The Pink Season

We stick Monsoon between Summer and Fall. Although NOAA may have decreed that Monsoon begins on June 15th, those of us who were here before bureaucrats decided to micro-manage the weather know that monsoon begins after 3 consecutive days with the dew point over 54, as I ranted here in 2010. Up until then, it's just hot, with a side of breeze.

The tiny yellow blossoms have fallen from the mesquite and the palo verde.  They've been swept away and replaced by seed pods.

I passed a man harvesting them from the lower branches of a neighbor's tree.  If anyone is interested, mine are available for picking, too.  The native people created foodstuffs from the pulverized seeds; I'm not enough of a cook to create my own ingredients, too.  

The seed pods are falling onto the driveway and the pool deck and are an unpleasant surprise to bare feet.  

The saguaro flowers never really did much this year, but the casings are strewn over my walkways.  

The birds and the ground squirrels are fattening up, that's for sure. The red inner lining must be very tasty.

The garden is turning pink.  The Englemann prickly pears turn pink when they are stressed.  

Since native plants receive no extra irrigation during once they are established in my yard, mine are coloring up quite nicely.  

The crepe myrtle are ubiquitous. These are in the parking lot at pilates.

 which makes getting out of the car into the sweltering heat almost palatable.

 I can get up close and personal to the greenery 

and forget, for a moment, that I'm in a black-topped parking lot in the desert.

At home, my own bushes are also doing quite nicely.

 After July 22, 2013, I will have lived in this house longer than I've lived in any other house during the course of my marriage.  For the first time, I have a chance to watch my plants grow to maturity.  This crepe myrtle, a beautiful pink surprise when I moved here in July, 2006, has been a reliable producer of pink pine cone-like bursts of color that I admire from the desk as I type to you.  MOTG's cocoa-cola-bottle-hummingbird-feeder hangs where I can watch the hummers flit to wet their whistles.  

And then there's the volunteer crepe myrtle.

It established itself in a purple lantana and, despite an unintended run in with a gardener's electric blade, it has continued to reappear and make me smile.

The healthiest plants are the ones that self-select their locations. 

I'm very glad that this one chose to set up house in the courtyard, at the end of my view.

I froze the adenia which had lived sheltered lives in my courtyard for three years when I forgot to bring them inside when the temperatures went below 45.  

This is my replacement, replete with a seed pod.

 The bougainvilla are just beginning to flower.

Those sharp edged spikes don't seem to deter the caterpillars.

My yard better be filled with butterflies this summer; my leaves are eaten to shreds.

 The hesperaloe parviflora are turning from flowers into pods.

 Those green sacks are soft and covered with tiny, feathery, threads.

Once they pop open, the birds perch and feast.

And, since I couldn't leave it all outside,

since I needed some pink when the sun sets and the world is black outside,

I brought these home to liven up the living room.

What color is your garden this month?