Sonoran Light

People over the years talk about different light, sometimes in the same place or that is distinct to each place. Other times it is about certain tones such as blue light, golden light, or crazy light. I had not considered those before.

In Tucson early last summer, I was able to see something that I’m not used to in New Mexico: the softer light at sundown. They have similarly low humidity and dewpoints as New Mexico, but different vegetation which are at least 1,500 feet lower in elevation.

Photos are from June 5, 2023, about 2,500 feet elevation. Starting in Barrio Viejo for a quick visit:

After a cheese crisp at El Minuto Cafe, I continued across town to meet Gayle and her sister Wendy. She drove us through a maze of roads leading to Gates Pass, to see the sunset on the edges of Saguaro National Park West.

The evening light!

The Sonoran Desert is famous for its sunsets. The low humidity and dewpoint make for a beautiful light show when the sun goes down. The saguaro cactus, which is native to the desert, adds to the unique beauty of the sunset.

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Then came the next couple days before I returned home, starting at a favorite place to read, work on my laptop, and enjoy a fresh croissant with exceptional coffee – Exo Roasting Co.

And a couple restorative morning hikes behind Starr Pass Resort, a chilled Steve Roach performance at the Century Room, and a few tasteful freeway wall designs by ADOT, including this gem along I-10 near downtown.

Which I saw some of that, before the long, 4 hour dodging of cross country semi trucks and awareless tourists.

But no matter the I-10 traffic (sometimes it’s quieter), the wide open land for the entire drive is decompressing, where Sonoran Desert quickly gives way to 3-1/2 hours of mostly Chihuahuan Desert.

Sprinter is Over

Las Cruces is generally too far south this far west, and too far east this far south, to get surprised by wintry weather after some point in March, let alone snow.

Though there was April 1983’s 7 inch snowfall around Easter. But I was in high school then, far away in Denver, where it snows almost every April a few times!

With a persistent cool and unsettled pattern of a waning El Niño along the west coast, we even managed to stay a little cooler than usual. But after a few weeks of spring then winter, and back and forth (“sprinter”), it’s warming nicely here in the last half of April. Sprinter is over, it’s spring.

The plantings nearby and in town are responding.

Since this streetscape is a couple neighborhoods from my home and on the way to my hiking spot, I see at least a few sections of it each week. While bullet-proof planting and irrigation design is going into entropy due to a lack of any maintenance* savvy, there are still a number of places that still have appeal.

(*I was the landscape architect and primary designer on this years ago, and those plans included an entire sheet with clear maintenance graphics and scheduling by plant type, so…zero excuses)

Yucca faxoniana (Faxon or Palm Yucca) are at peak flowering, though over half have died in the last decade.

Some of the Blue Ranger (Leucophyllum zygophyllum ‘Cimarron’) shrubs were starting to flower, so given the year of drought it is likely proof this section of the drip irrigation line is functioning.

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Returning home after an energizing but brisk hike, I drove past two of the Las Estancias neighborhood entries. ‘Silver Sierra’ Texas Mountain Laurel (Dermatophyllum secundiflorum ‘Silver Sierra’) is ending it’s 2 week show of flower and fragrance.

And the exit onto Anthem Road, back from where I drove from home for my hike and these photos.

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At home on my patio, I enjoyed some shade and the cool breezes, with my own, future back garden area at home. Mostly native wildflowers and grasses have been volunteering into this spot for all 5+ years living here.

From warm, dry afternoon light, to nearly the same vantage point with also dry but chilled morning light.

Only the Agave weberi and hybrid Opuntia aren’t native. In the ground we have Giant Dropseed (Sporobolus gigantea), Fluffgrass (Dasychloa pulchella), and Desert Marigold (Baileya multiradiata) slowly multiplying, as they sway and dance in the daily breezes.

And within the week, I was able to spend a couple hours returning to looking at my design ideas here and throughout the property.

Soledad Canyon Field Trip: Grasses to Oaks

Our local Native Plant Society of New Mexico chapter has great outings in the Las Cruces area over the year.

With one of the higher plant species diversities in New Mexico, the base of the Organ Mountains was our meeting place, starting at the parking area on the west side for Soledad Canyon (or Bar Canyon).

Photos are from 1/13/2024.

Some of these resting spots beg me to ask why so many people and even some area nurseries lack the vision to grow more of the species that give our wild world its distinctiveness and power.

That’s what I call a sotol savanna because of their spacing, divided by native grasses – mostly Bouteloua curtipendula and B. gracilis. Others here instead call this a sotol forest, though even in the desert this isn’t dense or tall enough to be a forest!

These are bullet-proof staples in many landscape designs, including my projects since the 1990’s, in Albuquerque and beyond, and now down here.

The exclamation-point seed stalks against the shrubs and grasses, or even skies and rocky cliffs, imply possibilities that require so little of our inputs.

Now we come to my favorite plants with the most potential to create enclosure, shade, and powerful structure. Which are elusive or absent from most growers’ offerings of Bradford pears, Desert Museum palo verdes, pistaches, and desert willows.

Yes, pistaches and desert willows are included – fine trees, but overused at the expense of many other trees, including native trees.

Presenting our native live oaks, i.e. evergreen oaks.

They often line arroyos or dot boulder-strewn slopes of foothill and lower mountain areas, near the upper desert’s margin. Where many grow together like this is called an encinal – place of evergreen oaks in Spanish.

The main oak we saw that day was Quercus arizonica / Arizona White Oak.

This live oak has a larger leaf, with a distinctly fuzzy underside

Being an oak there had to be some variation right next to it. Note the leaf shape, form, and color from the top two photos vs. the bottom two photos.

After asking Mike Meléndrez, of Trees That Please in Los Lunas, we can be mostly sure it’s Quercus x organensis / Organ Mountain Oak. That oak is found at the east end of the Dripping Springs trail, a few miles over the ridge to the north.

Some oaks make it difficult to identify them!

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I’ve always enjoyed the many places in nature where plants occur in rows or are spaced evenly, within a backdrop or surrounding of random arrangements. Partly because that goes against cliches and partly because it inspires the reasoning for stronger plant use in the built environment.

Opuntia engelmannii and Garrya wrightii show off their evergreen nature and rounded forms on a winter’s day like this one.

Our hike ended, and since my grocery list needs to be filled, it’s time to run that errand while crossing town on the drive home, far to the west.

Nearing my car, here’s an example of Chihuahuan desert grassland including a background of a juniper-oak savanna, fronted by clumps of the bold Yucca baccata.

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For further information on this field trip:
Native Plant Society of New Mexico Las Cruces Chapter – scroll down