If purple is the color of royalty, at least historically, then that’s not a bad way to end this desert wildflower rainbow series: I’m fairly certain that this tropical beauty is not indigenous to the Sonoran desert, but that’s not keeping it from growing well in my neighbor’s gardenlike front yard. The velvety buds of [...]

While red may be the color of anger, for desert wildflowers it’s more the color of passion, as hummingbirds and other pollinators will attest to. So here’s a little passion on a Saturday morning: A couple Asian poppies from my neighbor’s backyard, alley-side. The red is so vibrant that the flowers appear to be floating, [...]

For the longest time, orange was my favorite color—especially on cars, which is probably explained by the fact that my pre-teen years were during the 1970s, when an orange Corvette was a dream beyond dreams. I’m not sure whether orange is now the new pink, but it certainly suits these cacti and other desert plants [...]

The desert is nothing if not yellow in the spring, and these photos don’t include such common yellow beauties as brittlebush, desert sunflower, bladderpod, and yellowbells. Still, with 17 photos, I think we’ve got most others covered: This is one of the many varieties of lantana, which is a great lure for bees and butterflies. [...]

“If your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life,” said Bill Watterson, author and illustrator of Calvin & Hobbes. After Sunday’s day of shooting wildflowers, not only were my knees green—or at least brown and dented from the gravel groundcover—my legs were aching from so many [...]

Blue wildflowers are fairly rare in this part of the Sonoran desert, with the exception of some bluebells and lupine, both past prime now. However, the yards around here have a number of species of sage that have lovely shades of blue. To whit: A detailed view of a dainty sage in our front yard. [...]

It’s been another wonderful if not late spring bloom for desert wildflowers, especially cacti, which are flowering more widely and in more colors—especially prickly pear and cholla—than I have seen in the last seven years we’ve been in Tucson. So I took a walk around the neighborhood this morning and afternoon and snapped about 300 [...]