In Search of a Lovely but Subversive Lawn Aesthetic

At no time do I understand better the phrase "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" than when I contemplate American lawns, with their rigid borders and carpets of lush grass. Even before we moved to the dry West, I was struggling to create lawns that winked and nodded at our national obsession with shortly-cropped grass while incorporating more subversive landscaping--planting or just encouraging native flowers and grasses, with their shaggy beauty; incorporating gardening in border areas of a front yard; leaving dandelions to grow in grassy areas and ignoring those brown spots caused by disease or insects. But I always left enough lush green grass to prevent the neighbors from assuming I was an anarchist --or something. 

The American lawn is an Industrial Lawn:

Plant diversity is minimized; grass predation by insects is controlled by insecticides; weed species are controlled by herbicides; new, genetically-altered grass strains are designed to withstand applications of potent weed killers; fungal attacks on grass are thwarted by fungicides; the addition of fertilizers substitutes for naturally occurring nutrient cycling; droughts are avoided by irrigation; and mechanical soil aeration compensates for the absence of a soil structure that promotes natural aeration. (F. Herbert Borman, Diana Balmori, and Gordon T. Gaballe. Redesigning the American Lawn: A Search for Environmental Harmony. Yale University Press, 2001)

In other words, the American lawn is pretty much an environmental disaster-- all that run-off of pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers and the demands of irrigation from 20 million acres of residential lawns. 

The America lawn also communicates socioeconomic class, status, maybe even patriotism or political leanings --or even the mental health of the home's inhabitants. Neighbors often make assumptions about homeowners by the state of their lawns. Most of us want our neighbors' goodwill, and so we submit to the the demands of the "Majoritarian Authoritarian" lawn. If social conformity doesn't work, there is often formal law to make us give obeisance to the European aristocratic ideal of a well-kept lawn:

...[I]n a great many jurisdictions of the United States, formal law, otherwise known as local public ordinances and private land use deed restrictions, regulates the length of grass or "weeds" in the front lawn. Chances are if the front lawn measures more than six inches in height, a violation from the public weed inspector or the homeowners association is soon to follow. Oftentimes, these grass or weed height ordinances do not make exceptions for alternative landscapes such as wildflowers. (Asmara M. Tekle, "Law and the Authoritarian Aesthetic of the American Lawn." Art Lies: A Contemporary Art Journal, 2011. Online)

I am all for democratizing my lawn, but I'm not ready to open the borders to all the seeds blown into my property in this very windy country. I'm searching for a lawn aesthetic that does less damage to the environment while still being pleasing to the eye--or at least pleasing to me. Here in an area that receives only 10-12 inches of annual precipitation and that is also experiencing a moderate drought, that means wise irrigation. The person who built our house in the 1980s put in an extensive irrigation system that subsequent owners did not maintain. Pipes swelled and burst, leaking water under black landscape plastic and gravel that a subsequent owner had installed. We have abandoned all of that broken system except the lines to the vegetable garden and a small apple orchard and have placed drip hoses in our garden and in flower beds along the house, where more water-thirsty plants also get additional run-off from the roof. Currently, I'm also catching precipitation run-off in buckets; I want to replace those with rain barrels or maybe even a cistern if we get ambitious.

But what about the lawn? 

We have a small front lawn planted with fescue which we mow occasionally. Tom is thinking of slowly replacing the water-thirsty grass with a native, drought-hardy grass, but that will take time. In the meantime, I'm giving my attention to the back yard and one side yard, leaving the other side yard to fate for the time being: the soil there has been compacted by previously parked automobiles and now serves as our wood lot.

Here is the a look at the backyard, as of yesterday morning:

partial view of our backyard

and turning around to take a photo in the opposite direction

We live in an ancient volcanic field, and the ground is full of rocks, with thin soil above. To put in the foundation of cross ties for the chicken house, Tom had to use a pickax to dig out the rocks. Digging in the backyard recently to plant some purple coneflowers, I hit rock within three or four inches. My plan is to amend the soil enough along the back fence (which our property shares with a pasture) so that I can plant fairly drought-hardy flowers that will need occasional watering with an irrigation hose I will place along the fence. In the meantime, I am trying to identify native flowers and plants that grow with very little water and that have propagated naturally. My standard: if I like the looks of the plant, I'll not pull it up. 

The green plants along the fence are a type of annual (native) sunflower. Neither Tom nor I have been able to identify the white flowers, but they look like a type of brassica. Pollinators love them.

close-up of what we think is a brassica but which we have been unable to identify

I tried planting wildflower seeds I purchased online from a garden supply store in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but the seeds sprouted poorly, probably because they needed a lot more water than I provided. Those I planted in flower beds next to the house which have better soil and receive more water, sprouted and thrived. The thin top soil dries out very quickly here, which is why I'm planning to amend the soil along the fence and let the rest of the back yard fill with native plants that require little or no watering. The landscape naturally remains brown here until the monsoon season starts in July.

A species of low-growing Erigeron (fleabane) grows in the disturbed areas of the front and side yards. I'm encouraging these. The flowers close in the evening and open as the sun warms them up.

I love this species of globe mallow, which I am encouraging in many areas of the yard.

I am less fond of this member of the mallow family (Malvaceae)--Cheeseweed or Little Mallow (Malva parviflora)--lower right-hand corner of photo. It's low-growing and very invasive. The seeds sprout everywhere; the flowers are white.

Cheesemallow (see photo above) was introduced from Europe and, according to A Field Guild to the Plants of Arizona, by Anne Orth Epple, is "a common weed of fields and open lots" and is "boiled and eaten by Native Americans." I would like to have a bit more information than the author provides on that last claim, though.

Another plant introduced by Europeans that I thought I would like because it remains green for so long and is very drought-hardy, is horehound. A great crop of it grew in the backyard until I realized just how invasive it is and how irritating are its clingy, sticky seed pods. I dug a lot of it up, but the seeds sprout by the thousands, and plants still remain in corners of the yard and along the edge of the pasture next door. The herb is "highly unpalatable to livestock" according to Wikipedia.

horehound (Marrubium vulgare)

Common purslane (Portulaca oleracea), another plant introduced by Europeans and now naturalized, grows well here, too. I'm just not sure how much of it I want to grow in the wilder areas of the yard; I've been digging it up in a front yard flower bed. I know that it can be eaten as a salad green, and as a teenager, I tried it once.

Common purslane

One flower that blooms brightly in pastures and along roadsides during the rainy season is what I think I have identified correctly as Paperflower (Psilostrophe tagetina). I've found only one bunch on the edge of our front yard, but I hope to introduce more into the backyard. Anne Orth Epple describes it as being "a many-branched, aromatic, rounded plant" which is also "poisonous to sheep." We don't have any sheep, so no worries there.

Paperflower (Psilostrophe tagetina)

In Georgia, I grew a lovely tall species of native Gaura, and here in Arizona, I have found a couple of species in our yard--Scarlet Gaura and Lizard-Tail Gaura--but I have yet to take an adequate photo of the Lizard-Tail Gaura. The stems and flowers are very dainty and not very conspicuous, but I'm tending a patch in the side yard near the apple orchard, and it's growing naturally with other grasses and native flowers between the chicken yard and pasture fence.

Scarlet Gaura (Gaura coccinea), also, Scarlet beeblossom, plains gaura, butterflyweed

a patch of Scarlet Gaura growing in the side yard near the apple orchard

Anne Orth Epple notes that these flowers are pollinated by moths at night. I'm hoping that these moths aren't the same ones that begin as tomato hornworms, which we have been pulling off our tomatoes and feeding to our chickens--poor hornworms! The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center describes these as "rather weedy plants," but I like to think of them as "ethereal." That's my aesthetic, anyway.

I have noticed in our yard two of the nineteen species of verbena that can be found in Arizona, but I haven't accurately identified the most prolific one, which reminds me of cultivated verbena. I am encouraging these flowers, as well as what I think is a horse-mint. 

I think this is New Mexico Vervain (Verbena macdougalii), but it might be another variant of vervain. "Picture-booking" plants is neither an easy nor accurate enterprise.

A second purple-flowering Vervain is in the lower right-hand corner of this photo. I am also encouraging the plumed grass, which I have not identified yet.

Horse-mint (Agastache pallidiflora)

The flowers of the horse-mint are inconspicuous, but I have a soft spot for horse-mint as it grows prolifically in areas of my home state of Texas, where I have fond memories of first identifying it.

There are other volunteer plants in my yard that I have yet to identify but which I like for various reasons--the color or shape of their stems, the smell of their leaves when crushed. My plan, at this point, is to identify as many plants as I can, encouraging the growth of those I like, transplanting more to fill in bare areas. In the back yard, I'm arranging a pathway that will meander through plants that will never be mowed, though I will certainly have to tend them by weeding or thinning. In the side yard near the apple orchard, I hope to have a little meadow of wild flowers that I will mow only around the edges, near my cultivated flower beds. That's the plan, anyway.

I love the color and shape of the silvery-stemmed plants in the background (a type of sage?)

Volunteer wildflowers in an untended area at the edge of the front lawn--globe mallow, Lizard-tail Gaura, fleabane (flowers not open yet for the day), pink evening primrose

A quote attributed to May Sarton reflects what I feel about gardening: "Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace."

Gardening and writing have long been for me ways to combat loneliness, a consequence of moving often and of a personal tendency to seek solitude. 

Gardening In the Company of Cats

This morning, after ingesting as much headline news as I could stand, I headed out to our Arizona garden to collect vegetables. Gardening in Arizona is very different from gardening in Louisiana or Georgia, the two last states in which we lived. Because the area receives only 10-12 inches of annual precipitation, I was worried about being able to have a productive garden. But the small greenhouse my husband built on the studs of an old chicken house, the drip hoses we've threaded throughout the garden, and the chicken manure from the old hen yard as well as the new hen yard have all worked together to help us create a fantastic garden here at 7200 ft. above sea level.

My two cats usually accompany me outside. I allow them out of the house into our fenced-in backyard only when I can keep an eye on them. Cassie (Cassandra), the three-year-old, follows me into the garden while Persey (Persephone), the fourteen-year-old, heads to the outdoor room I created out of a 10'X10' dog pen, where she hops onto a garden bench or table for a snooze.

Persey snoozing in my Secret Garden outdoor room

Since losing weight, old Persey has become more frisky, and she often climbs a tree or two before settling down on the garden bench.

We didn't know Persey still had it in her.

Sometimes a stump will do.

Both cats like to clamber onto the greenhouse roof though Cassie is the most adventurous and does this more often than Persey.

Cassie on the door of the greenhouse

And onto the roof

Today Cassie thoroughly checked out every inch of the garden. 

Cassie stops a moment by our yellow squash plant....

...and checks out our neighbor's garden and yard beyond the fence, where the dog Gypsy lives....

...and looks for intruders among the tomatoes.

Cassie has completely perambulated the garden.

She has finished her gardening chores, as I have mine. 

After a chat with my neighbor across the fence, I and the cats headed inside as thunder clapped in the distance. We're in the monsoon season in northeastern Arizona, and we have been getting a lot of rain lately after a dry June and early July. Once in the house, I piddled around, just barely registering that Cassie was very occupied in the sun room, where I heard what I thought was the buzzing of a hummingbird through an open window. But later, as I walked by the door to the room, I noticed that Cassie had climbed up on the short wall that separates the landing to the laundry room from the sun room. I looked toward the skylight where Cassie's attention was riveted: a hummingbird had flown into the house through the open patio door and was frantically trying to get through the clear plastic of the skylight. I had to remove Cassie, close all the entrances to the room, and poke a broom--straw-side up--toward the frightened hummingbird. With slow movements, I finally got the bird to perch on the broom, and I carefully moved broom and bird to the door and outside. After a little hesitation, the hummingbird flew away. 

This was the second bird rescue I had attempted today, and the most successful. Earlier, a sparrow had flown into the hen yard, which is surrounded on all sides by chicken wire, walls and ceiling, and it couldn't find its way out. The cats prowled around the edges, scaring the bird more, as I opened the door to the hen-yard, trying to shoo out the bird but not the chickens. Cassie got into the chicken yard and close enough to the bird to catch it; I had to haul her ass out of there. The poor little bird's head was bleeding from its frantic flight from chicken-wire wall to chicken-wire wall to chicken-wire ceiling; it landed on my shoulder for a moment and crapped in its fear, but I couldn't get outside the chicken yard fast enough to set it free. The poor bird was exhausted. Over and over, it would fly to a chicken-wire wall, cling there with its beak wide open, and hang upside down, twirling its head around in order to keep an eye on all the dangers that surrounded it. I finally had to take the cats in the house, close up the chicken yard, and hope the bird could find its way out without my help. When I returned later, it was gone. 

silhouette of a hummingbird on a wall of my Secret Garden

The Drama of Pollinators

When we last lived in Louisiana , I began to pay attention to pollinators, taking photos of what tiny creatures inhabited or visited my mountain mint or aster patch. I really enjoyed stalking bees and butterflies in my garden, and the pollinators were prolific. Here in Arizona, I have noticed fewer pollinators, maybe because I have been paying more attention to planting than to those visiting the plants, as the yard and gardens of the place we bought had been neglected. But soon after we moved into our home--before I got busy with picking up trash, re-purposing what was left behind by the previous owners, and weeding the flower beds and garden area that had been abandoned--I took some photos of pollinators that visited the surviving plants of a gardener two owners back, someone who had lovingly planted daisies, echinacea, daylilies, hollyhocks, roses, Russian sage, lamb's ear, garlic chives. 

The following are photos I took last year, not long after we moved into our new home at 7200 feet above sea level near the White Mountains of Arizona. This year I have been too busy cleaning up the yard and garden, experimenting with what will grow in a climate that gets about 10 inches of rain annually (as compared to the annual average of 60 inches of rain in Louisiana, where we lived 35 ft. above sea level) to pay as much attention to the visitors to my plants. Next year, with a new camera and macro lens, perhaps I'll have more time to return to watching the pollinators I have come to love.

It's easy, though, to overlook the tiny creatures that visit flowers, but when the flowers of our vegetables and fruit fail to produce, we start paying attention. We need these little creatures. And so I am hoping that some pollinator will find attractive the flowers of the Armenian cucumber plants that I planted in our Arizona garden this year. 

This crab spider and fly faced off on a daisy (July 2015, Apache County, AZ)

The encounter didn't end well.

And a bee encounter with a crab spider doesn't end well, either.

I haven't forgotten the wonder and drama of the lives of pollinators.

Finding Fossils: Where Academic Research, Citizen Science, and Commercial Fossil Hunting Intersect

In Springerville, Arizona, near where I now live, is a small dinosaur museum with academic connections and big dreams founded by paleontologist Douglas Wolfe and his wife Hazel --the White Mountain Dinosaur Exploration Center. After experiencing the rich geological history of the area in which I now live and then visiting the dinosaur museum and meeting Doug and Hazel, I have become more interested in paleontology, particularly as it connects with citizen science. Then, this morning I came across a recent article in an online news source in Montana, Last Best News, for which one of my old friends writes: "Fossil Hunter Nate Murphy back in the news." Author Ed Kemmick links to several articles about Nate Murphy, a commercial fossil hunter in Montana who has a somewhat shady reputation. One of the problems of any honest fossil hunter or paleontologist is being able to protect fossil-rich areas from exploitation and vandalism. I think of the Petrified Forest National Park near where I live, and the problems with people picking up pieces of petrified wood. Or the fossil shops in Montana where one can purchase slabs of rock with the imprints of ancient marine animals. So I started thinking of how citizen science, paleontological research, and commercial fossil hunting intersect and decided to begin reading more about the subjects. On this page,  I am listing links for my own purposes, to have a place on my blog on which to update what I discover about the intersections (or not) between citizen science, academic science, and commercial, for-profit, fossil hunting.

Public Library of Science: PLOS
One of the stumbling blocks to citizen science (or to any non-expert person interested in exploring topics in science) and even to scientists researching and publishing in their own area of expertise is the pay wall of science publications. PLOS, the Public Library of Science, is attempting to remove that stumbling block by making research accessible through Open Access publication.

PLOS was founded to catalyze a revolution in scientific publishing by providing a compelling demonstration of the value and feasibility of Open Access.

Innovation is an open revolution in progress. What began as a ripple with the goal to make research accessible and free has propagated into a current of Open Access – and now Open Science – moving through the scientific community to provide millions of readers around the world increasing opportunities to make important, positive impacts on global health, scientific discovery, policy and education. (link: https://www.plos.org/innovation)

And PLOS does have a blog for the paleo community: http://blogs.plos.org/paleocomm/

Citizen Science in Paleontology 

White Mountain Dinosaur Exploration Center
Founders: Doug and Hazel Wolfe
link: http://www.whitemountaindino.com/

"Father and Son Discover New Dinosaur." Matt Mygatt. Los Angeles Times. September 7, 1997. link: http://articles.latimes.com/1997/sep/07/local/me-29648

"Zuniceratops christopheri: The North America Ceratopsid Sister Taxon Reconstructed on the Basis of New Data." Douglas G. Wolfe, James I. Kirkland, David Smith, Karen Poole, Brenda Chinnery-Allgeier, and Andrew McDonald.  Lower and Middle Cretaceous Terrestrial Ecosystems, 1998. Published also in  New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs: The Royal Tyrrell Museum Ceratopsian Symposium.
eds., Michael J. Ryan, Brenda Chinnery-Allgeier, David A. Eberth. Indiana University Press, 2010.  Available online at Academia.edu: 
https://www.academia.edu/3977069/Zuniceratops_christopheri_n._gen._and_n._sp._a_ceratopsian_dinosaur_from_the_Moreno_Hill_Formation_Cretaceous_Turonian_of_west-central_New_Mexico

"The Creature from the Zuni Lagoon." Heather Pringle, Grant Delin. Discover. August 1, 2001. link: http://discovermagazine.com/2001/aug/featzuni

"New Dinosaur Species Found." Wired. June 18, 2001. link: http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2001/06/44599

"On a Hadrosauromorph (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) From the Moreno Hill Formation (Cretaceous, Turonian) of New Mexico." Andew McDonald, Douglas G. Wolfe, and James Kirkland. Late Cretaceous Vertebrates from the Western Interior: Bulletin 35. Eds. Spencer G. Lucas, Robert M. Sullivan. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. January 1, 2006. Online at Google Books.

"Zuni Basin Paleontological Project." Arizona Museum of Natural History. link: http://arizonamuseumofnaturalhistory.org/for-educators/paleontology/zuni-basin-paleontological-project

"New Mexico's Peculiar, Two-Horned Dinosaur." Brian Switek. Smithsonian.com. October 18, 2011. link: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-mexicos-peculiar-two-horned-dinosaur-110896440/

"Zuniceratops." Wikipedia. Updated 5 July 2016. 
 link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuniceratops

Commercial Fossil Hunting 

Nate Murphy
Judith River Dinosaur Institute: http://www.montanadinosaurdigs.com/

"Is Nate Murphy Holding a Dinosaur for Ransom?" Jacqueline Ronson, for Inverse, July 5, 2016. link: https://www.inverse.com/article/17806-sauropod-dinosaur-discovery-montana-fossil-hunter-paleontology-nate-murphy

"Discovery and Deception: Spectacular Finds, Criminal Charges." Ed Kemmick. The Billings Gazette. May 3, 2009. link: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/discovery-deception-spectacular-finds-criminal-charges/article_3135e99b-7c7e-51a7-a7f0-975d770ad079.html

"Discovery and Deception: Bones unearthed, deceit discovered." Ed Kemmick. The Billings Gazette. May 4, 2009. link: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/discovery-deception-bones-unearthed-deceit-discovered/article_f6e549dc-669b-58ce-b349-9b86d50e54ef.html

"Discovery and Deception: Raptor finds, turtle tales." Ed Kemmick. The Billings Gazette, May 5, 2009. link: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/discovery-deception-raptor-finds-turtle-tales/article_f1eb1737-1f74-5a12-a2a6-5bebc946d43e.html

"Discovery and Deception: A bogus bio, a derailed career." Ed Kemmick.  The Billings Gazette. May 6, 2009. link: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/discovery-deception-a-bogus-bio-a-derailed-career/article_01c0dcb8-57e2-5fd1-9775-d04304a07407.html

to be updated

One Year Later in Arizona

It's been a year since I last wrote a post for this blog. I've spent the year learning more about the area where I live and creating living and gardening spaces at my new home. My husband and I are learning to garden in an area that's 7200 feet above sea level and that has an annual rainfall of 10-12 inches, quite a change from our home in Louisiana, which was 35 feet above sea level and had an average annual rainfall of 60 inches. Over the past year, we have built a chicken house, taken down a fence that divided our backyard, built a greenhouse out of the framework of an old chicken house, picked up trash and debris left by former owners, weeded and re-worked long-neglected flower beds, and got our new house in order. We've also hiked many trails in the area, with plans to hike even more. Below are a few photos that illustrate some of the outdoor work of the past year.

July 2015--The yard was full of weeds, the fruit trees
and an old garden area neglected.

July 2015--The old chicken house and yard were ramshackle and dirty.

old hen house and yard

August 2015--new chicken house and yard--Tom built the chicken house and yard; I painted it.

The previous owners cross-fenced the backyard for their several dogs. I removed
the cross-fence to allow unimpeded traffic from the back yard to the fenced-in garden.

Tom built a greenhouse on the frame of the old chicken house.

I don't have a photo of the garden area before I cleaned it up
(lots of trash and weeds), but this is the area in Sept. 2015, after I had spaded it up.

And by June of this year, our Arizona garden was full of leaf lettuce, radishes,
tomatoes, potatoes, corn, beet plants, cucumber sprouts, basil sprouts, etc.

We are settling into our Arizona home.