In A Desert
Garden
"Thymophylia - Dyssodia"
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I planned my garden that it is not bare and grey in winter, at least I had color most winters. This winter is slightly different, being so much colder than last year the plants that give me winter color are frost bitten. My Primrose Jasmine - J.mesnyi that usually is in bloom from late fall till late spring shows me its barren branches. The leaves have fallen off but in some places there are still some flowers. The Coral Honeysuckle - Lonicera xheckrottii that shows its beautiful coral trumpet flowers this time of year is almost without leaves. The only one in my yard that hasn't noticed the freezing nights is the Carolina jessamine - Gelsemium sempervirens. It is in full bloom and has been since fall when the nights became cooler. The beautiful yellow trumpet shaped flowers light up my small yard and thanks to my neighbor who graciously allows his vine to drape over the wall into my yard, there is plenty of it. Despite the cold nights and the frozen plants in my yard there is another plant that brings me sunshine. It is a small low-growing clump nestled in between the rocks and some pots with cacti and succulents. A plant I never expected to be hardy enough to bloom under these conditions, but must have found the right spot to exist. It is a variety of Dyssodia - Thymophylia, I do not really remember the specie, but I know I got it several years ago from a vendor at the High on the Desert Conference. It is blooming for ever, and I mean forever. I dug it in about 3 years ago and it hasn't stopped since that time. Spring, summer fall and winter this little gem is blooming its little heart out, I have never fertilized it, it hardly ever gets watered, and it thrives on neglect. After doing some research, I came to the conclusion that my plant must be Thymophylla acerosa or Prickly-leaf Dogweed. This is a native to Nevada, Texas and Mexico. The leaves are needle thin and bright green and the flowers are lovely yellow daisies. My clump is about 6 inches high and about a foot wide. There are several varieties of Dyssodia. One of them I became to love is T.pentachaeta - Golden Dyssodia, another perennial, but short-lived. Our local Garden Club had a project for a while, taking care of the Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden at Kartchners Caverns, and here I saw this little gem for the first time. This is a much smaller plant than the one in my yard, it only grows 4 to 6 inches tall and wide, but it self seeds freely. You plant one, you have a lot, my kind of plant. Unfortunately I have never seen it in any of our nurseries. A native to California, Nevada and Texas it blooms heaviest in spring and from time to time the rest of the year. The plant you will find in the nurseries here is the Dahlberg Daisy - T. tenuiloba. This is a heat loving perennial that is short-lived, native to Texas all the way to Florida and Mexico. This plant forms a mound about 1 foot high and wide. It is lovely in pots and rock gardens. It sometimes is a little fussy because what we find here is grown in a greenhouse and pampered. All these varieties are small plants but big in appearance and color display and lovely additions to any garden or planter. They do perfect in between cacti or succulents, because their biggest enemy is water. They need good drainage and moderate watering, once they established. |
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