It is the time of year when much of the Valley turns a shade of yellow, as palo verde trees bloom.
It’s a tell-tale sign of spring, especially in a region where spring can sometimes feel more like summer. But unlike other places that celebrate signs of the seasons – think cherry blossoms in D.C. – you tend not to see that kind of thing as much here.
Jen Urso, a Valley artist, joined The Show to discuss.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: You're somebody who does a lot with maps and mapping in your art. What do you think about when you see, you know, these bright, beautiful yellow blooms on trees across the Valley?
JEN URSO: Well, it always feels like, like a magical time of the year. In fact, just the other day I was sitting in a traffic light with my son in the car and looking at this tree next to like a McDonald's and, you know, it's bursting in yellow and yellow all over the ground.
And I said, you know, isn't this just amazing? Like this time of year where everything is just painted in yellow here. And then he pointed out that it matched the McDonald's logo. I said, yes, very on brand.
BRODIE: I mean, so for some of us, obviously this time of year means a trip to get your allergy shots, but like for a lot of people, this can really feel like sort of how we in the Valley identify spring because we don't really have, you know, the, the cold winters we are forced to stay inside and, you know, like me, you're from the East Coast originally, like there's a just a sort of a different way of marking the time it seems here.
URSO: Yeah, and I think, you know, the first time, I, I don't know if like the having moved here from, from Pennsylvania like about 30 years ago, I don't know if I really noticed it right away, like it didn't really register to me that this was something that was cyclical. But then it started to become a thing of like what what is happening when everything is yellow, you know, and then it sort of slowly dawns on me that, oh, it's, you know, connected, you know, just even as a person myself who I feel is pretty connected to nature, I still had that disconnect of understanding that this was something specific to this place that is really special that happens at a very specific time of the year.
BRODIE: So why is it then that like there's not more attention like it seems like the palo verde blooms don't get the love that, you know, cherry blossoms do in D.C.? I mean, people don't flock here this time of year to see this the way they do in Washington, D.C., and other places that have similar kinds of sort of, especially spring rituals.
URSO: Yeah, I mean, I think it's just an unfortunate consequence of Phoenix being believed to be this place that could be anything, you know, by settlers who came in and thought, OK, well, we can, it's just blank slate, we can plant whatever we want, we can grow whatever we want, you know, so it's a like this embedded lack of appreciation of what's indigenous to this area.
I mean, I think the pride of Phoenix and of the Sonoran Desert has changed a lot, at least since I've been here. So I think people are embracing it more. I mean, I did hear recently that there was a blossom festival at the Ocotillo restaurant, I think by some landscape architect, like a landscape architect group.
So there's definitely, I think, a better appreciation, but I remember there being a time when people were like complaining about, like, oh God, all this yellow, and I'm like, how can you complain about this is unbelievable, you know, this is beautiful.nThese blossoms are falling around us and, you know, raining on us, and I don't know how that could be turned into a thing that anyone could complain about.
BRODIE: I mean, I guess maybe if you have to, you know, brush them off your windshield all the time or, you know, sneezing stuff like that could be the only complaint.
BRODIE: It seems a small price to pay for, you know, like natural beauty.
BRODIE: Sure. So like, how do you try to use this, especially the the palo verde bloom in the, the work that you do? I mean, is this the kind of thing that you maybe try to highlight a little bit to try to, you know, get people to, to appreciate this kind of thing in this time of year more?
URSO: Well, for me, what I appreciate about a lot of native plants and what I try to do, especially in my own piece of land, is having plants that have a really good what they call leaf drops. So, you know, it helps enrich the soil. So as long as you're not, you know, what's the word, the leaf blower, like getting dust blower, blowing everything away. And you're letting that stuff drop, it's really helping the soil become, you know, richer, there's a healthier biome, you know.
So for me like I, I have a blue palo verde in, in my yard, which I guess actually blooms a lot earlier than some of the hybrid palo verdes that you see around town. I wasn't afraid to have the one with the thorns, but like I, it's, it's such an appreciation for me because like my goal is to really try to get the soil in my yard back to where it, it should be, or, you know, where it was originally before it was hit with like chemicals and and gravel and landscape fabric and all this kind of stuff, and it is slowly getting to that point.
So, you know, creosote it's a really good example of something that drops so many wonderful leaves and creates a really good mulch at the base of the plant, so I think of it as, you know, it's just a way of the desert protecting its soil for, you know, for this summer, the brutal summer that's coming up, it allows a harbor for insects and microbes and, you know, leaf blowing it all away is kind of defeating the purpose of what this tree, this wonderful tree that survives our environment is trying to do, you know.
