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You are here: Home / Garden Chats / Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Grand Canyon Wildflowers

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Grand Canyon Wildflowers

by Anne Laurie|  July 23, 20235:22 am| 35 Comments

This post is in: Garden Chats

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: 25
 
Amazing travel pics from commentor HinTN:

Mrs H and I spent four nights in late June at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and saw some wonderful wildflowers to go with the vistas of the canyon. Any commenters that can identify them please chime in.

These next two had the same color but were in very different places.
Sunday Morning Garden Chat: 26

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Grand Canyon Wildflowers

Here are two lovely but very different red flowers.

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Grand Canyon Wildflowers 1

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Grand Canyon Wildflowers 2

Here’s a yellow beauty. And then…
Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Grand Canyon Wildflowers 3

…A sorta matching golden light from the setting sun outlining this tree clinging to the edge of the canyon.
Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Grand Canyon Wildflowers 4

Finally, we walked the Trail of Time, which is 1.4 miles along the Canyon Rim that is marked off in geologic time, displaying the rocks and layers from bottom to top with samples strategically placed along the trail. If you begin at the “beginning” it ends at the geology museum. We were there for the full moon.

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Grand Canyon Wildflowers 5

***********

What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?

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Reader Interactions

35Comments

  1. 1.

    eclare

    July 23, 2023 at 6:08 am

    Lovely photos!

  2. 2.

    satby

    July 23, 2023 at 7:00 am

    Very nice! It was snowing when I was there in February. Is the top photo a sweet pea??

  3. 3.

    oatler

    July 23, 2023 at 7:02 am

    That there is a Yavapai bluebell. The city weed controller cuts them back when they overgrow lots. You probably know about Cottonwood bamboo.

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

    July 23, 2023 at 7:07 am

    Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊

  5. 5.

    Baud

    July 23, 2023 at 7:08 am

    @rikyrah:

    Good morning.

  6. 6.

    Mel

    July 23, 2023 at 7:10 am

    The red, tubular flower (the one with tall, skinny stems) looks like beardlip penstemon. It’s a hummingbird favorite!

    Thanks for sharing these beautiful photos.

  7. 7.

    Mel

    July 23, 2023 at 7:14 am

    @rikyrah: Good morning!

  8. 8.

    Charluckles

    July 23, 2023 at 7:22 am

    That first flower might be a Palmer’s penstemon???  One of my absolute favorites for low water gardening.

  9. 9.

    mrmoshpotato

    July 23, 2023 at 7:29 am

    Your garden is the Grand Canyon?  Hot! Dog!

  10. 10.

    CarolPW

    July 23, 2023 at 7:33 am

    Third one is Apache plume (fallugia paradoxa), a shrub that can get fairly large. Mine are at least six ft high. Super drought tolerant.

  11. 11.

    AM in NC

    July 23, 2023 at 7:44 am

    So, so pretty – thank you for sharing these!

    My only trip to the canyon was the spring break 2018 – my mom and I flew to Colorado with my two kids. We met my sister, and we piled with her kids and my brothers’ kids into a 12-passenger van and took a week-long route out and back, seeing so many amazing things. Going to the GC with her grandkids was on my mom’s bucket list, and it was the last big trip she took. Just a wonderful time.

  12. 12.

    Mel

    July 23, 2023 at 7:46 am

    The lower growing plant with the larger red flowers and shorter, thicker stems looks like Castilleja (Indian paintbrush).

  13. 13.

    satby

    July 23, 2023 at 7:54 am

    Awesome that so many people can identify these, I have zero knowledge of southwestern flora. Obviously 😆

    Had some decently rainy days last week to give me a break on watering. Supposed to rain tonight or early to morrow before the heat dome finally expands our way for next week. Which will be a week spent indoors due to bad air if it follows this summer’s pattern.

  14. 14.

    Immanentize

    July 23, 2023 at 8:28 am

    My new garden problem is now figuring out how to grow in 5a after spending years in 6b. Although I guess i could split the difference and go 5b or 6a given global warming and all….

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 23, 2023 at 8:33 am

    Nice pics, thanx HinTn.

    Over the past 2 weeks we’ve gotten over 8″ of rain, quite the reversal of weather conditions over the previous 2 months or so. Hence, my gardens are breathing a great sigh of relief. Pretty sure my water table is too. The veggie garden finally looks like a veggie garden should: Productive. I’m getting tomatoes and sweet peppers out of it and everything else is blooming, so soon I will be overburdened with fresh produce. Sucks to be me.

    My flower gardens however… Have been beaten down to the ground by the many heavy rains. Oh well, what the gods give with one hand they take with the other.

  16. 16.

    Dmbeaster

    July 23, 2023 at 8:33 am

    @Charluckles: It is a Palmer penstemon.  It is common in Arizona and Utah.

    The back-lit scrubby tree with the feathery appearance (next to last photo) is mountain mahogany.  The very first photo of the canyon also has a specimen peaking in on the right margin and not back lit.  The seeds spread on those “feathers” as they are blown by the wind.  It is found in drier environments throughout the west.

  17. 17.

    satby

    July 23, 2023 at 8:40 am

    @Immanentize: There’s a lot of overlap. And if you have a south facing flower bed or can create one, especially near a structure, you create a microclimate especially if you mulch. And cover the delicate stuff with milk jugs as mini-greenhouses or even just cardboard shipping boxes over bigger plants. Some of my roses on the south side don’t even go fully dormant every winter covered like that.

  18. 18.

    Immanentize

    July 23, 2023 at 8:51 am

    @satby: Thank you!

    And thank you HinTN. You reminded me of my excellent trip to the GC about 20 years ago. We stayed at the un-fancy lodge (not El Tovar — which is just fun to say) on the rom then hiked down about half way to the first level (not all the way to the river). We started early in the morning — going down was a breeze, but as you went further in,bit got hotter and hotter. Going back up was work. We were too out of breath to heartily laugh at the people just hiking down at 2p.m. wearing flip flops.

  19. 19.

    Immanentize

    July 23, 2023 at 8:54 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Food is good for the living body. Flowers are good for the soul. If i had to do without one for a season, i would choose the latter and look at the garden chat every sunday for my balm.

  20. 20.

    eclare

    July 23, 2023 at 8:57 am

    @Immanentize:

    My ex and I did the same hike, down to Plateau Point and back.  Not to the river, but we could see the river.  At the time we contemplated going on to the river, as we hiked back up to the rim, we were so grateful that we turned around.  So many times we thought, this is the last turn!  And nature said nope!

  21. 21.

    Immanentize

    July 23, 2023 at 9:00 am

    @eclare: That is exactly what we did. The little mountain goats were there on the sides of the path to mock our ascent.

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 23, 2023 at 9:02 am

    @Immanentize: My history of gardening is unique to me. I got into it for the produce, always with an eye towards stuff I could not find at the grocery, but these days I get more joy out of the various flowers and decorative plants I grow. Looking at all those colors and watching as the pollinators have a field day among them makes my soul sing.

  23. 23.

    satby

    July 23, 2023 at 9:16 am

    @Immanentize: @OzarkHillbilly:  I started gardening with my grandpa who grew tomatoes and other vegetables in the backyard of the two flat where we lived in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago. Mostly grew veggies for years, but gradually added flowers. Now it’s mostly flowers, I can barely eat all the tomatoes I do grow. I don’t bother with canning either, still working off stuff I canned years ago. Hard to cut back to cooking for 1.

  24. 24.

    HinTN

    July 23, 2023 at 10:30 am

    @mrmoshpotato: After fourteen days of western sun, sky, vistas and altitude it was nice to get back to the softer, sultry, summer air of home.

    I’ll try to have wildflowers of Moab and Denver to AL soon.

  25. 25.

    HinTN

    July 23, 2023 at 10:42 am

    @Immanentize:  @eclare:

    going down was a breeze, but as you went further in,bit got hotter and hotter. Going back up was work.

    I have, from a previous visit, a tee shirt stating

    Grand Canyon, Down is optional – Up is mandatory

    Even though I once was (and still am) very much an enjoyer of the outdoors, my visits began much too late in life and I’ve never ventured off the rim.

  26. 26.

    HinTN

    July 23, 2023 at 10:45 am

    Thank you all for the identifications and kind words. I used to have SLR and macro lens for my wildflowers, which I printed in the darkroom, but now it’s just an old Galaxy S8.

  27. 27.

    JAM

    July 23, 2023 at 10:57 am

    I tried to start Indian Paintbrush (the short red flowers) from seeds planted in a flower bed, with no luck. I  couldn’t figure out why a plant that grows all over the fields here was so hard to germinate. What I didn’t know is that castillejas need to attach to the roots of another plant to grow.  I’m surprised to see it growing somewhere so bare of plants.

  28. 28.

    eclare

    July 23, 2023 at 11:07 am

    @HinTN:

    A lot of people need to pay attention to that sign!

  29. 29.

    Xavier

    July 23, 2023 at 11:10 am

    @HinTN: load the google lens app on your phone for identifying plants.

  30. 30.

    Geminid

    July 23, 2023 at 11:22 am

    @Immanentize: Your land may have a couple different microclimates too.

    And I think you are near a large lake, and that has its own microclimate. I learned this from a couple friends in Cortland County, New York who told me how much colder their place is than Ithaca, on Cayuga Lake 20 miles to the west.

  31. 31.

    Kelly

    July 23, 2023 at 11:22 am

    The first time I rowed Grand Canyon was May 1996. Many, many wildflowers including catus. A lot of green grass as well. A magical trip and a major item on my bucket list. I highly recommend spring for Grand Canyon visits.

  32. 32.

    StringOnAStick

    July 23, 2023 at 4:31 pm

    The first photo is a Palmers penstemon, very xeric.  Next is a shrub commonly called Apache Plume; the third is firecracker penstemon, the forth is Indian Paintbrush in the red variety.  I can’t make out The yellow one well enough to guess.  The shrub outlined by the sun is a nice mature specimen of mountain mahogany, with the fuzzy tips of the seed heads sticking out and looking so good backlit by the sun.  Those seed tips straighten when they get wet, like instantly, then curl up into corkscrews as they dry, helping drill themselves into the ground.  The final tree is a Pinyon pine.  All great native species adapted to the long dry summers.

  33. 33.

    StringOnAStick

    July 23, 2023 at 4:44 pm

    @JAM: Indian Paintbrush is parasitic, as you found out.  I’ve seen it for sale in native plant nurseries with a fescue also growing in the pot; it’s definitely a tough one to cultivate.  The ones in the photo probably have tapped into the roots of a shrub.  The way most shrubs survive that dry, sandy environment is to cast a very wide web of roots to capture as much snowmelt and rain before the dry season starts, so there’s probably some shallow roots those have tapped into.  I don’t think it kills the host plant, just forces it to “share”.  The desert versions are most commonly orange and red, but when you get into the mountains of Colorado you get pink, chartreuse, almost white and yellow.

  34. 34.

    satby

    July 23, 2023 at 7:44 pm

    @StringOnAStick: @StringOnAStick: fascinating, thanks!

  35. 35.

    JAM

    July 23, 2023 at 8:39 pm

    @StringOnAStick: I didn’t think about shrub roots being there, that makes sense.

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