Monday, April 30, 2012

Desert Gardens Nursery, Phoenix, AZ...

Would you be surprised to hear I‘ve still got photos to share from our visit to the Desert Southwest last Fall? I do! Three or four posts worth depending on how I do it. Today we’ll be visiting Desert Gardens Nursery in Phoenix. This was our first stop back in Phoenix as we wrapped up two weeks of traveling a big loop through Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. The funny thing…returning to Phoenix was like returning home. Everywhere we’d been was so dry. Our skin was cracking, it was painful to breath. Comparatively Phoenix felt like the Pacific Northwest, not the desert. So it was with this return to the lush moist plant oasis (exactly how you would describe the Sonoran Desert right?) that I visited Desert Gardens Nursery.
As I wandered I received a warning that everything good was at “the Woman’s Show” going on downtown. I didn’t know if I should be excited that something called “the Woman’s Show” was hip enough to include cool plants, or bummed that I was missing out on potentially amazing plants.
This section seemed to be a hospital of some sort.
Decapitated Aloes…
Babies…
And a poor Yucca rostrata which had seen much better days.
This mess was just plain sad (and yikes! creepy photographer hands too....).

I do love Oleander…
And big Agaves!

These guys were signed as Agave guiengola ‘whale tongue’…beautiful right? But not the ‘whales tonque’ I know, Agave ovatifolia. Common names can cause confusion…
More large Agaves…
And an Aloe?
Agave americana, simply labeled “Century Plant”...love the powdery blue.

It’s an Agave palm!

Agave sisalana ‘variegated’
Here’s where I’m glad it took me so long to get to these images! This Agave was signed as Agave salmiana ferox ($119 if you're shopping) and to me it looks very much like the Agaves I’ve been wondering about here in Portland…don’t ya think?

Moving on…
Can you imagine buying an Opuntia in a crate, like a tree? Wow…
And I’ll leave you with this…Petunias and Marigolds. It’s not all spiky exotics in the desert…

Friday, April 27, 2012

On becoming aware…

It was once explained to me that there is a rule in marketing; it goes something like “people need to see your ad/message three times before really SEE it.” There must be an analogous rule in gardening, for how many times it can take for you to see a plant before you actually SEE it. Does that make sense? I know this can be true for me and that’s my story today…
We start out at McMenamins, the St. Johns Pub to be exact. I’d stopped to photograph a Euphorbia stygiana (that’s it, behind the grass)…
But of course got sidetracked as other interesting plants competed for my attention, like these Daffodil blooms briefly masquerading as Opuntia flowers.

Another choice Nolina 'La Siberica'…
And because misery loves company a Loquat with spots on its leaves just like mine.

Unknown, but beautiful Grevillea.
Newly planted Agaves, A. ovatifolia 'Frosty Blue' I believe…
Electric Euphorbia blooms.

And cool pealing bark…

With equally cool leaves.

But finally, I was captivated by these leaves, so small and glossy!
With furry edges.
What was this plant!?

Fast forward to a week later; I was at Xera Plants with my plant crazy friends, when I saw those same leaves again. Here’s the tag…
Fremontodendron, that’s what it was! Those leaves could be mine. So I bought one…
An hour or so later when we were touring around the Kennedy School gardens (another of the McMenamins “chain”) Ryan asked about a plant, this one…

…growing along the fenceline. Guess what it was…a Fremontodendron! How many times have I walked right by that plant? Erich (our tour guide) went on to explain the placement of that particular plant wasn’t ideal as the fur I admired on the leaves was actually an irritant. From the San Marcos Growers website…“The fuzz (stellate hairs) on the leaves can be very irritating to the skin, and protection should be worn for the eyes if a person needs to work with this plant”

Yikes. I seem to be quite adept at falling for plants that pose a danger to my health (hence the name of my blog right?). As it turns out there is a second Fremontodendron in this garden, hard to see, but of a good size.

On becoming aware of this particular Fremontodendron I remembered a conversation from about a year ago when my friend Lauren pointed and commented on the combination of it and another plant nearby. At the time I paid little attention to Fremontodendron (not really noticing it, just seeing a plant blob…probably with my attention pulled towards the imposing Dasylirion close by). So why do I remember that particular conversation? Because even though I didn’t “see” the plant I was captivated by the name… Fremontodendron, it’s beautiful word. And now I really do SEE the plant too, and with any luck I will be enjoying it for years to come….