Arizona Gardening Journey

 When I first moved to Arizona I was enthralled by the variety of plants that could grow here. I came assuming there would be cacti and also knew I wanted to grow some plants (probably succulents) in some planters since we would have a patio. That was it though, and from there I studied and researched and met with local gardeners at library talks and experimented a lot. It’s been four years, and we’re moving soon, so it feels like the right time to write my guide to Arizona gardening. 

Well, I wrote that, then I got pregnant again (and sick as usual), we moved, and our baby came. It has now been almost a year since we moved. Still, today is better than tomorrow, and technically we're still in zone 9. So, the following is an account of gardening for four years in Arizona. Enjoy!

We were on the ground floor of our apartment building and there was a East facing patio. That was exciting to me since it had good morning sun and then afternoon shade for those hot days. I quickly decided on and bought planter boxes and rail hangers so they could be up and out of the way of our then 1 year old.

YEAR 1

I started out with some cactus, spinach, sweet pea, spring flower mix, cilantro, parsley, oregano, and basil seeds; green onion ends from the grocery store; and a lemongrass plant that I just loved for it's scent and movement. I planted the lemongrass where I could see it from inside, added some herb seeds to the rest of the planter, and then dedicated the other two to cactus seeds and spinach/flower seeds. As you can see, I got impatient and bought a six pack of snapdragons later on. No regrets about that. I also tried growing some lettuce from a few romaine ends with mixed and underwhelming results.

I didn't get pictures, but at the end we had a big aphid infestation and didn't have any natural predators to control them, so I sprayed them off, but they really stayed until their life cycle naturally ended with the summer heat. We were snowbirds that year and went back home while school was out. Before we left, I mixed the chopped up the plants into the soil and put garbage bags over the planters since they were stored in our storage shed and I didn't want aphids or any other bugs in our Christmas decor. It worked well by the way.

This is what it looked like in April right before we left for the summer. The lemongrass had gotten too big and I had repotted it and then gave it away to a friend. Some of the spring flowers had decided to grow. The cilantro had gone to seed and the basil was as well. I had collected quite a few seeds from the snapdragons also. It was fun. We were gone one week for a family reunion in October, and a big shout out goes to my neighbor Rachel Hanny for watering while we were gone (she was early pregnant, so I didn't know yet). I gave a gardening talk to my Relief Society for an activity in March, so I had been researching a lot and was ready to try some new things next year.

 

YEAR 2

When we came back I decided no more starting from seed because it was too frustrating to have bare spots in a planter box for weeks and weeks. I went to Summerwinds on Bell Road and then Home Depot on Behrend for a few other things and came up with an arrangement I liked. One box was meant to be my curb appeal box, another my experimenting box, and another my herb box. I was impressed by the Evolvulus "Blue Daze" which I used as an anchoring spiller. I also liked the Celosia quite a bit. The garlic chives were always a bit underwhelming, but they have a good architectural form and lovely movement. The basil grew from last year's seed on its own. These pictures are from December. 

Here's how it looked in March through May, plus some painting on the patio which we did a lot. Also, playing in some coffee grounds which we got from a playgroup about gardening and then turned into a Peppa Pig muddy puddle.

Then I changed my experimental planter to a low water use planter, which was a new kind of experiment. I also cut down the Celosia to make room for some adorable Gomphrena which I bought in honor of my second daughter, Rena, who was born in January.

Here it is right before we left for a little bit in July. The last picture is of some tiny basil trying to make it's way into some sun from under all the Gomphrena. The Evolvulous continued to preform. I was worried we would miss the Echeveria pecockii bloom, but we got back in time. Thank you to my fellow gardening friends the Krumans for caring for them while we were gone.

Year 3

Since we were home for all but two weeks this year, I kept gardening throughout the summer. I found that it got too hot for the succulents, so I potted them up and took them inside. I also took some cuttings from a Tradescantia pallida 'Purpurea' (Purple Heart) which growing over the sidewalk in our courtyard. It rooted and grew nicely. I learned that if you have planters on a rail hanger out during a monsoon, they will get fully waterlogged and fall off of their rail. It was a good experience to see how the plants preformed in the heat.

I took this picture because my buddy who let me carpool with her to our master gardener classes at Thanksgiving Point in Utah asked in September if I was growing any plants. Then I took these pictures a few weeks later in October to show how quickly things can change. I was particularly proud of how well the thyme was doing. I still had the occasional Celosia seedling, and Claire had picked out the butterfly and ladybug yard stakes.

This is that one time we got hail...December 9th...while we were on a walk to the Foothills Branch library, which we walked to regularly. Other than that the weather was consistently warm. I brought the planter with the basil in whenever it got cold the first year, but after that I got lazy and left it out. It became my signal plant to show me if it was cold. Basil drops its leaves and gets brown spots in the cold sooner than any other plants I grew.

 

Every year from about November to February we would go and pick lemons on our school campus. We could go anytime and we did go frequently, but I always forgot to take pictures. So this is the first time I took pictures. It's gardening related, and reminds me that some of the more mundane things can be forgotten because they are such a natural part of life.

My husband had a nice break in February, so I had time to take some good garden pictures. Plus, Arizona gardens look great in February. I bought the poppies in a 6 pack. I think that was the same shopping trip that I got the Thai basil, but I'm not sure. The dusty miller was that same trip too. I had brought the succulents out again since it was cooler but not too cold. The elephant's food (Portulacaria afra 'Red stem') was pretty enormous by this point. It was the one that could take the heat in the summer and I never had to bring it in. I didn't bring in the paddle plant (Kalanchoe luciae) either, but that one was not so happy about it. Other than that I had a lot of Jade, the Echeveria, and the Haworthia pumila. The mint plant in the back is Claire's. She did a pretty good job taking care of it. The photo of the Euphorbia rigida at the end was taken on our school campus. I thought it was exceptionally beautiful that day.

Quality time on the patio.

We visited the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix for the first time together as a family. I had gone a couple of times already with Claire. This was back when we did a lot of Pokémon Go, so that's what my husband was doing. It was always nice to go there and see what was possible with more time and space. 

These two were photos taken on a walk to the library. These bushes were some of my favorites of the landscape plants we regularly encountered. I think the purple is a Texas Ranger (Leucophyllum frutescens) and the other is a Justica candicans.

The view from our patio. The bush in front of us is a Ruellia.

The tail end of this year ended up being significant because it was 2020. We were in Iowa for a rotation at the time (shout out to the Olsen's for taking care of the plants for that month for us while they were anxiously waiting for the match to happen and find out where they would be for residency), so the rest of these are from when we got back. We had a little more time together as a family since the rotations for the rest of that year were changed to a sort of online coursework version, so I had hands available to take pictures. We spent the time still waking up early with our kids and going for walks before it got too hot to be outside. We started biking every morning to help cross train for my husband's Air Force PT test. We added some mushrooms and other flora and fauna to the iNaturalist database. My husband prepared for interviews and audition rotations which were going to happen somehow, pandemic or no pandemic.

This flower is a rockrose of some kind. The trees are mostly mesquite, but you can also see some of my favorite, the Pistacia chinensis, which I never got a close up picture of. It's a great tree.

These cars make me laugh. Technically they are all different, but clearly they all had a theme going. It's the med school car I guess. Not really a garden thing, but it was a weird year.

This was a hike up to an owl's nest that was in a Saguaro cactus. We couldn't see them perfectly, but it made for a good goal. Thanks Kelsey for sharing! Then I took these photos for a Facebook mushroom group that I joined to get these identified. Turns out they are called Pisolithus arhizus, or more commonly, dead man's foot or dyeball. We had fun learning about the dyes people can make from them.

The removable stickers were fun for our patio window, and painting was always a treat. Once the caterpillars came though, we made sure to minimize the things we left outside. They, Uresiphita reversalis came for a few weeks twice a year, once in April and again in October. We liked to count how many we had each day. They fed on the Texas laurel trees on either side of our patio. We also had a lizard that liked to dart around sometimes, but I never got a picture of him. Then of course the birds. Mostly they stayed off of our patio because they knew we didn't drop many crumbs when we had snacks out there. We had a lot of pigeons, hummingbirds, some ravens, other creepy birds that I think were cowbirds. They were a whole other thing to observe that I was never great at photographing.

So much yellow. I think it's from a Palo verde.

The year was winding down, and since my husband would be away for two months for rotations anyway we decided to be snowbirds again. I wasn't looking forward to chopping up all they plants this time. I ended up potting up all the ones that would fit in a planter I had and we brought it with us to Utah. Transporting plants is tricky, and I don't enjoy it, but since we only had one year left I felt it made sense. 

Here are some pictures of went we to Sedona to visit the Chapel of the Holy Cross before we left. It was beautiful there.

Indoor plant with silly googly eyes on the planter and my crocheted cactus trio behind.

We saw a hot air balloon on our way out. Not a lot of things more iconic of Arizona than hot air balloons. It was awesome to see one so close.

Year Four

The gardenia's were blooming when we got home, and I was ready for one last year of gardening in zone 9. I knew it would be a short year, because I would probably need to offload my plants before we moved sometime in April. That was the plan anyway. Foreshadowing...

For this year I decided I would finally try Lisanthus (Eustoma), which had been on my list for awhile. I also decided to try out some new spillers since we had to start fresh anyway. I did have a few that I brought back from our summer away: garlic chives, elephant's food, a bunch of jade plants, and the Encheveria. I went with a silver base color with mostly yellow and some burgundy and lime accents.

Thymophylla tenuiloba, Eustoma, more Tt, Allium Tuberosum, Perilla 'Magilla', Dichondra argentea

Portulaca afra (elephant's food), Artemisia dracunculus (Tarragon), more Tt, more Perilla, Salvia officinalis (bicolor), more Allium Tuberosum (garlic chives), and more Tt.

Lysimachia nummularia (creeping Jenny), more Tt, Cupea hyssopifolia, more Allium, more Perilla

 

I bought the white low circle planter and this Ponytail palm from Summerwinds on Bell. The ponytail palm, I ended up putting outside, so it would have more light, and it did great out there. I had to sell it before we moved, but I loved it while I had it. I also individually potted up and sold the succulents because they had been outside, therefore could have been thrown out if I brought them to California, so I thought it was better not to risk it.

It was hard for me, but I knew it would make the Lisanthus bloom better if I took the first bloom, so I did, it was September. I don't know why that part of gardening is so hard, but with the plants I’ve never experienced before,  I struggle to help them struggle. I know they do better when challenged, but I don't love to challenge them. Lots of pictures of the first bloom in a vase always helps with that. Taking the first bloom paid off. The Lisanthus bloomed again a couple weeks later.

Here are a few more mushrooms and other beautiful things found on our walks to the library. I was starting to realize all the little things I would miss.

Here are a few shots of our inner courtyard, our patio, a hike on the Thunderbird's flatlander trail 5 minutes drive from our apartment, the field across from our apartment building, a lantana in December with bronzed foliage, an Agave at Anthem's train park (which was more than 5 minutes away, but worth it), a bike ride on the trail by the Rio Vista park (which we went to a lot), the interfaith chapel on our campus, seed collecting, some enormous Natal Plums lining the sidewalk of some of the buildings in our complex, red runoff in the rain garden from that other time it hailed (January 25th), a cactus wren, some geese that wandered over to the fountain on campus that we used to walk to almost every Sunday, a gate on the way to the library that was used more right before we left since they were building something back there, and more citrus picking. 

These photos help to see the bigger picture. Gardening is about more than just your immediate environment, it's about your community and how plants fit into that.

I made a resurrection garden for Easter. It was something I had planned to do for years because of an example I found on Pinterest when I was looking up miniature gardens. A little lizard ended up hanging out inside the 'tomb' occasionally. I also bought one last plant, a ranunculus, for before I sold everything, and I had started a sweet potato vine for fun from a potato I bought. It did surprisingly well.

The Dichondra went to seed. It was disappointing to me as a spiller plant, but in was interesting to see how it bloomed. The Thymophyla was also a true winner; I loved having the little yellow flowers all year, and it had a distinct sent that I liked. I felt bad I didn't have more room for it to be a groundcover. The Lisanthus overwintered and was just about ready to bloom again when we left. I sold the planters to my upstairs neighbors. They were the last to go. It was weird to not have any plants. We found other things to entertain us though.

Leaf pie

One last mushroom and a random comic I drew the week we moved.

I think we were in California all of two weeks and still in temporary housing when we bought our first new plants to watch and learn from, but that's for another post.