Little Kisses in The Desert

In the Spring, after a rain, take a gorgeous and relaxing drive toward one of our beautiful lakes and take in the wildflowers peppered throughout the desert. You’ll get to see a blanket of mixed colors.

Hardy, heat and drought tolerant, a wildflower mixture will provide bright, showy spring flowers and they will reseed year after year. Little to nothing to do for these little beauties. Wildflowers are good on slopes; as ground cover over our popular gravel yards and they help with erosion control. Wild flower mixes most popular in our valley are:

African daisy

Coreopsis

Baby Blue Eyes

Bachelor Buttons

Blue Flax - I’ve learned that Blue Flax is perennial as are several other wildflowers. But these are consistent. Plant in the Spring. They grow from 4 to 16 inches depending.

California Poppy

Desert Bluebells

Farewell to Spring

Goldfields

Pygmy Lupine

Red Flax

Swirly Popply

Tidy Tops

A combination of colors are available throughout most mixes - red, yellow, blue, white, orange, lavender, & pink.

The spring flowering season in the Arizona valley and low country surrounding desert spans from mid February to mid June with a peak from mid March to late April depending on rainfall and temperatures during the growing season.

I use packaged wild flower seeds. Each package covers about 150 square feet and looks great in large planter pots or in their own flower bed.

I pick up wildflower seeds at any nursery, even Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, etc. and keep in a dark drawer until ready to plant. They run about 3-4 dollars a pack.

I like to dump my seeds on a damp paper towel for a day or two prior to planting, Then, on roughened surface, rake about 1/4-1/8 inch of the soil. Remove all other vegetation, No soil amendments necessary! No Fertilizers!

Plant about 1-2 inches down in a sunny, bare location, on a non-windy day. Again, removing all vegetation in their area. Toss seeds on the ground, mix and spread with a little sand to help uniform spreading. Sprinkle with water. Thereafter, sprinkle every 2 to 3 days for 2-3 weeks. Keeping damp soil for those first few days keeps the seeds from flying away and from having birds eat them.

There will sprouts appearing anywhere from 3-4 days to 2 -4 weeks. Watch for offending weeds, as they unfortunately do get mixed into wildflower mixes and will appear about once every 3 weeks. Don’t worry about weeds down inside as the wild flowers overrule and choke them out. but if it pops up… Pick it quick.

Once they are established, then you can sprinkle with water every 2-3 days until our temps hit 95 nor higher then water either daily or deeply which ever is best for your time schedule.

Probably my favorite wild flower is the baby blue eyes (vivid blue, of course ) pictured below. They are native to the west making them drought tolerant and once established, they need little water Cup-shaped, low growth and profuse bloomers and easily grown from seed. Growing 6-12 inches tall; the flowers are 1 inch across (and reseeds). A package of them will cover 50 feet for sure and likes cool moist conditions.

Desert Gardening Tips (37 years experience)