Giant Asparagus

The flower stalk of an agave looks a lot like a giant asparagus. Which should not be a surprise. They are related.

The century plant (agave americana) stalk has been about a month in the making and it's over twenty feet tall. The little branchlets are forming at its top. That's where the dense clusters of flowers will bloom.

What I call green agave are smaller and, well, greener. But like the giant century plant, it also grows a tall flower stalk. I just counted the eighth green agave stalk. They are thinner but reach about as high as the century plant. So many green agaves are flowering that I have decided to stop watering them and I am beginning to worry about preserving and transplanting shoots to replenish the stock.

It's pretty intense spring. The palo verde trees are in full bloom. Intense washes of yellow flowers everywhere, not just blooms on the trees, but carpeting the ground underneath.

Pool Time

Pool Time is not measured by when Tom takes a quick dip in the cement pond. He is likely to do that in winter, albeit very briefly.

Since February, our transparent but bubbly solar blanket has covered the pool keeping heat in and evaporation down.

Pool Time is when the water is warm enough for Shari to swim a lap or two that pool time begins. That happened in early March.

Then we had another spell of rain. Good stuff for the environment, but a bit nippy for Pool Time.

A couple of weeks ago friends from Portland went for serious swims, doing the Australian crawl (do they still call it that?), when the water was hovering in the high seventies.

They say high seventies is a perfect temperature for serious swimming, but I am not a serious swimmer. I like lollygagging in the pool, and I hate getting my hair wet.

By this last weekend, the water was around eighty-seven. The weather is turning hot, a bit too hot for just entering into spring, but great for the cement pond.

The water is warm enough to hang around in the late afternoons and sip on a prickly pear margarita.

Yesterday Shari did some twenty laps.

We have entered Pool Time.

Blue Agave Eruption

Speaking (or writing) about floral puberty, a blue agave decided to go for it a couple of weeks ago.

All I know is I was thinning out agave suckers by the gravel driveway. That evening, I walked back to marvel at my work. That was when I noticed the blue agave stalk. It was probably three or four days old, but already humungous.

That erection will grow for about a month then explode in little stalks covered with flowers.

I similarly noticed a fourth green agave erupting. The story is similar. I was walking through our Sonoran acre when I noticed it had already from some five or six feet.

A green agave's erection is nothing compared to that of a full grown blue agave. It's huge.

The photo on the left, taken on March 21, maybe one week into the erection, shows the agave itself which is about six feet tall. The stalk is about two feet in circumference. I just went outside to check and the stalk has doubled in height since the photo was taken.

Then there is the hanging cactus (right) whose flowers last only a couple of days.

It must be spring.

Plant Puberty

A green agave shoots out its flower stalk.

Among animals generally, elaborate courting, rutting and mating are common, but not ceremonies on the occasion of puberty. The plant world is gorgeous for its sexual, floral displays, but not so much for a plant's first time. Only humans make a big deal out of coming of age.

Except the agave; on both counts: sex and puberty.

Like most life forms, the sex life of an agave is elaborate and beautiful. This is, of course, its flowers. They are a huge display on the end of a tall shoot. They are kind of like a billboard, so we can call such floral displays "billboard flowers."

By contrast, many cactuses just grow a big flower on the side of their head; no stalk. We call such flowering cactuses "Frida Kahloes" (not to confuse the term with aloes or kalanchoes, which are billboard flowers).

But unlike any other life form, except homo sapiens, the first time in the life of an agave is a unique celebration; even more so than for humans for the agaves that do it only once.

This is about two or three days worth.

No, not coming of age. That necessarily happens only once. Doing "it." Sex. Flower.

Many agaves live a good many years (not a century, although its life cycle is the occasion for the century plant's name), then grow a fantastic billboard, erupt in flowers, attract bats from as far away as Mexico, then expire.

When you literally put your life into "it", then by comparison, a bar mitzvah or tribal scarring is a rather dull affair.

The reason I mention all this is because it is spring, when a young man's fancy turns to …, as it does for some species of agave that have matured to the point of puberty. They erupt with a sudden and huge stalk. It's a huge affair. They grow amazingly fast.

Every day I spend time in our San Simeon Acre of the Sonoran Desert. Only yesterday I noticed not one, not two, but three green agaves throwing up shoots. These are not small shoots. Within days they equal the height of the underlying plant. Within weeks they equal its mass. It is their rite of puberty. It is the sugar in their core (which we ferment to make tequila).

In a few weeks the tops of the stalks will burst with sticky sweet flowers. By late summer, the agave will be spent, shriveled from exhaustion, near death. Now that's impressive sex!

Thai Souvenirs

Our home near Kamala beach, Phuket, for a week.
Electric kettle to the right, off camera.

It's been almost three weeks since our return from vacation in Thailand and we have some precious souvenirs in addition to many point-and-shoot, iPad and Kindle snaps.

First and foremost is our new electric teapot. Our room for the week at our Phuket resort was equipped with a small electric kettle that boiled water for tea or instant coffee. That kettle boiled water faster than I could rip open the coffee packets, and it didn't radiate water particles with microwaves. We had to get one upon our return home. Very excellent.

Seafood curry prepared, served, and devoured
at a beachside shack at Kamala.

Then there is Thai food. Our resort served breakfast buffets with food you would order for a fine dinner at a Thai restaurant: some four or six different stir fries and Thai curries, pork, chicken, Chinese broccoli or cabbage; a couple of different fried rices; relishes and Korean kimchee; and salads and fresh fruit to die for, beginning with mangos, papaya, pineapple and watermelon.

Our urban hotel in Bangkok, our first night in Thailand, had a similar breakfast buffet. Then there was the floating restaurant near Bang Sai where no one bothers with English subtitles. My stepmother Darany served us baby bananas grown in her yard, pineapple, ripe passion fruit, and other tropical treats — fresh and dried — that I can't even begin to remember (or, in some cases, identify). Endless delectables.

Bougainvillea hedge, Bang Sai.

Fortunately for Tucson, we have an Asian mega-supermarket so we can stock up on any number of Thai curry sauces, lemon grass, galangal and, of course, coconut milk. We've dusted off my old Thai cookbook and have been dining on attempted reproductions of red curry shrimp, panang curry shrimp, and panang curry beef. We have been feasting on mangos, pineapple and papaya.

Then there is bougainvillea. Darany has a green thumb and a lush garden in Bang Sai, some sixty kilometers north of Bangkok. We stayed there three nights marveling at the tropical flowers and fruit trees blooming all over her yard. She has orchids everywhere and a bougainvillea hedge by her driveway.

Multi-colored bougainvillea blooms, Ayutthaya.

Driving through Bangkok, we saw tropical blooms by the side of the freeways — unwatered, untended, engulfed in a heavy urban environment, but innocently lush.

If that wasn't inspirational enough, we saw grafted bougainvillea shrubs blooming in various colors from the same root. We saw such shrubs planted in a monastery at Ayutthaya, then at our resort in Phuket.

Orchids are tough to grow in the Sonoran Desert, but bougainvillea is popular because it thrives in heat. We have several of the vine variety by the fish pond. Although they die back with the frost, they are hardy and grow back each spring. I wasn't familiar with the bush variety. We now have three bushes, souvenirs of Thailand.

Shari and Darany about to feast for lunch. Menu on the left.

Fortunately, Darany ordered.

Two pairs of woolen socks complete this list of Thai souvenirs. They were a gift from Darany. I can understand why she wouldn't have much use for them in Thailand. It's hardly cold there. (She has yet to use the hot water heater for her morning shower).

Not so for me. Those socks are warm and comfy. Two February weeks in Thailand and we had forgotten that it was still winter back in the Sonoran Desert. Our bodies had become accustomed to the tropical warmth. Upon our return, I was chilled and those woolen socks were a godsend.

Early Spring Blooms

On our little acre of the Sonoran Desert, my first suggestion of spring flowers is the aloe. Like agaves, they send up a tall stalk on which they parade their bright flowers.

Maybe the stalk serves to allow pollinating critters the opportunity to imbibe the nectar without risk of being impaled on the spines that line each fleshy leaf — but unlikely. The only critter harmed by those spines is people.

Chances are, the stalks are a form of advertising.

Aloe flower stalks have been forming for over a month and are now in full bloom all over the garden. That's because over the last couple of years, I've pulled up all the aloes in back of the pond and replanted them all over the place. They are remarkably hardy and establish quickly. Almost as quickly they send out shoots and propagate new plants.

The other early suggestion of spring is our lone but mature yucca in the front yard. Ordinarily two or three dense growths begin forming at their tops, slowly growing slender in height, then exploding into hundreds of nectar-filled flowers. Insects love them.

This winter we received good rainfall. (I don't know whose rain we got, but thanks to whoever is missing their usual winter precipitation.) This year the yucca has fired up seven flower stalks. Count 'em.

I want to plant some more yuccas. I did spread some joshua tree seeds in the yard. Maybe they will sprout.

It should be a great spring for flowers. As I walk Nazar in the wash, I spot some weeds that display gorgeous little flowers. If only I could remember which weed is which, I would keep from digging up the ones with nice flowers that don't turn sticky or explosive as they turn to seed.

On Rocks and Dirt

We recently returned from a two-week trip to Thailand, of which one week was at a resort on Phuket Island.

Travel is a very wonderful pain in the buttocks.  If the destination is well chosen, which Thailand and Phuket certainly are, the wonderful outweighs the pain in large measure. The wonderful of Thailand should be obvious. Regarding the pain, most of it is the grueling travel there and back.

Thailand, at least what we saw in the Bangkok and Phuket areas, means water, vegetation and flowers everywhere. It's a big change from the Sonoran Desert. We have stunning flowers in the desert, but in the tropics of Thailand, the shapes, colors, varieties, and density of flowers are amazing. Plants seem to bloom year-around. Flowers freely burst out even from untended plantings by freeways.

Looking towards Kamala Beach, Phuket Island

It took me a few days of return home to recognize something that had nagged me in Thailand. You can't see the rocks and dirt.

We've had decent rain in Tucson this winter, as evidenced by the weeds that are now sprouting everywhere. I've learned to dislike most of them, and not just because most of the grasses are non-native. Many are the sticky variety; obnoxiously sticky. Then there is the exploding seed pod variety. 

Since our return, I've been spending loose time weeding.  It's hopeless to get them all, but I can't resist pulling them. It's a little like the seven labors of Hercules, except that he got them done. It's more like poor Sisyphus — there's no end to it. There is only the hope that by getting the weeds while small, maybe they won't spread seeds so much.

I was in my fifth day of engaging in my outdoor hobby of pulling weeds. I was thinking of improving and extending a footpath in the desert island area between the driveway and the house. I wondered which agaves needed to be moved, and which flat rocks could serve as stepping stones. That's when it hit me. I love rocks and dirt.

I love the local Catalina rock, a pale, almost whitish pink granite. There are lots of translucent or white quartz rocks that have broken up from veins in the granite. We have a quartz vein on top of the east side of the gully that has helped preserve that hill from being washed down. Some local rocks have tinges of copper, so they have green in them. The caliche has reds. When I walk in the Finger Rock wash, I often take a canvas bag or just stuff my pockets with attractive rocks.

Previous owners had imported water-worn, smoothly round cobbles and strategically placed them in swathes throughout the lot and inside the backyard. I can't stand these foreign rocks. They are not indiginous. They don't belong here.  I have been gathering them by the bucket full and relocating them to obvious artificial and confined areas by the driveway oleander.

Phuket Island, a huge tree completely covered in vines.

Fine gravel imported for the driveway has encroached outside of its intended confines and —to me —the little bastards look hideously out of place. I can spend hours happily picking them out and dumping them in the driveway. When I'm done, the area looks like the desert again.

The Bangkok area is flat, the delta of the Chao Phraya River and covered with city, water, rice paddies, and other vegetation. There is not much in the way of rocks there.

Phuket Island is surprisingly rugged, but its dark granite boulders are mostly completely obscured by dense vegetation. The only clues that they existed are the rugged geography itself, the island's history of tin mining, and the occasional boulder, probably disturbed by construction and artfully arranged and kept clear at resorts.