Still self-isolating in Tombstone Territories RV Park. When we decided to stay in southern Arizona during the corona-virus we thought that we may be here long enough to see some cacti blooming. Unfortunately here near Tombstone, there are not very many cacti, some ocotillo (if you go the long way to town) and a few others mainly in landscaping. There is a cholla on one of the campground walking trails and I started to notice buds, but no blooms yet.
It has been so hot here and we have been here two months this Sunday, so we have decided to move north on Sunday. Still wanting to see some cacti blooms, we decided to drive the hour and a half to Saguaro NP’s east section. Having been there once before we knew that there is quite a variety of cacti and were sure we would experience some blooming. I read that the saguaro don’t bloom until mid-June to July so were not expecting to see blooms, but maybe buds???
Well much to our surprise the saguaro were beginning to bloom!!! We were so excited!!! From a distance it looks like someone put pots of white mums on each of the their arms.
But looking up close it is a bunch of smaller pods that each produce a beautiful flower and then fall off. It was pretty interesting that it appears that only larger saguaro have blooms. The juvenile smaller plants didn’t seem to be blooming. This was disappointing because I wanted to touch one of the flowers, but was unable to get that close.
Of course, the other cacti were blooming as well. There are many varieties of cholla and most were blooming. We did notice that the “teddy bear” cholla were not blooming?? Not sure why and do not have a picture to share (since there were no flowers on them) but they are the ones that look fuzzy full of thorns. But here are some of the other varieties both close up and the full plant.
The prickly pears were blooming as well. I think we were a little late for them, but got a partial show none-the-less.
There are also many ocotillos in the park. I can remember their name because they remind me of an upside-down octopus. These actually can bloom any time of the year. All they need is a little rain. Most of the time they are bare stalks (with thorns of course) but after sufficient rain they leaf out with green leaves and red tip flowers. This first one is in the landscaping in our campground so it is all leafed out, but the others are in the NP.
Our drive to Tucson was mostly dominated with yellow flowering trees and bushes. We use the term tree loosely; they are not really what we consider trees (especially not like the red woods we say last year) most are 30 ft tall or less. But there were a lot. The dominate color was yellow as you can see from this picture looking over the surrounding area. The tree on our site is getting ready to bloom yellow as well. Not sure if it will be this full of blooms, but given the number of buds I don’t doubt it.
A couple more just because…
Peace love and thanks mom for the beautiful blues sky days, a nice present the day after mothers day!!!
