Blooming marvels

It was as if the garden held its breath while I was away in spring, greeting my return with a deep exhalation of blooming, each day bringing a new wonder.

After the fruit trees which were gone with the wind before I left, purple Iris germanica are the heralds of the spring colour fiesta in my Garden of Earthly Delights.

I got back just in time to do a lot of deadheading and enjoy the last of the purple swathe and the real tail end of a dancing delicacy of blue Dutch iris (Iris hollandica)

The ornamental alliums have been a little sorry, not as spectacular as other years, probably due to thirst/lack of watering but a neighboring clump of unnamed green tinged yellow Iris Germanica is slowly expanding with each year.

This delicious mahogany speciman, called Valentino, is one of five varieties of mail order brides which I indulged in from a catalog last autumn, in an attempt to introduce more colours.

Montmarte (above)is another of these blooming marvels which repaid the investment. Unlike the One Who Never Grew (I get a replacement according to the vendor guarantee, but only in autumn which means 2026 spring blooming at best. Patience isn’t my strong suite. Tending a garden really forces patience upon me.

Coyote Ugly, (above, but probably not) while interesting with its soft lavender blue falls and violet brindling doesn’t exactly match its pictures or description which included “a pleasing vision of rose standards, and deeper-toned splashy falls. Orange style arms and burning beards add a wildness.” Rose? Orange? Burning beards? I suspect trickster coyote, yellow eyes gleaming, is laughing at me. Shoulda known not to mess with Trickster.

I expressed my disappointment to the plant vendor, with images of what I got, and will receive a substitution in autumn. No more Coyote Ugly are available (were they ever?) so I think I’ve asked for something riotously golden to honor Coyote’s eyes. I still don’t know who this lovely imposter is, probably never will. I’m calling her the Brindled Blue Mystery. She is delicate and fey. Do you think I could get a job writing Iris catalogue descriptions?

Señor Jinx was my new hope for a black flower. 2025 edition. The bud had promise.

Alas, once opened, the señor proved to be a lovely velvety blue violet, not much different from the existing healthy swathe of blooming violet marvels. Sigh. I am beginning to think my quest to grow a black flower is jinxed.

However, Foxy ferox, the (maybe) Aloe ferox rescue heard I was eying flowers in other gardens in the old country, and greeted my return by putting up a spectacular inflorescence.

I thought the polar bears’ repeated gift of arctic blasts of this past winter had done for Foxy so this coral phenomenon, so reminiscent of the old country, has been especially gratifying.

Out front, a 5 year long kerb appeal project in the zero supplemental water hellscape is starting to pay off.

Though lasting only a day or two, there have been some neon brilliant echinocereus (hedgehog cactus) blooms. Bees love them.

For the curious, I’m experimenting with using pistachio shells as mulch in the hellscape. They don’t seem to blow away in the wind which is always with us, but more so in spring.

Desert Bird of Paradise (Erythrostemon gilliesii) are drawing hummingbirds (not photographed. On this day, with a dusty dry wind blowing, I didn’t have the patience to stalk those diminutive whirligigs) .

Outback figs are swelling.

Apricots too, but far fewer stone fruit has set than in past two years. Wind? Late frosts? Protesting my absence?

Kniphofia ( torch lily, red hot poker) have put up some weird double and triple conjoined heads this season.

There’s just so much growing and blooming going on in the garden at the moment that I find it’s imperative to stop doing whatever and sit in Cafe Paradiso, to enjoy a coffee (while I can still afford it) and absorb the view.

The wonder of it! A blooming marvellous desert spring just when I thought I would miss it by going wandering when I did.

Yes I water - not much of this would not happen without supplemental watering several times a week. I’m not proving very good at transitioning to xeric, am I. However being absent in early spring had less dire impact than being absent in height of summer like last year.

How about a Cafe Paradiso brunch with a short stack of blue corn cardamom pancakes drenched in this season’s mesquite honey and a pot of Puerh tea ( while we still have access to this queen of Chinese teas)

Now it’s my turn to hold my breath while I await the Hollyhock colour reveal. Hint - this plant could be another of my Black Flower endeavors.

Then again, Hollyhock is biennial and I don’t really remember sowing Hollyhock seed here at the back door.

I am certain that I have never sown seeds of white hollyhocks, yet this is currently happening in the front south west corner alongside the garlic.

Some days I swear there’s an invisible co-gardener working alongside me.

Maybe it’s that Hollyhocks are just plain contrarian beings. They so often resist cultivation but seem to arrive out of nowhere and thrive in such inhospitable places.

And how about that beautiful green star in the center of this creamy white confection? Where did that come from?

Maybe it’s time to change up the paradigm. Time to start pursuing green flowers instead of black. A lone Papaver somniferum survivor unfolds in the flourishing cereal rye, green centered, pollin dusted purple petals daubed each with an inscrutable black cypher.

I am captured. Enraptured. In a blooming marvelous desert spring the question of why live anywhere else is absurd.

They don’t call it Land of Entanglement for nothing. Enchantment, too, is a trap.