I stepped outside into the blistering cold of a mid-January morning. This was the type of chill that stings the throat and sends me into a coughing fit if I inhale too sharply, so I measured my breaths carefully. It had snowed while I was asleep, and everything was covered in what looked like the soft wool of a newborn lamb. The world was a glowing white that was intensified by the sun that was just starting to rise, chewing through a thin layer of clouds left over from the previous night’s storm. I looked into my backyard, and longed for color. I wanted something easier on the eye, and I dreamt of beauty cradled delicately in the petals of spring flowers.
Last summer and fall, I traveled throughout Carbon County, in habitats that were similar to what my backyard would have been before humans cleared it with banal dreams of monoculture. I made a mental note of what plant species proliferated in this particular desert. If anything was flowering, I checked back weekly to collect seed. I hiked with sandwich bags that I stuffed full with the seeds of globemallow, desert trumpet, palmer’s penstemon, milkweed, Rocky Mountain bee plant, yellow bee plant, primrose, yucca, sunflower, four-wing saltbush, snakeweed and rabbitbrush.
I returned home, setting the bags full of potential on a shelf to plant later, waiting no longer than a week to get them in the ground. I figured that desert plants propagate when seeds fall naturally, then get lightly covered by soils that shift in the prevalent winds. I tried to mimic what nature does on its own. I lightly raked a patch of soil, spread what I had collected atop the disturbed earth, then gently raked it over once more, burying some seeds, and undoubtedly leaving others exposed for the birds. I tried to sow these seeds during a time when they would be naturally falling from their parent plants.
My backyard was bare dirt when I moved in, a blank canvas. With luck, next summer, it will be colored by the scarlet hues of globemallow, the blushing pinks of palmer’s penstemon, the gold-laced blooms of desert trumpet, the delighted yellow of sunflower, the ivory bunch of blossoms that are raised from a stalk that shoots skyward out of a low-lying yucca, and the firework flashes of purple and yellow that explode from bee plant.
It is my dream to have a backyard full of native plants, which will create a friendlier habitat for birds, and a lovelier place for me to rest. I don’t know what species will take, or how many of the thousands of seeds I planted will germinate, but I look at what is now blanketed by snow, and my heart flutters in anticipation. What does grow, should bear seed next year, and I will again disturb the soil, so a new crop can begin its life cycle. One year worth of collecting can lead to a lifetime of beauty with a little stewardship on my part.
January has been harsh here in the desert. Since these seeds are all local, they likely need a period of cold stratification in order to germinate in a few months. It’s all an experiment, but since I am mimicking the natural growth cycle of native species, I feel like I have a chance. After this miserable season of dormancy, we should all be able to flourish.
I was out back in order to feed the birds, I knew they’d be waiting on me. White-winged Doves looked expectantly down from perches high in the front yard ash tree. House Sparrows flew in behind me, their collective wings sounding like a breaking wave. I put out black oil sunflower seed for the doves, and millet for the sparrows.
I returned to the back porch so the birds could eat, and I could get inside to warmth. Before I closed the door, I looked over the yard once more. I yearned for that time of year when the sun rises higher in the sky, the earth warms, and the snow gives way. That is the time when the backyard will break forth in bloom.
I hope you have great success for your backyard natural garden. It might not do much the first year, so be patient.
Excellent idea Carl and looking forward to photos of the new growth in Spring and Summer.