The American Desert

[David Nicholson]

Cracking set of images Kristl I thoroughly enjoyed them. Thanks for posting.

[Knud]

Thank you Kristl for a very nice set of postings. Like for Luc, they brought back happy memories of a very enjoyable holiday we spent in southern California in 2005. We did not flee your kind of cold, but a very wet winter, and sunny California did not let us down. As you described in your introduction we had kept an eye to the desert flower forecast, and when it seemed quite certain that it would be a good flower year we booked our holiday. In the Anza Borrego Desert the ground was so covered in flowers many places that it was impossible to walk without stepping on a plant, in flower, that you would treasure in your garden. It was an incredible sight. 

I have included a few of pictures from our trip, the first two from Anza Borrego, the last two from the Torry Pines conservation park on the coast just north of San Diego. The first picture shows the desert floor in bloom, the second shows nature's companion planting of chuparosa (Justicia californica, red in front), a barrel (?) cactus in bud (Ferocactus), agave, a brittlebush (Encelia farinosa, yellow), and more. The third picture has a Castilleja and a long dead Torrey pine, and the last an Anna's hummingbird in a Yucca.

Definitely a place I would go back to,
Knud

[christian pfalz]

absolutly fantastic pics, i love it, please more...

cheers
chris

[Kristl Walek]

Knud...wonderful. thank you. more, if you have them....my trip was too late for most of the wildflowers; so it is great to see your pictures.

i think it is also wonderful to have as many portraits of this particular late winter sojourn as possible--so other members contemplating a similar trip might be inspired and get ideas of where to go. My local native plant friend here in Nova Scotia, left yesterday morning for the same (enviable) destination and it was because of that I was inspired to post my memories to begin with.

[Knud]

Thank you Kristl and Chris for kind comments, I have passed them on to the second photographer, Barbara. These digital pictures were taken with an automatic camera that we used mainly for landscapes and such. The "plant portraits" were taken with my SLR using slide film, and they have not been digitised yet. Also, I didn't realise that the digital camera had a manual focus button, and many of the close-ups we attempted ended up being poorly focussed. The pictures I posted yesterday, and those I post today have been adjusted using an image processing program. The high resolution of modern digital cameras, even the one I used in 2005 (4 Mpixel), means you can used them like "sketch books" when you are out, cutting the picture to final size on the PC. I minimize processing to adjusting size and exposure, if necessary, and some of these have been sharpened.

The area we visited (the coast just north of San Diego, and the hills and desert east of there) were nice and accessible places to botanise. The mountains north and north-west of the Anza Borrego desert looked very tempting, but we did not go there. We went to the desert during the week, as accommodation was difficult to get during weekends on short notice; but still we met a lot fewer people out than we expected.  We went mid-March, and we were lucky to be there for one of the best flowerings for decades. If you go, beware of the cacti, even the small ones have big spines. Some places they literally cover the ground, and you have to look where you step, and if you are busy looking for plants that can be difficult. Once we had to extract a spine from deep in a Vibram sole. Also, we were lucky to be blissfully ignorant of the apparantly particularly venomous rattle snakes there are that corner of the US: it made for a much freer botanising. And then there are the cougars, but at least the are signs about those many places. We didn't see any snakes or cougars, but we did see a cute little bobcat, - and a beep-beep road runner.

Knud

Picture 1: Desert sunflowers (Geraea canescens, yellow) among dune evening primroses (Oenothera deltoides, white) and sand verbena (Abronia villosa, lilac(?))
Picture 2: Several brittlebush (Encelia farinosa, yellow) on hill, with a few Opuntias, probably Teddy Bear Cholla (bigelowii) and Staghorn Cholla (versicolor). White buttons are Fremont Pincushions.
Picture 3: a poor picture of a Chia (Salvia columbariae). We have had this in the garden as an annual.
Picture 4: Fremont Pincushions (Chaenactis fremontii, white) and an Opuntia (?) skeleton. Small purple buttons on ground are probably Chia's.
Picture 5: Whispering Bells (Emmenanthe penduliflora, cream white, on left) and somewhat unfocussed Desert Canterbury Bells (Phacelia campanularia, blue). We have had this phacelia in the garden, a beautiful annual.
Picture 6: Layne Milkvetch (Astragalus layneae), I think.
Picture 7: Ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens, straggly bush in middle), in its garden. I blooms a beautiful red.
Picture 8: Desert agave (Agave deserti) in bud. We picked agave seeds, and now have a couple of potted plants in our window.
Picture 9: Apricot mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua, orange) and one of the photographers, Barbara.  We had this in the garden one year.
Picture 10: Desert Agave in bloom, and the other photographer, Knud

[Knud]

The last five pictures of last post.
Knud

[Kristl Walek]

you have just reminded me, Knud how often I heard "you should have been here last year" (1995)...the year you and Barbara went...which, as you say, was one of the best blooming years on record. your intuition about timing served you well.

the following year, was not such a good year, and i knew it in advance. but it did little to detract from the joy of the trip for me.

[Miriam]

Wonderful pictures and plants!

[Knud]

You are right, Kristl, it would take a lot more than absence of peak blooming to detract from the joy and fascination of visiting places like these. I was in San Diego twice with work mid to late 90's, and I visited the Anza Borrego Desert both times. It was in February, before blooming had started proper, and they were below average flowering years, but it was breath-taking. I went to see a desert for the first time, and there were all these plants everywhere, some even blooming, I was really surprised. Not very different from the mountains really, in richness, variety, and intensity, and all in a place one wouldn't perhaps expect it. It still surprises me when I come across a big patch of Dryas Octopetala or Pulsatilla vernalis up in the hills. If you are lucky you get to pick a bouquet or three.

Knud

[Kristl Walek]

knud....your pulsatilla vases literally melted my heart. how lovely!!!!
not even a hint of spring here yet.

[Knud]

No spring to talk of yet here either, -the pulsatillas were from last year. I was not the lucky one, but I got to enjoy them.
Knud

[cohan]

Wonderful images! Thanks Kristl and Knud!