Wild Weed Flowers

Spring is grass and weed season in the Sonoran Desert. Many are bristly and sticky, and some are not particularly pleasant to look at (e.g., popcorn flowers, if I have identified these all too common plants of which there are over forty varieties). There is one plant that shoots its seeds when touched. These are not friendly or pretty plants and I dislike grass. So each spring, I pull grass and weeds from all over our little acre.

Last year I made friends with two weeds and learned their names: bristly nama has gorgeous purple flowers and flat-top buckwheat (a/k/a skeletonweed) has a beautiful lacy, coral-colored, umbrella-like superstructure when it dies back. I learned to recognize the shoots and let them grow. I also collected seeds from desert marigolds, brittlebush, and some tiny golden flowered plant clusters whose name I have not been able to identify. These all grow by the side of our very own San Simeon Drive. I scattered the seeds about our little acre.

Good winter rains, another two packets of California poppy seeds, and another two packets of mixed desert wildflower seeds, but mostly not pulling up everything that sprouts, have resulted in a spectacular and surprising bloom this March. Particularly surprising are occasional single plants bearing white, yellow or blue flowers. I have no idea where they came from.

It is still too early for flat-top buckwheat flowers, the creosote bushes are just beginning to flower, and cacti buds are appearing, so there will be more. But what I already have collected with my video camera fills about twelve minutes.

Here is the resulting edit, but if you can watch YouTube on a big screen telly, it looks much, much nicer than on a laptop.