Ice Break will soon be here in the lower elevations, and that means that summer is not too far behind. For those of you new to our area, “Ice Break on the XYZ River” is the first day the temperature hits 100 degrees in your town. This event is celebrated in virtually every Southwestern town. Because back when the towns were first settled, the towns had flowing rivers, and humans love a good reason to celebrate.

Still Spring in the Southwest

Remember folks, this is still technically spring! Southwest desert spring. A season like no other on earth. Spring starts sometime in February and runs full on until Ice Break, and then about two or three more weeks while everything shifts gears into summer mode.

Life is springing out everywhere in full force. Desert tortoises emerge from winter burrows and shake the dirt off. Mother cactus wrens take their fledglings around, showing them the secret places to hunt for bugs. Huge buds appear on cacti and start to swell into glorious blooms. Pima lilies poke their heads above ground and send forth a delicate cluster of nodding white blooms, spreading their heavenly scent with the mildest breeze.

Early Spring Versus Late Spring

While “super blooms” are famous, many Southwestern plants bloom in late spring. By blooming later in spring, on the cusp of summer and before the summer rains, their seeds can take advantage of the water that is to come. This strategy doesn’t always work, since we often have a dry year, or even a few dry years in a row.  In the long term though, it works, and that is why so many Sonoran and Chihuahuan Desert plants do it. The Mojave Desert of eastern California and western Arizona gets mostly winter rains.

Cactus Flowers

Many cacti will bloom in late spring, and into May. The Queen of the Night, famously blooms in late May or even June, just in time for summer monsoons to help the seeds grow.

If you walk the desert after the showy wildflowers are done, you can see the crown of golden yellow or even orange flowers on the barrel cactus, the startling magenta of staghorn cholla flowers, or you may notice the shy blooms of the mammalaria cactus peeking out from under the bushes. Since there are only so many desert pollinators to go around, cacti bloom later than the showy annual wildflowers, and that way they can have the bees undivided attention. Cactus Flowers.

While cactus flowers are edible, I prefer to wait for cactus fruit.  One of my favorite is prickly pear. Those showy flowers will be followed by fruit. Fruit ripens, and out I shall come with my tongs to harvest the fruit for juice, jelly, and wine! Harvesting prickly pear (and avoiding the ouch) is on Savor the Southwest.

Water for Better Blooms

To insure a good crop of blooms on all your desert plants, you could give them a good soak with the hose. Cacti especially will put out some extra flowers if they think there is moisture available. Do not over do it on the cacti. Too much water can cause rot problems with then and other succulents.

Saguaros will bloom better for some water right around Ice Break. Remember that their water-absorbing roots are as far away from the base of the plant as the plant is tall. If your saguaro is 10 feet tall, water it 10 feet away from the trunk.

Water Against Allergies

“You want me to water against allergies? I don’t want more flowers!”

Hear me out, because this is a bit complicated.

Allergenic pollen is wind-blown pollen. Plants like ragweed with tiny green flowers and pine trees with brown cones. So no, don’t water these plants with wind-blown pollen. 

Plants with showy flowers? Do water them. Showy flowers need animals to pollinate them, but here in the desert, many of these plants have back up options. Mesquite is one such. Primarily insect pollinated, it will also shed pollen on a windy day.

Pollen is Cheap

If you want to get your genes out into the world, then pollen is cheap. Making a female flowers to receive pollen, and then make seeds – that is expensive. In a dry year plants make more pollen than they do female flowers just to save the expense of having children – but still get some of their genes out into the world.  By watering your desert plants, you signal to the plant that it’s a good year! It will go ahead and make expensive mama flowers that are going to make lots of baby seeds.

So go ahead, and water your desert plants. It is scientifically proven that when mesquites have extra water, they spend more energy producing female flowers, thus fruits and seeds. This means they make fewer male and pollen bearing flowers. This is their what ecologists call their “best adaptive strategy.”

Science Nerd and Plant Genes

Why is being a female flower better than being a male flower?  Many plants can “choose” to make either male or female flowers. Male flowers carry just the genes for the plant but not the mitochondria DNA or chloroplast DNA. The advantage to being a female is getting to make seeds.   A seed bears the chloroplast and mitochondrial DNA, and thus the female flower gets more of her genes out there in the world than a male flower does.

A number of plants follow this strategy, like pines, cedars, cypress trees, and even corn. You may end up with a few more mesquite pods or cypress cones to rake up, but I will take raking over allergy misery any day of the year.

Enjoy Spring

Early spring is lovely, with it’s cool temperatures, but late Spring can be lovely too. Yes, the Ice Break has happened, and it is heating up mid-day, but the mornings are still cool(ish) – and the plants are celebrating with flowers.

Highly recommend this book!  I bought one after she gave a talk on this topic at our library.  My spouse has appropriated it and takes it to the nursery when deciding which new plants to add to our yard.

Thanks for reading!

Jacqueline

More About Attracting Butterflies

The Butterfly Gardening Guide offers tips for attracting butterflies to your yard, plus a guide to close to 100 plants to attract them.

This note from a purchaser:  “Highly recommend this book!  I bought one after she gave a talk on this topic at our library.  My spouse has appropriated it and takes it to the nursery when deciding which new plants to add to our yard.”

Profits from the sale of this book go to the Horticulture Therapy non-profit Tierra del Sol Institute.  

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