MESA, Ariz. – Jane Falkenstein’s house looks like any other single-family home in Arizona’s Salt River Valley: beige stucco, gravel lawn, a two-car garage, a shaggy palm tree.
The path to her front door gives the first indication that her home is something special. A mature plumeria tree with dozens of fragrant yellow and white flowers wraps around the walkway. Her open windows emit the sound of screeching birds, clearly walking towards the end of the dead end. Above her doorbell is a stained glass window with a green Amazon parrot.
These eccentricities, while hardly preparing a visitor, foretell the little wonder tucked away in Mrs. Falkenstein’s backyard – a dense jungle of rare Latin American and Asian fruit trees in one of the hottest and most arid urban environments in North America.
The architect of this backyard ecosystem was her husband, Dr. Alois Falkenstein Jr., a German immigrant, U.S. Air Force veteran and ophthalmologist who began growing fruit plants that most Arizonans had never tasted. His crops include jabuticaba berries, longans, loquat plums, pluerries, white sapotes, Keitt mangoes, finger limes, donut peaches, bergamot oranges, and Fujian Bai Mi figs, a variety popularly known as Nixon peace figs after Mao Zedong had given cuttings of the plant as a propitiatory offering during the president’s trip to China in 1972.
dr. Falkenstein, who died in 2015 at the age of 68, was fluent in German and could read and write in several languages, Ms Falkenstein, 73, said, adding that these skills were useful in his work as an onboard doctor and translator for diplomats.
In his spare time, Dr. Already, as he was known, plants. “He wrote numerous articles on gibberellic acid and the growth patterns of fruit plants,” she said. “He was a curious person and a quick learner.”
dr. Falkenstein broke ground in his backyard when the couple moved into the house in 1981; he was frustrated by the lack of tropical fruits in nearby supermarkets. Years later, he traveled with his sons, Alexander and Chris, to San Diego to spend three-day weekends researching tropical fruits.
“My brother and I knew these trips weren’t meant to be fancy — they were meant to teach us things,” recalls Alexander, 34. “He would take us to museums and gardeners’ homes. He spoke to rare fruit growers about their favorite books and ideas. I noticed there was a lot of mutual respect and admiration.”
These trips enabled Dr. Falkenstein able to transport dozens of plant cuttings back to the desert for propagation, and to apply the collective knowledge of his friends to his fledgling garden. Little by little he transformed the barren earth into a tropical microclimate. He built rows of shady gates, a chicken coop, a tool shed, and a large greenhouse that his friends jokingly referred to as his “shop of horrors.”
The greenhouse was his laboratory and gathering place, a meticulously maintained space for the delicate process of growing tropical plants in the desert. Many of these plant varieties were the offspring of his frustrating pre-Internet experiments with cross-pollination. When his dragon fruit flowers opened in the evening, he turned on a headlight, took one of his pollen containers from the freezer, and meticulously dusted his most resilient plants with a cotton swab.
His experiments in the greenhouse resulted in the creation of several hybrid plant species that are uniquely adapted to life in the desert. He gave one of the resulting dragon fruit varieties Alexander’s childhood nickname, Falco.
“When people asked me what my husband did, I would say he was a horticulturist,” Ms Falkenstein said. “I never said he was an ophthalmologist because he was very devoted to his garden. It was not his profession, but it was his love.”
In 2008, Dr. Falkenstein was diagnosed with cancer and was told he had 18 months to go. He lived another seven years. A few days after his death, Alexander took over the management of the garden and gave himself a year to figure out what to do with the garden.
“I knew that if we didn’t invest some time in maintenance and strategy, the problem would grow exponentially,” he said. Working in the garden three days a week, he soon realized that he knew little about the art and science of growing rare fruits. Many plants in the garden demanded a lot of attention. Shade and frequent pruning were a must. The icy winter nights also presented a significant challenge.
Mr. Falkenstein turned to the Arizona Rare Fruit Growers, a group of amateur pomologists his father helped start in 1995. By January, the group had more than 5,000 fans on Facebook; it regularly hosts events such as “Mulberry Taste-Off!” and “What RU grows and how to spread more!” Many of the senior members have fond memories of Dr. Falkenstein’s technical approach to the hobby and his gifts of fruit and plant cuttings.
For many rare fruit enthusiasts in the Phoenix area in the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. Falkenstein was the first to demonstrate that it was possible to grow these incredible plants in the desert.
“It was as natural as breathing for him,” said Ruth Ann Showalter, a longtime member of the growers’ association. “He was a great teacher and the group isn’t the same without him.”
In many ways, Mr. Falkenstein picked up where his father left off. He visits rare fruit growers in their homes and has his own rare fruit garden with mango, banana, loquat, peach and lemon trees. He gives away all the fruit and shares what he has learned at grower meetings.
“The goal is to share all this knowledge and fruits,” he says. “The strategy is to grow things that I really enjoy so that I can keep everything going.” (He recently gave several mangoes to Phoenix Suns chef Brendan Ayers, who used the fruit to make salsa for the team.)
Like many rare fruit growers in the Salt River Valley, Mr Falkenstein fears the worsening drought will force them to change their approach.
“We try to minimize water loss by making sure our soil is healthy,” he said, adding that he has removed plants that need more water, including his father’s banana trees. “We use a lot of mulch and wood chips, which can lead to a 30 to 50 percent reduction in water needs.”
He tries to be realistic about his gardening – he can only do so much to keep the plants alive and the garden manageable for his mother.
In many ways, his efforts are a continuation of his father’s work. “My father had a great reputation that he earned all his life,” he said. “If he were alive today, I think he would be proud of how much his generosity lives on.”
