The land surrounding Scottsdale may be called desert but every spring it blooms like a rose garden.
For an old flower chaser like me, there’s no more glorious sight. While much of the rest of the country shovels snow, a fiesta of color blankets the mountains and valleys of Scottsdale. This is Mardi Gras for petal peepers. What many people don’t realize is that almost everything in the desert blooms in spring, as even a short hike at Scottsdale’s McDowell Sonoran Preserve can show.
Wildflowers are just one component to the gaudy springtime display. Following moisture-laden winters, the desert is often drenched in a sea of Mexican gold poppies. Yet even when conditions aren’t wet enough to conjure up scores of poppies, there are still plenty of blooms to be savored. Perennials like brittlebush, globemallow and desert marigold add bouquets of flowers to this hardscrabble landscape starting in February and often peaking in March.
Cactus
Cactus may not seem especially complex most of the year with their snarling spines and waxy menace. But within them beats something wild and beautiful and almost too delicate to believe. They unleash their wild side in springtime, unfurling vibrant flowers, with April and May being the prime months. The neon pink of the beavertails, the gaudy purple of the hedgehogs, the bright yellow, orange and peach of the prickly pears, and finally the creamy ivory of the saguaro blooms. Every plant contributes, splashing unexpected hues in unexpected places. They are mad for life, drunk with soft heat and poetry. They kiss the breeze with the softest lips imaginable.
Palo Verde Tree
Arizona’s official state tree photosynthesizes through its bark as well as its leaves, giving the palo verde its distinctive green trunk and branches. They can grow to heights of 20 to 40 feet creating an airy canopy. In March and April, palo verde trees are covered in clusters of bright yellow flowers, like lemony clouds floating just above the desert floor. The flowers are edible in case you get the urge to brighten up your next salad.
Despite what you might hear from allergy sufferers, blooms of the palo verde cause few symptoms. The plant produces a sticky, heavy pollen requiring insect and animal pollinators. Wind-pollinated plants are the dastardly culprits causing runny noses and itchy eyes.
Ironwood Tree
Saguaros may be the rock stars of the Sonoran Desert but ironwood trees are the workhorses. They’re the glue holding the community together. Ironwoods raise generations of plants within the protective micro-environment they create. They increase plant diversity, feed local wildlife, and replenish the soil. And they do it for centuries. Estimates show some trees to be 800 years old.
Ironwoods are a habitat-modifying keystone species. As nurse plants, they provide shade and shelter beneath a dense canopy that protects young plants from harsh sun in the summer and frost in the winter. A member of the legume family, ironwood trees, fix nitrogen in the soil making it easier for nearby plants to absorb nutrients. The ironwood offers forage and shelter, and its seeds are a peanut-like delicacy.
They may not be as majestic as saguaros, but they are desert royalty, nonetheless. Ironwoods only bloom three to four times a decade, which makes those seasons extra special. Look for them in April and May, gracing hillsides wearing a cascade of lilac flowers with a delicate scent. What a gift on a spring morning.
Saguaro
Arizona’s official state flower is the creamy blossom of the saguaro cactus, the last of the cacti to bloom. Starting in April and continuing into June, the towering saguaros wear a halo of buds that seem to fly open all at once, a cooling blast of white. What pollinator can resist the urge to dive into a snowbank in the sweltering desert?
The flowers usually open at dusk in an effort to attract their prime pollinator, lesser long-nosed bats flying up from Mexico along the “nectar trail.” Blooms stay open the following morning for birds, bees and fortunate hikers but wilt by afternoon. So much passion crammed into those 18 hours. It’s a beautiful seduction, a delicate cycle between plant and animal. In the end, it’s a love story. It’s a small miracle of harmony and balance. It’s about hope and renewal—a quest to just keep on keeping on.
A good lesson for us all. No matter how harsh the conditions, love wins out in the end. Even in the desert.
