The Burrow

If the monsoon is generous, as it has been,  Tucson is blessed with an abundant second bloom of our summer flowers.   The hanging basket is sporting an impressive beard.  The zinnias, after a serious haircut, rewarded me  and the birds.  But the show stopper,  grown from a small seed,  smiles at us from every room in the house.  For scale, that's a 4' wall, on the far side of the far side of the back yard.  It's special from a distance,  but up close,  it's spectacular That was two days ago, in the morning. As the sun comes up, light sneaks around the corner of the garage and she turns her face to greet it. I left my oatmeal to capture her joy.   This afternoon,  just before it rained, she looked a little forlorn.  Can you see the whorls? I spent a lovely time with them this afternoon,  remembering TBG  and Big Cute...

Apparently, my phone can take panoramic pictures. This allows me to show off my bluebells.  These are not weeds, TBG's protests to the contrary.  A weed is a plant in the wrong place.  These, while not intentional, are not weeds.  These babies have seed packets you can buy in the store.  Fortunately for my garden spending, my bluebells were naturally seeded by the members of the animal kingdom who pollinate and defecate in my yard.  The yellow flowers are brittle bush, and are also volunteers, deposited not always where I'd choose but appreciated none the less. I spent the day in the garden out back, pulling out the rose bush remains that perished when the irrigation system crapped out last summer.  There was no there there anymore; my foot kicked out the stumps with ease.  The face lift was noticeable, but there was more to be done.   I replanted the not-hanging-but-standing-on-a-post basket with the remains of other failed containers....

It must be noted that there are very strict rules about what one can do with a saguaro.  They only sprout arms after 75 or 100 years of growth.  This is what the healthy insides look like. This is what the dead parts of the inside look like.  Once the knob calcified around to the juncture with the healthy arm (see above) the whole thing detached itself and landed on my driveway.  It took The HandyMan heavy work gloves, straps rated to 1000 pounds (the 500 pound ones failed), and all his superhuman-since-his-car-accident strength to maneuver it into place.   This is at the end of what we were dealing with. It was gooey.  It was sticky.  It was firmly attached. And it stank.  Not just smelled bad.  It stank.  Plus, it left little pieces of thick goo and a rancid looking and stinking streak up the middle of the driveway.  It's too far from the hose bibs to be sprayed away.  We laughed at each other as we said, with ironic syn...

It starts out slowly. The Mexican Bird of Paradis decided to join the party for the first time (in 15 years). She's still a little shy, taking it slowly, too. The yucca have no problem announcing their presence, nor do the mature agave. This was the most mature pup I transplanted during last winter's rains. The smaller ones have yet to settle in enough to bloom. I've highlighted them for your ease of viewing. Even the transplant is sending off pups (the arrow at the bottom of the plant).  I will have plenty to share; all you have to do is ask. This is the original mama plant. She's showing off with two flowering stems.   Then there are the Engleman's prickly pear paddle cacti, whose flowers start out like this and end up like this. That's a golden barrel cactus on the left. When it all comes together, it's really quite marvelous. I admit that I'm hiding from current events. I'm much happier thinking about the flora than about the Supreme Court. I...

I can certainly see why you'd say the were weeds. Scruffy doesn't even come close to how unkempt it looked. But the flowers are beautiful                                                   and delicious But when it's cleaned up I think it looks more like a flowering meadow.  

and strangely, neither the old man nor the old woman are snoring.  We are both surprisingly productive. The rain has been steady, without a lot of bluster.  Usually cloudy days make me sad; somehow, this rain has been different.   It shows up at the oddest times.  5:30 in the morning, when even the sun knows better than to disturb my sleep.   10:30 at night, after a beautiful, clear, blue sky, sunny Arizona day, just when we walked outside to prowl the property before bed.  From 8 to 11am,  just enough to thwart any hope I might have had of going to Grandma's Garden. The plants are delighted. During a dry spell, I walked up one street and down another in our neighborhood,  amazed at how healthy everything looked.  That prompted me to walk past my yard a few times, casting a critical eye on what it was now possible for me to do without pain.  I drew X's where things needed to go, knowing that I would enjoy trying to remember exa...

They begin to close up as evening falls. They are fecund. And then the sun comes out, and one by one they begin to open, exposing the pollen in all its glorious stickiness. You can see it in the blossom lower left above. and all over below. These are very unfriendly plants.  Even the javelinas don't eat them. Those curved spines are very sharp and very strong. After all, their job is to protect beauty in the desert.   I'd say they are doing a very good job.

Remember the decapitated saguaro?  It stands about 5' tall now,  so taking a photo of the severed top was a challenge for me. It's intricate and hard and crusty and spiky. And, poking out from the pleats,   right at the edge of the cut, breaking the skin apart with surprising strength some looking sadder than others but most of them are full and thick and happy Each one will be an arm. This is going to be a very interesting plant. Or, as TBG said, que saguaro, saguaro.