April 27, 2006

bloom time

We have three distinct blooming seasons here. March is the wildflowers, when there are wildflowers. Unfortunately, all but two of the ten years I've lived here have been drought years, and the wildflowers were scanty. But those two years had blakets of yellow covering the mountainsides, starred with orange and purple for variety. A desert in bloom sounds so Biblical, somehow, though I don't think the Sinai blooms. But it is as glorious as it sounds.

Now, in April is my favorite of the blossom season, the blooming of the trees. The palo verdes are covered in tiny bright yellow blossoms, the same color forsythias bring to spring in climates farther north. I'm not sure if it's those or something else that fill the air with a sweet, sweet scent in early April. My favorite, though, are the jacarandas used in a lot of landscaping around here. The blossoms are an improbable Crayola lavender against a tender green of the new leaves. You can see a bit of the one in my backyard here.

In May it feels like summer here, and outdoors is best experienced in the dark or through the window of an air-conditioned car. One thing worth looking at through those windows is the saguaro blooms. First there are the buds, comically on top of the trunk like hair on a head. The the flowers open. Nothing subtle about them; they look like the Tim Burton version of daisies, white petals around a yellow center, but much bigger, stiffer, and sturdier and somehow a bit freakier. But they're still flowers nad still beautiful. They're one of the redeeming features about the onset of summer here.

Posted by dichroic at April 27, 2006 04:20 PM
Comments

To me 'Cactus Flower' is a movie. I do have a Christmas cactus which blooms like a mad thing the week before Thanksgiving, but I never think of it as being a 'real' cactus. So thank you. I don't believe I've ever seen saguaro blossoms before! ~LA

Posted by: LA at April 27, 2006 06:22 PM
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