Weather: We continued to get rain through Monday. It looked like 3" of water lay in the bottom of the lidless trash bin, which I had tilted so it wouldn’t get so much.
Then, the respite from drought ended. A new high formed over the Four Corners on Tuesday, [1] and kept moisture from entering this part of the state; it stayed in Arizona. There still was enough residual moisture to produce afternoon thunder through Thursday. Then the pretense ended.
Last useful rain: 8/8. Week’s low: 56 degrees F. Week’s high: 89 degrees F in the shade. Winds were up to 31 mph in Santa Fé on Tuesday.
What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, yellow potentilla, buddleia, bird of paradise, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, red-tipped yucca, Russian sage, purple salvia, sweet peas, David and purple garden phlox, bouncing Bess, rose of Sharon, winecup mallow, pink evening primroses, squash, cultivated sunflowers, cushion chrysanthemum, lance leaf coreopsis, yellow yarrow, zinnias, pampas grass
One place up the road has David phlox along the drive and purple garden phlox near the house. I don’t remember the purple being in the white area before, but it was when I drove by on Tuesday. It may have resulted from some busy insects, or it may be like mine. I know that hot roots don’t lead to DNA changes, but the observation I reported last week may still be valid. Heat may influence which versions of genes appear in a given seed, or may determine which seedlings survive.
What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, datura, bindweed, green flower five eyes, silver leaf night shade, alfalfa, vetch, leather leaf globe mallow, nits-and-lice, Queen Anne’s lace, alfilerillo, velvetweed, yellow evening primrose, lamb’s quarter, toothed spurge, prostrate knotweed, goat heads, pigweed, Russian thistles, chamisa, native sunflowers, Hopi tea, goldenrod, wild lettuce, horseweed, strap leaf and golden hairy asters, ragweed, goats’ beards, dandelions, tobosa, ring muhly, six-week and black grama, brome, barnyard, quack, three awn, and bunny tail grasses
What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature and floribunda roses, cliff rose, fern bushes, garlic chives, hostas, Johnson blue geranium, Dutch clover, white spurge, large flower soapwort, lead plant, ladybells, sidalcea, hollyhocks, golden spur columbine, perennial four o’clocks, blue flax, sea lavender, Siberian catmint, tomatillo, chocolate flowers, anthemis, Mönch asters, black-eyed Susans, gloriosa daisies, Mexican hats, blanket flowers, plains coreopsis, Sensation cosmos, white yarrow, purple coneflowers
What bedding plants are blooming: Snapdragons
One pansy survived the hot nights of July, but isn’t blooming. The weather bureau reported July night temperatures, as an average, were the highest since it started keeping records in the 1880. Texas, where the heat center was concentrated, was the worst. New Mexico’s average nocturnal temperature was the fifth highest on record for the state. [2]
What’s blooming from this year’s seed: Sweet alyssum, bachelor buttons, cantaloup, watermelons
Animal sightings: Rabbit, magpie, hummingbird, geckoes, bumble bees, hornets, mosquitoes, harvester and sidewalk ants; hear crickets
Tasks: I hear an occasional weed eater, but not much more has been done since last week’s spate of mowers.
Weekly update: Goat heads seem more prolific this year. It’s partly because they grow low to the ground, and escape being beheaded by county mowers. It’s also because the seeds germinated a week earlier than the rival pigweeds and Russian thistles. They were blooming by mid-July in this area, but the larger pests weren’t obvious until ten days later.
The seeds may not be perfectly round, but they are round enough that they can roll. Mine usually come from my uphill neighbor. He controls them with a mower, so the seeds remain. They first were thick on his side of my drive, but last year managed to move across the gravel to the south side.
Usually, I can control them by pulling them when I see them. The radiating, divided leaves are distinctive, and the young roots stringy and straight.
This year I found them in great swaths beside the house. That didn’t make much sense. There was no place for them to migrate from, and they probably were too heavy to have been dispersed by the April winds.
When I pulled them — for they are the one plant I pull whenever and wherever I see one — I noticed something odd. They often were in dense clusters.
If you look closely at the plants you can see the flowers are spaced along the stem.
The more I thought about it, and those dense patches between dead and alive winterfat bushes, the more I decided the rabbit was responsible for transporting them from their usual habitat. It (or they) lurk in the shrubs.
The seeds resemble maces with their sharp points that attach to anything silly enough to get near them.
Last year, my side neighbors didn’t do much about the weeds, and goat’s heads proliferated in their yard. This spring, he complained about seeds getting into his shoes, but so far nothing much has been done.
That particular neighbor also has an area of dead brush where I suspect the lagomorph lives. I am assuming it picked up the seeds last year when it moved from the refuge through the Tribulus terrestris patch. It may have tried to remove them when it was sheltered in the winterfat, or the seeds just may have dropped when its legs lay along the ground.
Either way, that would explain both why the plants appeared in unusually dense clusters and in the areas they did.
Notes on photographs:
1. Mature goat head plant (Tribulus terrestris) with flowers spread along long runners that radiate from the center; taken 11 August 2022 in my side neighbor’s patch.
2. Colony of goat’s heads beside my house; 1 August 2022.
3. Root of a mature plant that has begun to branch; it still can be pulled, but its removal leaves an opening for new seeds to settle; 11 August 2022.
4. Spaced flower and seed capsule on same plant as #3; 11 August 2022.
5. Close-up of a flower showing the ovary that spawns the vicious seeds; 5 August 2022.
End notes:
Goat’s heads are discussed on Nature Abhors a Garden website on 5 September 2010.
1. “Forecast Discussion” for 8 August 2022 at 3:30 am. United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service website for Los Alamos, New Mexico.
2. Zach Rosenthal and Jason Samenow. “July 2022 Featured Hottest Nights in U.S. History.” Washington Post website, 10 August 2022.
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