Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, The Ides of March bring Goldfinches

On the fifteenth of every month, Carol of May Dreams Gardens is kind enough to host Gardener Blogger’s Bloom Day.

The Desert Mallow, Sphaeralcea ambigua, is blooming in my backyard.  We moved into this rental at the beginning of the year.  The winter rains dumped nearly two inches of precipitation soon after, guaranteeing good weed wildflower germination. 

So I've been pulling a lot of weedy material out of the gravel in both the front and back, but I've been doing so with a careful eye, trying to identify what grows down here.  In the far back corner of the yard, I have a cluster of these mallows.  The one in the corner might even be a second-year plant, all of the others look like newbies.  This is a lovely plant, obviously desert adapted.  It's cousins in the mallow family like to have their feet in the damp, and this one is no exception.  The plants I have seen in the wild have been constrained to the areas of the washes, where the water comes in volume and stays longer than anywhere else in the desert. 

I will be watching my plants to see their summer habits.  Desert Tropicals, an informal on-line encyclopedia of Arizona desert plants, states that "The coral flowers of the desert mallow come in summer to fall." I'm not keeping my hopes up.  The ones in my backyard look like they are putting on an all-or-nothing show.

Meanwhile, at the back feeder, I got a positive id on the Lesser Goldfinch.  He is a green-backed male, and the two of them seem to be local.  Maybe I'll get to see babies in a few months!

Comments

[Bogie]

What a pretty coral color! I have found with my purple mallow, that if I cut off the stalks after the first flowering, I can get a second bloom out of them.

However, how well that will work in the desert may be another story!

[jodi]

What a beaut! It looks a lot like Sidalcea (same family), the false mallow; and since that's a nice clear magenta, I'd love to grow the pair of them together. I suspect this would only be an annual here, though, even if I could find the seeds somewhere.

[Rose]

I just found your blog and enjoyed the beautiful pictures of the mallow. My daughter also recently moved to Phoenix, and I went to see her the end of January, my first trip to the Southwest. While there, I visited the Desert Botanical Gardens and loved it. Good luck with your new garden; I'll be back to visit your site again.

[Heavy Petal]

Oo, pretty! It must be both fun and confounding to have to get used to all sorts of 'new' plants!