Tucson Abloom

Tucson is abloom! There’s too much to note and photograph and write about, so today’s focus is on just two blooming plants – pomegranates and aloes. Neither one is native to the Sonoran, but they both come from desert climates in other parts of the world.

The pomegranate is native to Iran, but has been cultivated for centuries around the Mediterranean and in northern India. It came to the southwestern United States via Spanish monks in the Eighteenth Century. Though nonnative, the pomegranate takes to this climate like a duck to water.

I’m watching with interest as the pomegranate shrubs outside our kitchen window wake up after a brief winter’s nap. First came the new green leaves (unlike most desert plants, the pomegranate is deciduous), followed by little red buds at the ends of stems.

Then the earliest buds began to burst.

And now those have fully opened, while more new buds are showing up.

Aloes, having originated in Asia, Africa, and islands in the Indian Ocean, also love the Sonoran climate. They take the occasional winter freezes with grace, and then send up dignified bloom stalks in March. There are more than 500 varieties of aloes. This aloe, probably a striatula, inhabits our front yard.

We have Hedgehog aloes, too, but I took this photo at the Tucson Botanical Gardens.

We will be leaving Arizona soon, and I won’t get to see our cactus bloom. Luckily I can see the incipient blooms, beautiful in both form and potential.

I’m sorry to miss the cacti, but I sure won’t miss the palo verdes. They are in full bloom, generously wafting pollen. We can’t stop sneezing.

Copyright 2016 by Shirley Domer