Guest Post: Gardening in the Desert Part II: 5 Ways to Kill Your Favorite Plants

Guest post by Kate Fowler Kelley, educator, novelist, and humor writer

As I explained in yesterday's post, my thumb is more olive drab than vibrant green, but years of trying to keep plants alive in the hot/cold sandy/caliche-ridden desert have produced the following insights:

1. Let go of guilt. Consider my petunias. When I bought my last Tucson house, the raised brick flower bed in the front overflowed with colorful petunias. I expected to enjoy these lovely flowers in perpetuity, but a couple of years later when I put in petunias they promptly wilted. A bad batch, I thought, and tried again. Same result. A consultation with a nursery professional was  as  enlightening as an Abbott and Costello routine:

“When I plant petunias, they just wilt.”

“You got petunia wilt.”

“Um, right, my petunias wilt as soon as I plant them.”

“Yeah, petunia wilt.”

“Ye-es, petunia wilt. Put petunia in dirt, petunia wilt. What I do?”

The expert gave me a pitying look, then enunciated slowly and carefully. “Sounds like you’ve got a soil condition called ‘petunia wilt.’ You plant petunias, they’re gonna wilt.”

“Oh. What do I do?”

“Stop planting petunias.”

2. Beware of free plants. In case you missed all the movies in which prolific plants bring about the destruction of humanity, be warned. The threat is real. If a so-called friend offers you a mint plant, run! Put that thing in the ground, and soon little tendrils will be creeping under your door to strangle you while you sleep. And don’t think free plants are safe just because they’re offered at the church rummage sale. If I had known an alluring succulent was called Mother of Millions, I might have been warned off. Instead I’m engaged in an epic battle to save us all from Mother’s limitless offspring. (You’re welcome.)

3. Plant at night, preferably between 1:00 and 3:00 am, so the plastic handles on your gardening tools don’t melt into your skin. Tell curious police officers that night planting reduces chloroplastic shock, or that flowers planted under a gibbous moon are more fragrant. Note: Always say ’gibbous.’ People aren’t sure what it means. Also, immediately drop the trowel when ordered. Unless it’s melted to your hand.

4. Accept your limitations. Some plants will never thrive for you, no matter how tenderly you care for them. Three decades after I first encountered them, I gave vincas another try. Hope springs eternal, after all, hand-in-hand with its little friend, delusion. Predictably, our dysfunctional relationship hadn’t changed. The insatiable little water-thirsty things drooped even during a monsoon downpour.

5. Move. I can't say that my gardening disasters led to my decision to move to the Pacific Northwest, but I admit that it's easier to garden when you don't risk third-degree burns just from crossing the yard. Now if only I could get accustomed to my frequent encounters with banana slugs....

Happy trowels.

Technorati Tags: humor,gardening humor

Guest Post: Gardening in the Desert Part I

This delightful piece is by educator, novelist, and humor writer Kate Fowler Kelley, who inexplicably moved from hot, sunny Tucson to cool and rainy Seattle three years ago.

I’m not sure why my 1980 move to Tucson prompted a sudden interest in gardening. Perhaps it was because my house, the only rental on Juarez Street, looked forlorn with its barren flower beds and single chinaberry tree in a yellow lawn. I envied my green-thumbed neighbors their attractive yards and sought advice on plants for beginners. “Marigolds,” said one. “Vincas,” said another. I planted both. The combination of orange and fuchsia was startling but it matched the shag carpet.

                

I soon came to loathe vincas. My neighbor recommended them because “they let you know when they want water”. What she failed to mention was that they want water all the time. Those flowers demanded water like a five-year-old at bedtime. “We wanna drink of water. We’re really thirsty. Pleeeeeze can we have a drink? We won’t ask again, we promise.”

                             

But soon the leaves would shrivel into pathetic little curls and I’d grab the hose, muttering “All right, but this is the last time today, I mean it.”

My next house was on a freshly-graded lot in northwest Tucson. It needed trees, but under a thin layer of grit lurked caliche, a substance impervious to shovels, digging bars, and pickaxes. If the Colorado River flowed through caliche, the Grand Canyon would be seven inches deep.

I moved on to a 1936 house, where a desolate patch of dirt by the side door offered a blank canvas for my horticultural fantasies. It offered a blank canvas over and over again, as everything planted there died. 

I amended and mulched until it should have been fertile as that fabled crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, but it remained a plant graveyard. I finally decided it was atop an ancient cursed compost heap and left it alone.

When I bought my final Tucson home the back yard contained one tree. The front yard had two, but one was dead and my moving truck ran over the other. I banded its split trunk together with panty-hose and it survived to become a favorite nesting site for mockingbirds and cactus wrens.

Tomorrow: Gardening in the Desert Part II: Tips and Tricks

Technorati Tags: gardening in the desert,gardening humor

Reptile Ramble

One of my favorite docent activities is assisting at Reptile Ramble, the “snake show” that we offer at Tohono Chul Park on Fridays in warm weather. Our two herpetologists and a few lucky docents demonstrate and talk about snakes, lizards, turtles, amphibians (such as frogs) and other local herps. (Herpetology, the study of these creatures, comes from the Greek for “things that creep.”)

Tom “Snakeboy” McDonald and coachwhip snake

Arizona is herp heaven. We have around 50 snake species, and are the rattlesnake capital of the US, with 13 species. We also have around 50 lizards, 25 frogs and toads, and one salamander. I have always been interested in snakes, because they have such an unusual lifestyle and anatomy. Many of the organs we have two of, they have only one of (or only one that functions), to save space. Other anatomical adaptations allow most snakes to swallow prey bigger than their heads.

Nightsnake eating zebra-tailed lizardKL and her favorite kingsnake

The animals we show at the Ramble generally include: gopher snake (called bull snake in some parts of the country); coach whip; mountain kingsnake; common kingsnake (my favorite); long-nosed snake; and rattlesnake, safely displayed behind a small barrier. We also usually show a box turtle, a Sonoran mud turtle, and a Gila monster, the largest (and only venomous) lizard in the United States. Sometimes we also have a Sonoran Toad, an amphibian that lies dormant most of the year, then emerges to mate when the monsoon begins.

 Gila monster Sonoran Toad

We show our audience how to tell the difference between venomous and nonvenomous snakes, and explain why it's a very good thing to have a king snake or gopher snake in your back yard (they eat pack rats and other undesirable creatures). We also demonstrate why you should not fear rattlesnakes, as long as you respect them and use common sense.

  Two western diamondbacks in our special enclosure

A lot of people are afraid of snakes, but after attending a session with us, many lose their fear and begin to regard snakes with respect and fascination; even awe. I love watching an adult's face turn from revulsion to smiles the first time he or she actually touches a snake.

Children love the show, and usually leave with a fascination for reptiles. I like to think that through reptile ramble we have saved the lives of hundreds—maybe thousands--of snakes over the years. Come visit us sometime!

Technorati Tags: Reptile Ramble,Tohono Chul Park,reptiles of Arizona

Late June HOT Rove

Longtime readers of this journal know that I frequently write about roving, the docent activity in which I just roam around Tohono Chul Park, interact with visitors, and see what's what. Every rove is different, and there is always something beautiful and/or interesting to see.

Here are some sights I encountered on yesterday's rove, on a morning when it was already nearly ninety degrees by 8 AM and expected to go to the mid 90's or higher by 10, when my shift ended, and 103 or so by afternoon. It was also the 25^th straight day of temperatures 100 degrees or higher.

This gorgeous flower is Cereus Grandicostatus, a probable native of South America.

These depressions in the sand are antlion pits, created by the larval form of the antlion, an insect that preys on ants and other very small insects. The sand in the pit is placed at such an angle that a small creature will plummet through the hole at the bottom, where the voracious larva awaits. For more info on this fascinating duet of death, click here.

Two tarantula hawks seemed to be mating on this desert milkweed blossom. Tarantula hawks, which are specialized wasps, prey on tarantulas and other large spiders, and are very common as the monsoon approaches (which is when tarantulas leave their burrows to seek mates).

Pink Rain Lily, from Southern Mexico

Sonoran Spider Lilies. Note the orange anthers on these flowers. (I do not know what color the quethtions are.)

No Rove would be complete for me without a new bird’s nest. This is another Bell’s Vireo nest. Myy fellow docents and I watched as both parents fed their chicks.The nest appeared to have notepaper attached as part of the design.

Technorati Tags: Sonoran Desert in summer,Bell's vireo nest,antlion pits,Sonoran Spider Lily,Pink Rain Lily

Haiku on a Cactus Wren

As part of the 2013 WordCount Blogathon, all participants are to write a haiku, a traditional Japanese poem consisting of exactly 17 syllables and referencing nature, for Day 24. Here is my Sonoran desert-oriented attempt.

 

Cactus wren feasts on

Organpipe fruit;  for now his

Raspy voice is stilled.

 

Technorati Tags: Cactus wren,American haiku

Name That Bird! Sunday Nature Quiz #2

The Sunday Nature Quiz.  What are the names of these desert birds? (And I mean species names—not  Harry, Gwendolyn, and Marissa).

Bird A:

.

Bird B:

Bird C:

Bird D:

Bird E:

Bird F:

Answers:

A. Lesser goldfinch

B. Gambel’s Quail

C. Costa’s Hummingbird

D. White-winged dove

E. Curve-billed thrasher

F. Verdin

Scoring:

0-2  You’ve never been to the Sonoran desert, right?

3-4  Not bad—for a snowbird.

5-6  Either you’re a native—or you wish you were.

Technorati Tags: Southwestern birds

Klutzy Dovelet

Note: I intended to finish my series on beginning birding with a roundup of books, binoculars and apps.(The first four posts are: “How I Taught Myself About Desert Birds”;  “Birdwatcher—Or Birder?”;  “Your First Bird Walk”. and Improving Your Birding Skills.) I spent about 3 /12 hours gathering information, choosing links and illustrations, and writing. I was nearly finished when I hit the wrong button and the entire post disappeared.

I will try to recreate most of the information in a later post or posts. But for today, I will talk about frustration other than mine: that of a hapless white-winged dovelet, who recently fledged in my carport but does not yet seem to have the knack of how to fly.

Day before yesterday, I startled the bird, which had been standing at the edge of its flimsy nest, watching its mother and sibling in another part of the carport. The bird flew off its perch—straight up, hitting its head on the carport roof. A little dazed, it flew to the other end of the carport, and again straight up, again hitting its head. I decided to leave so the poor little thing could calm down.

Well, they’re kind of ugly, I admit. But also kind of cute.

This morning, the fledgling was back at its post at the edge of the nest when I opened the car door to head for Tohono Chul Park. This time the bird flew out from the nest, heading across the carport rather than straight up. “Aha!” I thought. “It has learned that flying is possible in more than one direction.”

I watched as it flew to the other end of the carport, where there is a trellis with very large spaces between the crossbars—spaces easily big enough for a full-grow bird, let along a tiny fledgling, to pass through. The young bird headed straight for the trellis and smacked head-on into one of the crossbars, then fell behind some cabinets. When I came back later, there was no sign of the poor little thing.

PS: I’m pretty sure this is the same fledgling, now perched on some lumber in the carport. Presumably his mom is feeding him, and who knows? Maybe he will make it.

 

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Improving Your Birding Skills

Note: this is the fourth post in a series on beginning birding. The first three are: “How I Taught Myself About Desert Birds”;  “Birdwatcher—Or Birder?”; and “Your First Bird Walk”. 

Once you know the basics, your interest in birds can take you as far as you want to go. In my own case, I progressed from total novice to someone knowledgeable enough to lead bird walks on my own.

My roving buddy at Tohono Chul Park and I started off at about the same level of knowledge, but she began birding several times a week, both on her own and with friends who are expert, and she is now what I would consider an expert birder. (She is modest and would deny this.) She can tell from a bird’s behavior if it is, say, a vireo, though she might not know which one. I feel fortunate that I even know what a vireo is. We sometimes lead bird walks together, and I almost always defer to her superior knowledge.

Bell’s vireo (the only vireo I can identify) feeding its young.

To become as good as my birding buddy, or just to expand your horizons, do all or any of the following.

Take classes. In towns where there is a branch, the Audubon Society offers birding classes for all levels. Check your local Y as well, or a hiking group.

Go birding with other people. If you have friends who know more than you do, you will benefit from their knowledge. If you know more than your friends, YOU will benefit from sharing your knowledge. Be sure to take a bird book or an app, so you can look up the birds you see. Trying to identify an unknown bird with other people is—believe it or not—one of the most fun parts of social birding.

You never know what you will see on a bird walk. My friends and I encountered this red-eared slider while birding at Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson.

Find or form a bird group. Check community bulletin boards, or classified ads. If you can’t find a group, consider starting one yourself. You don’t need to know a lot; just have the desire and interest to learn more about birds.

What about a life list? You may have heard of “life llists,” the number of species of birds that birders have seen in their lifetime of birding. I have never been interested in keeping such close track of the birds I encounter; such detail seems to me too much like collecting stamps. But many people enjoy collecting stamps, and for many birders keeping a continuing list is part of the fun. 

This is one of several birding diaries you can buy online. Though a simple spiral notebook would work too.

I do make a list of the birds I see on individual outings, whether on my roves at Tohono Chul Park or on bird walks with other people, just for the fun of it. I count the number of species, then throw the list away.

Links:

National Audubon Society Tons of information on all aspects of birding, as well as links to local groups.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology An educational site offering plenty of information, including a huge library of bird songs.

Birdzilla Describing itself as the Number One Birding Site on the Internet, this interactive site offers a wealth of information and activities.

Next: books, binocs, and apps.

Technorati Tags: birding,beginning birding,birdwatching how-tos

Your First Bird Walk

Note: this is the third post in a series on beginning birding

You don't ever have to go on an organized bird walk. But if you decide to, you'll find that many organizations all over the country, such as your Parks Department, the Audubon Society or other conservation group, or even a local group of enthusiasts, offer free or low-cost bird walks for bird lovers of all ages. The first bird walks I ever went on were sponsored by a mom-and-pop birding supply store, The Wild Bird Store, here in Tucson.

The Wild Bird store in Tucson, showing some of their many products, most of which are for sale by mail order.

The main thing I remember about my first bird walks is that I was very nervous, because I was such a novice. I was afraid that the leaders or other participants would laugh at me. But instead, they all helped me to learn how to identify birds that I didn't know, and explained how to look for “field marks,” the individual signs that aid in identifying bird species. Field marks include such obvious items as size and color of the beak, overall size, length of tail compared to body, and more detailed markings, such as eye rings, color patches, and stripes, The amount of information really good birders know can be daunting, but birding is not (or should not be) competitive, and you can proceed at your own pace.

Illustration of bird’s field marks from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

My first “official” bird walk with the local Audubon Society was even scarier than the first ones with the Wild Bird bunch. These, I thought, were real pro birders, and they would no doubt sneer at my obvious lack of knowledge. This trip was out of town to a local canyon famed for its wide variety of hummingbird species. It was wonderful to see those beautiful birds. Equally wonderful: there was no sneering. In fact, I was surprised to find that I knew more about some hummingbirds than many of the more experienced birders, because of all the time I had spent studying hummers in my yard.

Anna’s hummingbird in flight

Here are two Do's and one DON'T for your first bird walks:

1. DON'T be afraid. Birders of all levels of expertise are mostly very nice, generous people (some fanatics are not—but that is true in any endeavor). After all, everyone has to start somewhere.

2. DO ask questions. Most birders are happy to share their expertise. And you'll be surprised at how many may not have an answer to your question. Even the best birders are occasionally stumped. When I lead bird walks at Tohono Chul Park, I never assume that beginners know anything. Some bird walk leaders may gloss over such very common birds as house sparrows, (the image below is from Wikipedia), to avoid boring more experienced bird watchers,  but I always make sure that my newbies know all the birds we encounter. Learning a common bird is every bit as much an accomplishment as learning a rarity, if you did not know it before.

3. DO learn at least one new bird on each bird walk, if you can. As you gain more experience, you can try to learn more on each outing, but learning even one or two is doable and a real win.

Next: Improving Your Birding Skills 

Technorati Tags: birding,birdwatching how-tos,beginning birding

Bird Watcher—or Birder?

During my first few years of observing birds, I thought of myself as a birdwatcher. “Birder” seemed to me somehow too exalted for what I did. After a while, though, I realized that the distinction was much like that between “jogger” and “runner.” From the age of 30, I was an avid jogger. I jogged four or five times a week, I ran an occasional race (for fun only), and even wrote books and articles on the topic. Still, I always hesitated to think of myself as a “real” runner. Somehow it seemed that title should belong only to people who ran marathons, or were so fast they could qualify for the Olympic Trials.

                    

Then, one day a marathoner friend said, “You don't think you're a real runner. But don't you run?”

“Well, yes,” I said. “But only very slowly.”

“Doesn't matter,” he said. “If you run on a regular basis, you are a runner.” Yes! I thought. I am! And I am also a jogger.

I believe the same thing is true about birdwatching and birding. Most people think of birders as fanatics with expensive binoculars who can identify a distant bird at a glance . Many birders in fact do fit that description. But they share an important activity with me and millions of other people: watching birds.

                       

It doesn't really matter what you call yourself. If you enjoy watching birds, you will probably enjoy it even more if you develop your birdwatching skills. Here’s how to get started.

1. Start close to home. If you have a yard or live near a park, start spending regular time observing the birds you see. You can even start your observations by simply looking out the window. Start to get an idea of the basics of the most common birds. What color, shape, and size are they? Do they walk, or do they hop? Do they perch on tree branches, or cling to the tree trunk? What are their beaks like—long, short, curved? What color? Do you see one doing something unusual, such as searching for and flying off with pieces of twigs, or feathers? The number of details can seem overwhelming, but if you look at the same birds often enough, the details will soon make sense and attach themselves to individual birds in your mind.   

2. Get a bird book. There are hundreds of books that can help you learn more about birds. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I bought several books on hummingbirds more or less at random, and found the pictures inside helped me gradually learn identifications. I will list some specific books in a later post, but any guide to the birds of your area should help you get started.

3. Get a pair of binoculars. These don't have to be expensive. I started with a pair of opera glasses that I had used at the opera in New York. They were all I needed for my first couple of years of (mostly backyard) birding. In a future post I'll tell you what to look for when you're ready to graduate to a better pair of binocs.

4. Have fun!

Next: Your First Bird Walk

Technorati Tags: Bird watching,birding,beginning birding

How I Taught Myself About Desert Birds

This is the first in a series of posts on bird watching.

When I moved to Tucson in 1989, I literally knew almost nothing about birds. I had spent most of my adult life in New York City, where the birds I saw were mostly pigeons and sparrows. (I have since learned that Central Park is an excellent spot for birding, but I was not tuned in to that when I lived there.)

When I moved into my small townhouse with real trees and a view of the mountains, I was thrilled to see something outside other than trucks or vagrants urinating in the alley. As I sat glued to the window, one of the first things that caught my attention was a black-and-white striped bird on the trunk of my young tangelo tree.

  White-winged dove and Gila woodpecker on saguaro blossoms.

I soon learned that the “black and white striped” bird was a Gila woodpecker, one of the most common desert birds. I put up a couple of hummingbird feeders, and soon was obsessed with watching these tiny jewels. In a previous post I described how I gradually learned to tell hummingbird species apart as I added more feeders and more and more hums came to sip from them.

To study the hummers, I sat on my back patio for an hour or two every day with a pair of opera glasses and several books I’d found on hummingbirds. I eventually bought a better pair of binocs and branched out to observing other birds. Because my office window looked directly out on the yard, I was able to see a lot of birds that I didn’t know, but was able to identify with the help of photographs and bird books.

This picture of a kestrel, eating a dove it had killed, was shot through my office window. It took me a while with some bird books to figure out what it was.

To attract more birds, I put up more types of feeders—seed feeders and a suet feeder. I put a tiny pond in my yard. More birds came, and I began to learn about mockingbirds, curve-billed thrashers, and Gamble’s quail. I bought more bird books, and read as much as I could. After a year or so, I knew a lot—about a small number of birds. It was time to branch out.

Next: Bird Watcher or Birder?

Technorati Tags: bird watching,gila woodpecker,beginning birding,birds of Tucson

 

Indoor Cats in an Outdoor World

I have had cats my whole life. When I was a child, my heart was frequently broken when they were run over or simply disappeared. When I moved to New York as a young woman I immediately got two cats and kept them indoors for their entire lives, which in the case of one cat was 20 years. Here in Tucson, I likewise keep our four eight-year-old cats inside. Anyone living in the foothills or elsewhere out in the desert risks losing their outdoor pets not only to cars and disease, but to coyotes or bobcats.

                                                             In order, Gwinny, Sammy, Google, and Tasha

For those of us who love all of nature, there is an even better reason to keep your cats inside. Domestic cats, both those with homes and feral, are literally death on wildlife. Smithsonian scientists estimate that they “kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat.”

It is not that difficult to keep cats indoors. If you start when they are kittens, life inside will be natural to them. We provide two litter boxes, numerous scratching posts, and two cat trees for our “children.” The cats also have plenty of toys, which they play with every day, and we brush them often.

All four cats love to look outside through the glass doors and windows. They often sit with me in my office when I gaze out at my bird garden, enjoying the sights at least as much as I do. They can often be found stalking lizards and birds that are safely outside the house.

Are we too solicitous of our cats? Perhaps. But just as we are devoted to the safety of the beautiful wild creatures that surround us, nothing is too good for Tasha, Sammy, Gwinny and Google. Proof:  When we converted a sliding glass door to a wall with a window, we also installed a small “cat window” at the bottom of the wall. The cats love it.

The cat window and what's on the other side

Finally, Day 17 of the Blogathon is supposed to include a video. Below is a performance by our youngest indoor cat, Google, rolling over on command.