Best Garden in Tucson!
My garden is beautiful this spring. The mild wet winter and the hard work that I put in this winter and early spring has really paid off. The ornamental garden is a riot of color and all the plants are healthy and growing vigorously. In the vegetable garden the tomatoes and peppers I planted in February are flowering and beginning to set fruit. The strawberries that I planted last spring are producing fruit and we are still harvesting bunching onions. I just removed all of the leaf lettuce as it was beginning to bolt and become bitter. I planted cucumbers to replace it and hope to have a crop before it gets too hot. The hollyhocks I planted last spring are now 6′-8′ tall and covered with flowers. As a gardener I love this time of year and often walk my garden thinking it must be one of the best in Tucson and I’m sure many of you feel the same about your gardens.
Several days ago I went for a run on some trails and old jeep roads in the desert areas just east of Camino Loma Alta near my home in Vail. I discovered that the mild wet winter has also been at work in mother nature’s desert gardens. I ran thru acres and acres of wildflowers. As I came up one hill with the sun rising over the Rincon mountains the hill side in front of me was completely covered with a carpet of yellow flowering bahia, brittle bush, paper flower and desert marigold. Mixed into all this yellow in almost equal abundance were the white flowers of desert zinnias. Throughout all this yellow and white were clumps of hedgehog cactus with large purple flowers and rising above this was the occasional banana yucca with stalks of large white lily like flowers. Scattered here and there were stands of ocotillo with canes covered in green leaves and tipped with clusters of bright red flowers. Above it all stood blue palo verde trees enveloped in yellow flowers. And right in the middle of all this, as if to insure that this became a scene right off the cover of Arizona Highways, there stood a herd of 10 deer.
I’m now fairly certain that I have seen the best garden in Tucson and it’s not at my house.
