Brittlebushes are in bloom, and the wolfberries at Sage Garden are bearing early fruit.
One of my favorite returning volunteers, London rocket are in full force this year. If you like horseradish and you see these popping up, before you mow them, taste one of the leaves. They're a great addition to a tuna sandwich. You might even want to designate a small patch for use in the kitchen. If it's in a visible place in your yard, I recommend putting a temporary border around it, so your neighbors don't mistake your intentional non-interference for neglect.
Speaking of volunteers, we have another volunteer tomato this year! Why does this place grow so many tomatoes? Last year we had a huge volunteer tomato plant in the chunky monkey patch that gave us hundreds of little snacking tomatoes. In fact, it's still there among the bananas and peanuts. This one just popped up next to the plum we planted last fall.
I see we have fairies this year. In the background of the picture above, you can see the work of the neighborhood children. They built a fairy path into the labyrinth. In the foreground is a canyon hackberry tree, and the orange colored flowers are chuparosa.Also in the labyrinth, we recently planted a passionfruit vine (on the left), where it can climb up the olive tree.
On the right is a sage called salvia newe ya'ar which we planted just this past winter. This is one of my favorite species for Arizona. It's aromatic and edible, and it thrives in our hot, dry climate. If you look closely on the upper right (just below the aloe in the picture) you can see its first flower of the year.
