I guess the best thing about being in Arizona? 

I will never need a greenhouse.  In fact, I have a fabulous orange tree in the backyard to act as a nursery/shade tree for the plants I am starting up outdoors. 

I have been harvesting seeds from anything I see that's interesting since I came down here.  Next weekend I am going to mix up a bunch of half native/ half bagged dirt and start out a bunch of trays.  I have no idea what might and might not sprout. 

I am very much 'adventure' gardening this fall. It's all unknown.

Some of the seeds:
Cat claw vine
Palo Verde
Several other varieties of Palo tree... there are a bunch of them out here
Mesquite
Red  'yucca' (actually an agave)
Several other bushes and a few low growing annuals or perennials...

It will be interesting trying to identify the stuff as it comes up!   

Other seeds I am thinking about:

Snapdragons
Nigella papillosa
Vigna Caracalla / syn with Phaseolus caracalla (corkscrew vine/ snail vine)
Calendula
Sunflowers
Hot peppers!
Julia 'grape' tomatoes
A few Ipomoeas - cardinal climber and scarlet creeper
Some Ipomopsis rubra - I really need to find a seed source for this other than Burpee.  Maybe the Thompson and Morgan catalog I requested today will have some...?

I'll think of more, I'm sure.
Desert is a unique climate.  The dry air is punishing to most plant life.   We'll see what we will see...

Comments

[Annie in Austin]

Hi Jenn,

When you talk about a place to grow seedlings in the shade of an orange tree, you sure are not in Michigan any more! I've grown a few of the plants you're thinking about, Snail vine, Juliet tomatoes and the ferny-leaved relative of Cardinal creeper called Cypress vine or Hummingbird vine/Ipomoea quamoclit.

Your red yucca sounds like it's the same one we grow in Austin -Hesperaloe parviflora? They're cool plants, but not fast growing. I picked up a seedling at a Master gardener sale in spring '05 and hope to see a bloom stalk next spring.

When we first moved here there was a field we passed where Standing Cypress/ipomopsis rubra bloomed. The field is still there but I think the deer moved in and eliminated the plants. I've never grown it but saw it again in a wildflower border at one of the gardens from last summer's pond tour. Good luck with getting seedlings.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

[jenn]

Yep, the Hesperaloe parviflora is the one.

They are slow growing, and probably I'll get a lot of die-off, but the seed pods on the plants in the courtyard at work had little babies sprouting right out of them on the plant. SO CUTE!

So I have quite a handful of them to start. They seem rock solid desert adapted, so maybe the little plants that I do get will be what I plant out front as my legacy to this rental house.

From little seeds do great gardens grow!

[mss @ Zanthan Gardens]

I've grown both the palo verde and hesperaloe (red yucca) from seed. I cover them with composted granite sand, water, and eventually something sprouts. Lindheimer senna is supposed to be easy to start from seed. Does it grow in Arizona?

[jenn]

Lindheimer senna:

I think I've seen this one around. Pretty sure I don't have any seeds from one tho. I'll have to keep my eyes open, lots of stuff is seeding now as we end our bake season and enter extended summer.