See Ya Later, Tucson

Our sojourn in Tucson has come to an end for this year. It’s springtime in Kansas and time to plant potatoes, so we’re heading home.

We have learned our way around most of the city and met some delightful people. We have learned a lot about the desert landscape and its exotic flora that we’ve come to love and appreciate.

This time around I’ve not written about Tucson’s love of walls, or about its charming Southwest architecture. I haven’t written about xeriscaping, and other water conservation strategies. I’ve neglected to write about our intergenerational living experiment, which has been a huge success. I haven’t talked about Tucson’s unique rattlesnake pedestrian/bicycle Broadway overpass, but next fall I promise to take up these topics and more.

In the meantime, I must apologize for my February 12 post, “Tucson’s Tohono Chul Park," that featured among other things the ocotillo. Frankly I couldn’t see that the ocotillo had any saving grace other than its utility as a fence. (I even got that part wrong, as I acknowledged in a subsequent post, “Egg on My Face.”)

But as springtime came to Tucson, the ocotillo began to show its true elegance and beauty. Its thorny stalks put out tiny, dark green leaves and developed flower buds at the terminal of each stalk.

These buds will soon open and become bright red flowers that remind one of holiday candle flames.

My perception of the ocotillo is a good reminder that there is often more than meets the eye of a stranger in town. Next year I’ll come closer to becoming a Tucsonan. There’s always more to learn.

P.S. This is my last post on Tucson Off and On. I'll be writing in my Chicken Creek Journal instead. (chickenbcreekjournal.blogspot.com)

Copyright 2016 by Shirley Domer

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

Amazing Citrus

Based on my experience with apples, pears, peaches, and cherries, I thought I knew how fruit trees produce fruit. They bloom in the spring and all their fruit ripens in a short period of time. Cherries ripen in early summer, the others in the fall. I was amazed to learn that citrus trees have a different schedule. Some of the fruit hangs on the tree even while a new bloom cycle begins, as you can see in this photo of a Seville orange tree in the Tucson Botanical Gardens.

We are excited to have our own citrus trees ­– one orange and one lemon – just planted a few days ago. The orange is blooming gloriously.

The blossoms are exquisite and smell heavenly.

The lemon isn’t blooming but it has fruit in various stages of development. One full-sized lemon broke off when the tree was delivered, but there is another, smaller one on the tree.

A dozen or more tiny lemons are just getting started.

As a bonus, we have a fig tree. The nursery pruned the tree but still it has a dozen or more baby figs.

Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore!

Copyright 2016 by Shirley Domer

Re-Creating the Back Yard

Over the past year our back yard has been almost completely transformed. Last winter Grant and Blair demolished numerous brick columns, walls, and pathways. Broken bricks were heaped into a dumpster, but intact ones were heaped along the west wall.

When Dennis and I arrived in November Dennis decided to sort the bricks, stacking the clean ones and heaping those that were still covered with mortar. Then he began whacking off mortar with a hatchet, working almost every morning and evening.

At last, the brick job is done. Dennis has named the stacks that line the east side of the driveway. Here’s Papa, consisting of 1.081 bricks.

Here’s Mama, 788 bricks.

Here are North and Skinny, 1,026 and 474 bricks respectively.

In addition there are stacks of rectangular pavers (1,069) and square pavers (76).

Dennis cleaned more than 1,500 bricks, leaving a two-foot-high mound of mortar, now deposited in the eighth dumpster the guys have filled with debris.

Grant has been busy grubbing out unwanted cacti, bushes, and trees. Here he takes a mattock to the last one.

And it’s out!

At last it’s time to start creating a new landscape. Grant and Blair ordered three trees – an orange, a lemon, and a fig. That meant more work. Logan, who has been visiting during his spring break, volunteered to dig the holes. In the process of digging he found, guess what? More pavers!

The trees will be delivered tomorrow. We’re excited to be moving into the re-creation stage.

Copyright 2016 by Shirley Domer

Tucson's Wall Art

When we first arrived in Tucson I was so focused on watching for street signs as we were driving that I failed to appreciate the ubiquitous roadside art. Every bridge and every underpass has a unique design, such as this underpass on 22^nd Street.

Oddly for a desert city, many of the designs incorporate a water theme. Here’s part of a design along River Road, where the river bed is bone dry.

Walls also line the major thoroughfares in the newer parts of the city. Sometimes the wall pattern will be repeated on both sides of the road for several blocks. Then a new, completely different pattern appears. Some of the patterns are complex, such as this double wall.

Some walls echo the colors and shapes of the Sonoran Desert.

But others are simply walls. The wall in this photo is enhanced by blooming aloes.

The roadside walls serve a practical purpose, of course. They give visual privacy to residential districts and buffer the noise of traffic. In most cities these walls are nothing more than barriers, but here in Tucson beautiful design is highly valued both by the city and by developers.

My photos scarcely do justice to the wall art of Tucson. All the photos I’ve included here were taken while we paused at red lights. If you want to truly appreciate Tucson’s wall art you will come to see it for yourself.

Copyright 2016 by Shirley Domer