Gimme Shelter! Queen's Wreath (Antigonon leptopus)

We needed shade for the west wall of the house to keep the electric bills down, so we built an arbor. Then came the discussion of what to grow on it.

• We wanted pretty flowers, if possible.
• We wanted native plants if possible.
• We needed a thornless vine
• We needed heat loving vines that would cover the arbor for the summer.
• We wanted a perennial vine to come back every year.
• We needed a drought tolerant vine in case we slacked on the watering.

TAH DAH!!!!  The winner was Queen's Wreath Vine (Antigonon leptopus), an  incredibly hardy, fast-growing, flamboyantly blooming native from the lower parts of the Sonoran desert.

Unlike the "other native", Cat's Claw (Macfadyena unguis-cati), Queens wreath is frost-tender and dies back to the ground every winter.  It's a less aggressive grower and can be controlled with occasional pruning.

Except for the trees ... It goes from the arbor to the old orange tree and covers it like a hat. This doesn't appear to harm the tree, and the oranges ripen under the vine.  We pull the vine out when the oranges are ripe.

Queen's Wreath Covering Orange Tree
(the tree is the mound at the left)

Are Bees a Problem?

Queen's Wreath attracts bees, dozens of honey bees and wild alkali bees - it's a great way to attract pollinators to your garden all summer long. 

Because it's growing on an arbor, the flowers are all "up there" and so are the bees. You can sit under the arbor and listen to the bees, but they stay with the flowers.

Self-Seeding

This is a prolific seed-producer. The quail and other seed-eating birds forage under the arbor most of the year, gorging on seeds.  They don't find them all, and those that land in a moist spot will germinate.

They pop up all over the yard, but they are easy to recognize and pull up.

Volunteer Queen's Wreath Seedlings
(after a summer of unusually heavy rains)

Removing the Dead Vines

We need to remove the vines every year or they build up a heavy, ugly dead mess on the arbor. The stems tend to lie on top of an arbor instead of twining through the mesh. We left space between the top of the vertical mesh and the side of the top mesh to make vine removing easier, and there is a foot or so between the top mesh and the wall of the house.

Removing the old vines in early winter is easy. Don't let them get dry and brittle.

1. Trim off all dangling vines at the top and edges of the trellis or arbor.
2. Roll up any mat of vines that is on top of an arbor and toss it in the compost heap. A rake works well to get the mat going.
   You may need to clip a few stems, but Queen's Wreath is more of a sprawler than a clinging vine on a horizontal lattice or mesh.
3. If you have room, get behind the trellis and cut the stems that you can find passing behind the trellis.
4. If the trellis is large, cut the stems to divide the growth into vertical sections 3 or 4 feet wide.
5. Start pulling the vines down from the sunny side.  I use a rake and pull from the top down, rolling the vines as I pull.  This removes most of the growth. 
6. Cut the stems close to the roots.
7. That's it until next year.

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Birds that Live in Glass Houses

The Verdins Built It Where?

Verdins (Auriparus flaviceps) are tiny yellow-headed birds that flit around the desert eating bugs. They are almost always in motion, cheeping and flitting incessantly, bustling around in the branches and flowers. They are great for keeping aphids and whiteflies under control in my yard.

Verdin on Peruvian Cereus

They build big, messy nests that are disguised as a clump of dead twigs caught in a branch. The entrance is low on the side, or even under the nest.  They build nests that are rough shelters for adults and more elaborate nests lined with soft material for raising a brood.

This pair of verdins started out in a mesquite tree.  Even when we pruned off a broken branch next to the nest, they kept building.

Verdin nest in mesquite tree.

Unfortunately we had a serious wind storm a couple days after I took this photo. The branch with the nest broke off and was dangling. We checked the nest for eggs or hatchlings and found none, so we pruned off the branch and scattered the nesting materials out for them to reuse. If we had to destroy their house, we could at least help them rebuild.

Several days later one of the cats was chittering at the front window, intently watching a pair of verdins picking up tiny twigs. I watched them fly .... here.

Yup ... the solar light over the entry.

They were stuffing one of the solar entry lights full of twigs and fiber, beginning another nest.

We moved it into a shadier location under a nearby eave, fearing the afternoon sun would cook any eggs they laid. The verdins kept building until that afternoon, when they apparently realized the nest was too hot. They abandoned the glass house briefly and are building a nest in the ironwood in the back yard.

Work is continuing on the glass house as well as the other nest. Maybe they like the view.





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Watching Grass and Weeds Grow : Week 13

Birds love my buffalo grass lawn, or maybe it's the weed seeds!

This are three species of Arizona doves. The tiny one is an Inca dove. They are often mistaken for the babies of other dove species, but they are just sparrow-sized doves. A mourning dove is at the upper right, and a whitewing is in the foreground. Whitewings are the biggest of the native doves.



The annual weeds are slowly being eliminated as I hand-pull them. After a section has been cleared of weeds, the buffalo grass is so thick that new ones can't sprout.

I wish I had used a pre-emergent, but it's too late now.

Bermuda grass is still emerging in a few places. Itjavascript:void(0) will continue to be a pest for quite a while.
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Raiders of the Lost Artichoke

Urban Quail-boy up to no good!

I have mixed feelings about the flocks of Gambel’s quail that roam the neighborhood. On the one hand, they are handsome native birds, eat weed seeds, and I know I should be honored to have the mob strolling through the landscaping. On the other hand, they devour the fresh tender leaves from my vegetables, make dust wallows in the cilantro patch, and dig holes in the mulch. Here’s one of them in the spring, deciding which part of the landscape he’s going to attack next.

It is definitely a male - notice the rust-colored head, black belly patch and large topknot feathers.

The tomato cages are partly for future support of the eggplant, but mostly to prevent the dogs from tag-team wrestling on top of them while the plants are small. By July the eggplant were 3 feet tall and bearing a dozen or more fruits a week.

The flowering plant in the background is called Desert Mallow or Globe Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua). It’s a weed, but a pretty one. In addition to the salmon color seen here, which is the most common color, other plants bloom in white or shades of lavender, pink, orange or an almost-red.

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