Another Dream/Fantasy Gone

No, not getting rid of the *president. That's a whole 'nother disappointment, one I'll work on coming to terms with later.

Maybe.

Every season down here is different. As steady as the weather is, it's still different, and plants react differently to temperatures and moisture. I'm thinking it's either that, or my previous inattention to the point of obliviousness, which is calling my attention to something different in the landscape.

Suddenly this winter there was an abundance of bright orange succulent bushes decorating yards all over the place. How could I have missed them? They are heavily branched, each branch ending in a handful of 6" straight-up fingers which I presume themselves branch out the next season, and so on. They tend to be tall enough to have spent a few years in the landscape. If, as I assume, each set of branches delineates another year of growth,  those I see range from about 6 years to 15 or more. There are no leaves. Just a plethora of orange clusters of fingers. That alone is typical of desert plants, a technique for saving water and making chlorophyll widespread throughout the plant. So what sets them off then is the orange color.

You'd think I would have noticed it. Now that I finally had, it was growing all over. But what was it? I asked a fellow club member who was a year-around resident, thinking he'd know. He did. It's common name is "firestick".

Seems obvious. Very well named, it turns out, for more than one reason.

I have a few places in the yard where various plantings didn't take - or got taken by the rabbits before getting fenced. Orange would look great there. I'd look into planting them next fall after returning, once we would be around for regular watering to establish them. But where would I get them?

Since moving down here, I've spent lots of time browsing through desert loving plants to put in the yard without wasting water. I'd  never seen firesticks during those sojourns either. With there being no real hurry, I started on line. Was  that really their name? Sun or shade? Availability?

It didn't take long to kill the dream. Yes, firesticks is a very common name for them. They grow well, lasting for 15+ years before severe pruning or replacing is required. But therein lies the hitch.

The sap burns the skin. Everybody's. You don't need to be allergic to it. Even worse, if you get it in your eyes, the burning lasts for hours and is so severe that a trip to the ER is common. Vision issues may result.

I guess I don't really need that splash of orange in my landscape. More aloes would be good. Maybe agaves. Even red yuccas, which right now are sending up an abundance of flower stalks next to the driveway.

Next fall, though.