Desert Bird of Paradise, not to be confused with the Hawaiian tropical Bird of Paradise that is really quite a different plant. This is the yellow version, we also have 2 Red Bird of Paradise, but they froze back to their roots this year, so they of course have not bloomed yet. Hopefully we will see some blooms on those during the monsoon season.

Our deciduous trees are leafing out again. We have 3 Chinese Elms (one of which is pictured below), and an Arizona Ash. I purchased 2 of the Chinese Elms for $150ea, with my 30% Civano discount way back in May of 2006. I was given the third as a "discard" because it had been underwatered and had lost most of its leaves during the summer. It couldn't be sold in that condition, so instead of letting it get thrown into the dumpster I took it home. It is always the first of the three Chinese Elms to leaf in the Spring. The Arizona Ash was a small shoot that was pulled from the Civano Rose garden. It was probably about 3-4 feet tall at the time. I took it home and planted it, not sur eif it was going to survive because it only had the main tap root left after being pulled. It has grown to be about 10 feet tall in just a couple of years.

For some reason the buds on the trees are the most exciting sign to me of the changing seasons.

This is a Globe Mallow. There are 2 of them, and they are relatively new to my garden collection. I used to have 2 blue Autumn Sages in their place, but after a couple years of them dying during the summer months, and being replaced the following spring, I gave up on that plant, and thought to put in something slightly more drought/heat resistant (although typically the sages are excellent). The Globe Mallows survived and seem to be thriving, after being treated for a bit of black spot mildew they developed last spring right after they were planted.

This is another new plant as of last November. I used to have a Variegated Century Plant in its place (actually had 3 of them in the yard), but it died from Grub infestation. Every year I lose a number of agave and yucca to those little buggers. I try to replace them with plants that are grub resistant, and I try to treat those agave and yucca remaining with a systemic pesticide. I was suprised to see this cactus bloom its first spring planted in the ground, and that it seems to be happy in our yard. All of the cacti, aloe, agave, and yucca in our yard are on no irrigation.

This plant is very special to me. I don't even know what it is called, but I have 2 of them right next to our front door. One of them is yellow, and isn't blooming yet, and then there is this pink one. Both of these plants are special because they were given to me in flower arrangements from my office. The yellow one was given to me in September of 2007 for my miscarriage. The pink one was given to me in July of 2008 fo the birth of Lincoln. They got a bit frost bitten, despite being protected, but they have both seemed to survive their first winter planted outdoors.

This is a cactus that is planted in a hanging pot. It is tiny, but seems to be happy since it is in bloom. I am not sure of its exact name, but it is of the mammilarian variety I believe.

Here is another mammilarian cactus. It could even be the exact same species as the one pictured above.

Here is a Rosemary plant. It has the most beautiful tiny blue flowers, and seems to bloom on and off throughout the cooler months. I have had this plant since the beginning, May of 2006. It has been transplanted 2 times however, but it is doing just fine regardless.

This is another variety of Ice Plant. It has pretty pink flowers, and blooms almost year around. It can spread like mad if it is happy (which it is), so I have to do extensive pruning a couple of times a year just to keep it somewhat in check. I have a bunch of these on a little hill in our yard. I put them their for ground stabilization...but they too have gone a little hog wild.

This cactus is called Silver Sword. I have a couple of these in our backyard. This one has a bunch of stalks, and the stalk pictured here is the tallest of the bunch at about upper-thigh height. This is one of the first plants in our yard to bloom. I actually had to take the frost covers (styrofoam cups) off of the stalks a little early because these blooms were trying to come out.
It has the strangest blooms. Quite phallic in nature actually. Andy and I thought that it was hilarious the first time we saw these blooms last year.

This is a Carolina Jessamine. It is a pretty little vine that I spent about 6 hours untangling and tying to the trellis that I designed and built for it last year. I was about 24 weeks pregnant when I was doing this. I remember that my back was killing me when I finally finished. But it looks great and seems to be thriving.

This is a Gopher plant. I think it is one of the coolest low water desert succulents that I have ever seen. Because of that there are 4 of them in our backyard. Andy doesn't really care for them though. Oh well. I love the form and structure and of course the crazy blooms that it has.

This is a Texas Mountain Laurel. This plant is pretty cool, although it is probably one of the very slowest growing plants that I have in our yard. It is only about 2 feet tall. It also is one of the first plants in our yard to bloom, it was already past its prime by the time I even noticed it (as you can tell by the tired blooms pictured here). The blooms seem to be very short lived, or at least that is what I tell myself since I have missed the prime time for these blooms 2 year in a row. Maybe it just suprises me that it would be blooming so soon. It must have been late January or early February when it started.

Some unknown intruders; wildflowers/weeds. Pesky, but pretty in bloom!

I will be writing another post early next week regarding Linc. We are waiting on a EEG tomorrow and a follow-up visit with the neurologist next Monday. We also have an MRI on Wednesday, and Grandma Hughes (my mom) is coming into town on Wednesday evening. Andy will be out-of-town for work on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday as well. So a busy week to be sure! :)