[Monday] Weird and Wonderful Flowers of the Desert Southwest

Hello Agave pups, and happy Monday! Hope you all had a great weekend!

For the last few months, I’ve been taking photographs of the strange desert flowers I see around Albuquerque and New Mexico. It seems like everything is blooming – we’ve had some generous rain.

I’ve been living in the desert Southwest for 12 years now, and I’m still amazed by the wacky plants that thrive here. It’s just so dang different from Indiana, where I was raised.

I can still remember the first time I saw an Ocotillo. I was like, “Whaaaaat?” And with those crazy orange blooms?

My but your flower is impressive! I’ve been calling these “Dr. Seuss” plants. They are all over town right now. Which is sad, because these are Agave plants, and they die after they flower. I’m guessing they’re a bitch to remove once they’re dead, too, but I don’t have first-hand experience with that.

I love the Prickly Pears! Such mean, thorny plants with delicate little blooms in all sorts of colors.

I’m partial to the pink ones. Yes, because I’m a girl.

Speaking of mean, thorny cacti, here’s a Cholla cactus. I like to give these wide berth. Pretty blooms though!

I don’t recall seeing Yuccas in Indiana, so of course, I’m fascinated by them. They come in so many different colors. Like yellow. And red:

Plus, there are so many varieties and types of blooms.

That’s some funky shit right there!

I’d never thought much about the desert before moving here. I do remembering thinking it would be mostly brown. Nothing could be further from the truth. Lest you get suckered into believing in the brownness, here’s photographic evidence to the contrary.

There’s purple Russian Sage:

Pink Mexican Primrose:

Cherry Sage:

If that wasn’t red enough for you, here are red blossoms on an Ice plant:

Orange Trumpet vines – now there’s a plant I recognize from Indiana:

So yes, the desert is quite colorful. It’s also filled with billowy, poofy plants, like this Bird of Paradise:

I love anything with plumes.

I think this is a Smoke tree. It’s poofy, I like it!

Apache plume, also very nice. Definitely not a Midwestern plant.

Colorful, poofy, weird and wonderful plants. Some, though, are downright dangerous. Like Jimsonweed, for example:

This photo was taken at sunset – you can see the blossoms are set to open. I think it’s super funky that it blooms at night. Every part of this plant is poisonous – the leaves, the roots, the flowers.

So there are at least some of the crazy plants in bloom around town. There are many, many more that I neglected to add to the list, but I will add them in a future post.

Hope you enjoyed! I’ll be back manana. Until then, happy gardening!