Did you know you can find desert country in Canada? Contrary to some perceptions of  this country, British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley is home to the northern most sliver of the Sonoran Desert, which stretches across the 49th parallel into the South Okanagan.

This bit of sunshine comes from  just a couple of hours’ drive to the north, in the Central Okanagan. Here, while winters are real, the summers are long and hot. This hillside is typical of Kelowna, where – amid the sweetly scented Ponderosa pines and dry grasses – these beauties grow wild (as does asparagus), and their return each Spring accompanies the lifting of the winter inversion over the valley.