Sherryl Stalinski
(c) 2001 Aurora Now Foundation.
Since relocating from the nautical shores of Lake St. Clair in Michigan to the sharply contrasting low desert of Arizona three years ago, I have found myself mesmerized by the magic and beauty of this ancient and shining land. The desert has traditionally been the home of prophets, sages, wise men and lost souls searching for the salvation of its oases. It is an ecology that accentuates contrast and contradiction and challenges both its visitors and inhabitants. While desert cities have provided warm, comfortable and lush surroundings for those escaping the north's white and gray winters, the desert wilderness is no place for those who seek travel-brochure surrounds. But for those willing to sharpen their senses and risk a few thorns and barbs, the stories and lessons of the desert can easily help one understand why it is the land of sages, prophets and searching souls. Even the most uninspired visitor is struck by the unexpected beauty of a vibrant and delicate cactus blossom, majestic saguaro silhouetted against the surreal orange-purple of our desert sunsets and the forboding ruggedness of our grand desert mountains. When we want to be awed and inspired by nature's beauty and grace, we often seek rolling meadows, lush forests, ocean tides and mist-covered green mountains. But if you ever want to fully appreciate what it means and feels like to live in a world--and in communities--where both wonder and woe, beauty and bitterness dance together, come to the desert. And watch.
As I write this, it is June here in the Sonoran Desert. Even the gentlest breeze can feel like someone switched the furnace on--there will be little one could call "refreshing" until the summer monsoons blow up from Mexico next month. For now, summer in the low desert requires one to remain keenly alert in order to discover redemption from the searing afternoon sun.
June may be the only unbearable month of "bad" weather for the residents of southern Arizona, but even June offers surprises unique to our desert. Cooled by an overhead mister, I watch dust devils roll across the valley as if punctuating the phrase "arid lands" with exclamation. Evenings and early mornings are cool and invigorating, since a temperature swing of 40* from mid afternoon to early dawn is the year-round daily norm. Agaves, yuccas and cacti continue to bloom in startling displays. Lizards, roadrunners and jackrabbits scurry about to find solace under the shade of creosote bushes. The song of cicadas fills the afternoon air, and as if in planned choreography, vultures dance to the music in a graceful midair ballet.
Only a few short months ago, mountain roads were lined with purple lupine, backdropped by carpets of mexican gold poppies and neon pink penstemon rising amidst a sea of yellow brittlebush and desert marigolds. Only a short month ago, the alien-looking ocotillo, with its many single 30 foot thorn-covered stems, were covered in green and crowned with foot-long dayglo red flowers paled only by the brilliant and delicate blooms of our many varieties of cacti. Here in the Sonoran Desert near Tucson, January Showers bring February flowers, and by April, anything resembling a cloud is but a distant memory. By June, drought-decidious plants have gone back to barren dormancy as if resting up for the monsoons to come. But the activity of desert life slows only slightly, and in my xeric garden, magenta and purple sages, red and yellow mexican bird of paradise and arizona yellow bells revel in the triple digit heat and provide a rainbow of contrast to the brown and green desert beyond.
Broom, bursage, creosote, mesquite, paloverde as well as our yuccas and cacti provide year-round greenery even in the coldest January and hottest, driest June, so visitors often tell us our desert always looks surprisingly sub-tropical.
The lessons of the desert can be as diverse as its ecosystem, and as unexpected as a meeting with a creeping tarantula or charging javelina. Take, for instance, the lessons I've learned just in trying to create a welcoming desert landscape up the short drive into the ranchito. With a very limited budget, I thought I'd start early over the winter with native seeds and seedlings. While watching my own carefully tended desert mallow seeds fail to germinate, nature provided with a field of 2-3 foot shrubs covered in apricot/orange blossoms by mid-February all around the ranchito, spilling down from the nearby mountains and parks. A month later, I barely saved a landscape oleander which had inadvertently been planted in thick, rich soil against a sheltered eastern wall-slowly killing it, literally, with kindness. Now June, it is blooming and growing against a hot western wall in unamended desert sand. Don't pamper too much those which will need to learn to thrive in harsh conditions.
I spent much of the winter and spring nurturing young desert native
and adapted plants for the entrance and front around the ranchito. One
particular native flower
species--penstemon--have extremely hard seed coats and out of 200 seeds,
I only managed to get 2 tiny seeds to germinate. I tried cold
stratifying them (keeping them cold to simulate winter), I tried soaking
them in water, I tried nicking them and nothing was working. I finally
soaked the
last 40-50 seeds in peroxide overnight and two seeds-two!--finally germinated.
There I was, alone in the house when I discovered my success. I was
dancing and whooping in sweet victory and joy. Not because
198 of my seeds refused to grow--but because two did. I thought at the
time how some people are a lot like penstemon seeds--hard seed coats.
We keep trying all the tricks we know to break through to them, and
we celebrate on the rare occasions that it works.
Outside my semi-native xeriscape landscape, the desert lessons may require more passive observation, but the wisdom of the dangerous and delightful desert never cease. I love to watch the dance of the desert--the cooperation and competition of its diverse flora and fauna, the beauty and beast, the tough and tender. It reminds me daily of one of nature's -and life's-great truths as articulated so eloquently by permaculture author Ben Haggards who writes, "nature is as much decay and rot, mildew and death as it is snow-capped mountains and television documentaries about koala bears." I like to be reminded daily that inspiration for living can come from more than traditional aesthetics, that the dance of the desert-and the dance of life-is not about seeking comfort and beauty and eliminating pain and ugliness, it is instead about making them all dance together at the same time.