Don't Ignore This Summer Weed

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Don't Ignore This Summer Weed
While spring is coming in the door it's a good time to think about what's to follow in a mere two months - summer. It will get hot and dry and Tucson gardeners might want to grow a little color that can take the heat. Most Tucson gardeners are familiar with the low growing Moss Rose, Portulaca grandiflora, and the plant's small fleshy leaves and big showy flowers produced in a variety of colors. The plants or seeds are fairly easy to find in the nurseries and garden centers as summer approaches.

Not quite as common is Portulaca oleracea or purslane. This sometime culinary weed doesn't offer the assortment of color or quite the mass of flowers of Moss Rose, but it does grow as easily as a weed and certainly doesn't mind our hot, dry summers. It responds well to watering as it spreads out across the ground or drapes over a hanging basket.

As a some time frugal gardener I'll buy one or two plants and then propagate the rest that I need from cuttings. Last year I grew the red flowered purslane and will have a bright pink to add to the collection of hanging baskets this summer. If the plants are as colorful as the reds were last year, I'll be taking more cuttings as the plants grow.

I've found when the temperatures climb and water is scarce, birds will feed on the succulent leaves and pocket gophers and Harris squirrels won't hesitate to climb a tree to get at the foliage and flowers growing from a hanging basket. I've always grown my purslane in containers but I'm sure it would do equally well in well drained sunny soil as long as there aren't too many rabbits or other rodents around to eat the plants. The flowers produce seed pods that could be collected if a gardener wanted to try starting the plants from seed. The fleshy stems root easily.

Moss Rose has delicate, slender foliage and an abundance of single or double colorful flowers and the more popular summer annual of the Portulaca.
Out in the wilds purslane is considered a weed with its thicker fleshy leaves. The low growing plant produces a red, white, yellow or pink flower.
Yellow flowered purslane.
Plastic hanging baskets of red flowered purslane bloomed all summer long in the shade of this mesquite. Small, furry desert creatures were constant visitors to the flowering baskets.
Carried over from the summer of 2001 these pink and red purslane will grow rapidly to fill ten inch hanging baskets when the weather is hot and dry.

With Moss Rose and purslane such close relatives there should be room for both in the summer garden. Both have admirable qualities but one has the reputation of being quite a bit more showy than the other. This year you might want to keep in mind that there's always room for a few weeds in the garden whether you want them or not. (2002)