Growing Native

Growing plants and being involved in horticulture since 1980 meant knowing the USDA’s plant hardiness zones so I could jabber to folks knowingly (Ha!) about plant choices for their personal habitat. To make things a little more confusing Sunset Magazine created their own hardiness and planting zones for the Western US. Jeez, Sunset! During my brief tenure at the University of Arizona I learned about C. Hart Merriam’s life zone system created in 1896 and I worked that into my plant blather for awhile. It did make me sound pretty smart. Then in 1994 along comes David Brown’s Biotic Communities…

There are many nations and languages found in the borderlands. The photos are mine.    

I grew and sold California buckthorn for several years. Early on I sold it wholesale to other nurseries, but I also sold it at Farmers Markets in Cochise County. I’m a terrible plant promoter I guess and the plant never really got popular, at least in my circles. It’s ironic because in California there are some named cultivars (nativars folks like to say…whatever) sold in nurseries. We’ve had some nice specimens over the years at our little homestead. And birds love the fruit so thanks to them we’ve had some volunteers pop up around the place. The photos are of…

The etymology of the word mistletoe is all over the place and has been traced to Old English, Middle English, Anglo Saxon and old German…a mix of all of the above. I do like the meaning “dung on a twig.” And listen, mistletoe is really an excellent plant for birds, so why don’t native plant nurseries offer Phoradendron californicum for your ironwood or mesquite or catclaw? Ask your favorite nursery person for dung on a twig!

When I would give talks I would always show photos and talk about our regional yucca species; Yucca elata, Yucca baccata and Yucca madrensis… Yucca madrensis, by the way, is the former Yucca schottii, but here’s what’s cool about this resident of the Madrean Evergreen Woodlands; it’s pollinated by a different moth species than Y. baccata or Y. elata. They each have their own yucca moth species doing the pollinating. Cool? Very! The photos are mine.