In defense of non-native flora and fauna in Phoenix, Arizona

I've always been a defender of non-native plants and animals in places like Phoenix, Arizona. I myself am one of those animals, migrating from Minnesota in my teens. And since I love gardening, I have a LOT of non-native plants here around my home in Glendale, which is a suburb of Phoenix.

There have been a lot of people who have always taken an opposing view, with a preference for only native species to live there, and of course that leaves me, and my daffodils, out. It also would mean no dachshunds, as canis lupus familiaris, var. wiener dog, is not a native animal to the Sonoran Desert. And when people say that my plants, animals, and myself are non-native, I guess I have to agree. We really don't belong there, in a place that gets so hot that even the roadrunners slow down a bit in the summer.

And if someone is buying the beers, I'll smile and nod in agreement that the Sonoran Desert (where Phoenix is) should be left to the saguaros and the gila monsters. That is, if gila monsters are native (I'm not sure about that, but I know that saguaros are). I suppose anything that can live in the desert without any type of help from people (including scrounging garbage) should be the only things allowed to live there. But just between you and me, I think that it would be kind of a shame if everybody left, and took their daffodils, and their wiener dogs.

As you can tell, I'm a defender of non-native flora and fauna in Phoenix. No, palms trees aren't native to Phoenix, but I love to see them. And I've planted a lot of non-native plants here which makes living here a pure joy to me. I love living in the Phoenix, Arizona area, but my Phoenix needs to be a garden, with dogs, and also with air conditioning. I will admit that it's artificiality, but to me it's what humans do, creating an environment that they enjoy, painting with a palette of colors that's harmonious to the world that they want to see every day.

Don't get me wrong, I love the virgin desert, and I love to go out and see it. But right around me I want to live in a garden, with daffodils, and wiener dogs.

If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more