Mesa Seed & StartNotes from the benches
Why we grow trees in tall pots
A desert tree spends its first year building a taproot, not a canopy. In a standard squat nursery can that root hits the bottom in about six weeks…
Collecting seed without taking too much
Our rule is one plant in ten, and never more than a fifth of the seed on that plant. For annuals in a poor year we skip the patch…
What the 2026 monsoon did to the beds
We measured 4.1 inches between July 3 and August 20, most of it in three storms. The second one dropped 1.6 inches in forty minutes and moved a full…
How to water a native you just planted
The plant came from a pot that was watered every other day. The ground it is going into may not see rain for ten weeks. The first summer is about…
Desert milkweed from seed, the slow way
Germination without cold treatment was 8 percent in our trial flat. With thirty days in damp sand at fridge temperature it was 61 percent. That is…