BEAUTY AND THE DESERT DWELLER

Sometimes, it occurs to me that we've adapted a little too well to our desert surroundings.  After a recent day at the Desert Botanical Garden, we decided--with no small amount of enthusiasm--the kind of tree we'd like to plant in a bare spot of our back yard. 

Yes, it's a Soaptree Yucca/Palma or, if you're fluent in Latin, it is indeed a Yucca elata.  It belongs to the Century Plant Family which, I suppose, means that just when it's at the peak of it's beauty, it will begin to throw a central shoot skyward at the rate of a foot or so per day and then drop over dead.  It happens with some frequency in our part of the world...not only to plants.

You northerners will just have to watch and envy as it only grows in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. 

So, excuse me...we're off to the Soaptree Store!