Left in Tucson

As of August 1, the Summer 2016 Fig Crop is in jeopardy.  Up until last week, I had been seeing these huge beetles flying around our Tucson backyard.  However, for some reason I was not recognizing as beetles but as our amusing carpenter beetles just looking for a home for their next brood.  I must have been in denial or something.  Several days ago, as I was checking for newly ripened figs, I discovered that Figaro was being infested by the notorious and feared Tucson and Sonoran Desert gardener's nemesis, the FIG BEETLE   .  These guys are huge compared to my old New Jersey Japanese beetles. These guys fly very slowly and bump into all sorts of things and structures.  While they may be very bad fliers, they are extremely efficient at gobbling up figs and leaving nothing but a limp, brown fig skin hanging from its stem.  They will crowd onto one fig to the point where you can not longer see the fig, just a mass of these green-black iridescent bugs all munching away.  Quite start

A couple of months ago I noticed a volunteer plant growing in my backyard garden here in Tucson.  I took a few photos of it clearly showing the leaves and the flower; shared it with my Master Gardener friends and a local landscaper but no one seemed to recognize it.  Finally, Jim, in his persistence found it online.  It turns out some bird or a gust of wind brought an Arizona native wildflower, an  Indian Mallow Plant  to our garden.  I must remember to save the seeds from this one.