Another SW USA beauty

LOL Marie.. I KNOW mine are somewhere, but where?

....in my post above I meant to say I understand others who feel the same way about their home too. I love seeing what everyone has to share.

Here is another magenta one from the four o'clock family
Allionia incarnata - Trailing Windmills/Trailing four-o’clock
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/56933/
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=ALIN
It has 3 flowers in one and is open most of the day not just in the late afternoon.
After an unusual rainy summer I saw a mass of these in a canyon; a carpet of pink!

Alright, another lovely one of the Four O'clock family, and native to Texas too!!!
This is so neat.

LOL, I keep running into you over at Plantfiles Josephine. We have many of the same plants. I saw you had left a comment on the Allionia. I was looking at a Palafox yesterday & saw your photos. (Palafoxia sphacelata) I see those once in a while on my hikes & I love them! You have them in your gardens?

No, but I think I can get some seed, I took those pictures at the Wildscape.
Yes, I put many of the Texas native plants in the plant files, although for some of them i didn't have much information, but I figured i could add that in later.

Hi angele! I found your wonderful photos first on flickr. I'm a native New Mexican and very forgetful of the names of our native plants. Just added this forum as a favorite so I can check it often, I usually hangout on the SW forum, even though it seems to be mainly just AZ discussions. And the rose forum. That first shot is wonderful, I rarely see them looking so lush! I hope you added it to plantfiles. ; )

Hi Joyce, glad you found me here & I hope you'll be a regular visitor & contributor. Let's show everybody what our Land of Enchantment has too offer! Your yard has to be one of the prettiest in all New Mexico. I'll have to plant a couple of roses so I can keep in touch with you & Zuzu. Thanks for your comment on the Mirabilis. I did add it to Plantfiles. :-)

Thanks, but I am sure there are lots of us "old gardeners" with yards like mine here. My yard is not natives, but I do have plenty on the outside of my stucco walls and see them on hikes. I need to learn the names I guess, but still call them whatever my grandparents did! When I was growing up everyone tried to get the cactus off their property, it was more abundant then. So it is fun for me to have many cactus now too. I will be hanging around here--when I get the time. I love to be outside naturally and as the weather warms I spend less time at my desk.

Hi, I'm new to this forum but I've met some of you elsewhere. I have added this to my favorites and look forward to checking in every so often. I've lived in New Mexico for 28 years. Grew up in Arizona. My garden is not especially natives, though I do have some. I like to walk around out in the mountains and desert so I'm interested in the plants I see. New Mexico is so beautiful!

welcome roybird & a big howdy from a fellow New Mexican. We are blessed here in that there is so much undeveloped land just chock full of native plants. Aside from a very few naturalized plants like the beautiful Desert Bird of Paradise and the introduced invasive Salt Cedar I believe most of the plants I see on my hikes are natives. I only see the Salt Cedar near the Rio Grande but the DBOP is in my favorite canyon though not widespread.
I love our Land of Enchantment so much too. My husband is from Arizona. We have been in New Mexico for 25 years except for a very brief time in Oregon and Arizona. I've never been to the Santa Fe area & would love to hear about the plants you see & please post pictures if you have them too.

Hi roybird, glad you have joined us here. I have done a few hikes around Santa Fe, but mostly more near Albuquerque. My great grandfather homesteaded in NM in the early 1900's, actually came when it was a territory and then homesteading when we became a state. I have lived outside of the state just a few years and missed it terribly! DH is also a native.

I did not realize that the DBOP was not a native? I can remember them over near Lovington since I was a child, so they have been here a long time! ; ) angele, your photo on flickr of the area near Caballo has me trying to talk my DH into bring our old boat and getting on the Rio Grande down there. Most of my exploring has been around the SE and now around Alamogordo. I do love NM! Arizona and Utah are so beautiful too and I hope to be able to explore there more too.

Joyce here is a link to the map from the USDA web site - the grey color means introduced
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CAGI&mapType=nativity&photoID=cagi_003_ahp.tif#
My neighbor planted one in her yard. I need to count how many are now growing in the vacant lot between our homes! I know there are at least a dozen! They love the conditions here. If I were to plant one in my yard I would be removing the seedpods. Here is a photo from the canyon. It proves they are attractive to hummingbirds though it doesn't do the beauty of the flower any justice!

edited to add the link to the plant in plantfiles
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/2120/
I couldn't find it at Wildflower.org

This message was edited Mar 4, 2008 9:12 AM

I wanted to recommend a catalog I recently got in the mail to some of you southwestern folks. It's Plants of the Southwest and they carry seeds for plants native to your area. They have seeds for the four o'clock posted above - 20 seeds for $2.50 and there's no shipping on seed only orders unless you order bulk seed. Minimum order of $5. They have vegetables, grasses, trees and shrubs cover crops, books.

http://www.plantsofthesouthwest.com/

Thank you hart. Sounds like a bargain!

Plants of the Southwest isn't far from where I live. It is a very nice place to visit. The people are knowledgeable and have been around awhile. If I had a large enough space I'd be out there buying plants more often. They sell xeric lawn seed that many people have used here.

Thanks for that link angele, I certainly wasn't saying they weren't, just that if they were introduced it was a long time ago as I was picking the 50 years ago!

Here is a wild verbena by my driveway. I don't buy native seeds, just gather them and lay the branch in an area where I want them to move in, it has worked for many things, but not the peach mallow that I would like to grow on the back of our property.

I should have mentioned, you'll find quite a few seeds for native plants that are also native to the east in the Plants of the Southwest catalog. I saw several that grow here. The have seeds for quite a few of the plants I've been drooling over in the High Country Gardens catalog.

Guess what? We finally got a digital camera! I'm very excited. Still too cold here for much going on in the plant world, but soon!

Congratulations Roybird! you are about to have loads of fun, Please don't forget to post.
Josephine.

Congrats! I hesitated to buy one and then once I did I was sorry I hadn't gotten one sooner. It is so much fun to see the photos instantly, crop and adjust the image so every one you take is a good one. Then be able to post them, email them, save to your mp3 or make a screensaver. You are gonna love it! ; )

Thanks! I'm learning how to use it. Of course not much is blooming or even leafing out yet up here. So, maybe I'll be ready by the time the weather warms up.

congratulations on the camera Penny! What kind did you get?

Hi, Angele! We must be writing at the same time today. It is a canon S5 IS or something like that. On sale at Office Depot, mid-range price. It has a good zoom and a setting for close in pictures which I think is nice for plants. I took pictures of my house plant, Steve the cactus, for practice. We don't know how to download pictures on to our computer yet. I'm going to let D.H. figure it out and then show me.

That is a great camera! I think you will be very happy with it.