Migrating Iris

Weather: We got rain a couple times this week.  It always happened after dark, so I couldn’t see if there were problems with runoff from the stripped hill above my house.  The only known problem, so far, has been bits of cut Russian thistles that have landed in my yard when the winds have blown.

Last useful rain: 9/22.  Week’s low: 42 degrees F.  Week’s high: 87 degrees F in the shade.  Winds got up to 29 mph in Los Alamos on last Sunday.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, buddleia, silver lace vine, morning glories, Russian sage, roses of Sharon, hollyhocks, red amaranth, Maximilian sunflowers, cushion chrysanthemums, black-eyed Susans, yellow cosmos, marigolds

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, datura, scarlet creeper, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, leather leaf globe mallow, Queen Anne’s lace, goats’ heads, green amaranth, white pigweed, lambs’ quarters, snakeweed broom, native sunflowers, ánil del muerto, broom senecio, Hopi tea, tahoka daisies, horseweed, dandelion; heath, purple, and golden hairy asters

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature roses, cliff rose, yellow potentillas, sweet peas, large flowered soapwort, winecup mallows, perennial four o’clock, pink evening primroses, chocolate flowers, Mexican hats, blanket flowers, lance leaf and plains coreopsis, anthemis

What bedding plants are blooming: Snapdragons

What’s blooming from this year’s seed: Cantaloupe, scarlet flax, bachelor buttons, zinnias, Sensation cosmos

Animal sightings: Small geckoes; monarch, cabbage, and sulphur butterflies; small and bumble bees, few hornets, crickets, few grasshoppers, sidewalk and harvester ants

Wednesday I was using the string trimmer along the fence that edges the drive to the road.  I picked up a trash bin cover that had been on the ground for a few weeks and a colony of black insects ran away.  Then, a fist-sized brown toad emerged, but did not immediately disappear.

Tasks: Most people who keep their yards and shoulders clear have cut down the pigweed that sprouted after the rains.  I do still hear string trimmers sometimes when I’m out working.  Their noise carries a long distance, especially in the mornings when there is little traffic.

Weekly update: So far, I haven’t had much luck with bearded iris, even though they grow in this area.  They even survive in neglected areas of the local cemeteries.

I ordered bulbs in 1996 from one of the mass market bulb catalogs.  The two varieties bloomed a little each year.  The next year I bought 6 bulbs from the local hardware; these came with a name that doesn’t seem to exist, but they bloomed better than the others.  I could tell them apart because the combinations of yellow or white tops and falls were unique to each.

A few years passed and I ordered some more from the first company.  Again they bloomed, but not prolifically.  I decided to buy from a more expensive grower that specialized in iris, but again without much luck.  Next, I tried some reblooming iris from a mass market nursery that did not specialize in bulbs in 2013.  They bloomed for a few years, then stopped, and never bloomed a second time.

I was planting them along a slope that descended from the driveway to the main flower bed.  I decided the problem was that I had planted a 30' row of potentillas along the same slope in 2013, and they soon overshadowed the iris.  I assumed they simply died out from the competition.

Last summer I started trimming dead wood from under the shrubs and found iris leaves deep in the shade.  I moved about 40 to the main bed in September.  All they’ve done so far is produce bigger leaves.

This past week I moved another 75 from under the potentillas.  That’s a rough total of 115 plants from the 33 I originally purchased.

Many remained deep in shade, but the ones that were closer to the bottom of slope had begun migrating.  There’s a course of bricks at the base of the slope that creates a low barrier above the paved ditch.  Many were displacing the bricks.

When I removed the bricks to get to the rhizomes, I discovered the leaves arose above one end with radiating white roots.  Behind this active head were long, brown, cigar-shaped roots that reached back to the original locations.  They apparently had been slowly extending themselves until they reached water.  The potentillas kept pace so they never found sunlight.

I had given up on those iris, and in 2019 began buying some iris from another iris grower, which I put in the main bed.  They always bloom well the first year, because they formed their blooming stems while they were in the optimal conditions.  They’ve bloomed less since, but then we’ve had some dry summers and tough winters.

Last year I was careful to transplant the older varieties into a different area.  This year I had so many, I put them wherever I could find a space.  If they ever bloom, I still may be able to tell them apart by the differences in fall and upright colors.

Notes on photographs:
1.  Goldfinger yellow potentilla (Potentilla fruticosa) near retaining wall this summer, 1 July 2022.  The iris not visible.

2. Strike It Rich bearded iris (Iris germanica) near retaining wall, 17 May 2012.  These were the ones from the first specialty iris grower.  Most of the surrounding green is golden spur columbine (
Aquilegia chrysantha).

3.  Strike It Rich bearded iris with young Goldfinger potentillas, 25 May 2015.  The other yellow flowers are the columbine.

4.  Banana Split bearded iris that has displaced bricks near the paver-lined ditch, 15 March 2014.  This is the variety I bought in the local store.

Dead Wood

Weather: Mornings are colder and the sun rises later.  This Monday I began my fall watering schedule which spreads the work done in three days over four.

Last useful rain: 9/13.  Week’s low: 42 degrees F.  Week’s high: 84 degrees F in the shade.  Winds got up to 26 mph in Santa Fé on Thursday.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, buddleia, fern bush, upright sedum, silver lace vine, morning glories, Russian sage, purple salvia, David phlox, roses of Sharon, hollyhocks, winecup mallows, Maximilian and cultivated sunflowers, cushion chrysanthemum, black-eyed Susan, yellow cosmos, marigolds, zinnias

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, datura, scarlet creeper, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, leather leaf globe mallows, goat’s heads, green amaranth, white pigweed, lambs’ quarters, snakeweed broom, native sunflowers, ánil del muerto, Hopi tea, tahoka daisies, wild lettuce, horseweed, gumweed, ragweed; heath, purple, strap leaf, and golden hairy asters; timothy, barnyard, and quack grasses

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature and floribunda roses, cliff rose, yellow potentillas, sweet peas, golden spur columbine, perennial four o’clocks, pink evening primroses, chocolate flowers, Mexican hats, blanket flowers, lance leaf and plains coreopsis, anthemis

What bedding plants are blooming: Snapdragons

What’s blooming from this year’s seed: Cantaloupes, bachelor buttons, Sensation cosmos

This spring, I scattered zinnia seeds where there was a bare space that be colonized by an unwelcome visitor.  Since few ever germinate, I threw down lots of seeds.  This year, many came up in the shade of the cottonwood.  Each plant as put up one stem, with one flower.

I put more near some peaches.  Fewer came up, and were as stingy with their blossoms as usual.  However, seeds blew across the drive and other plants came up where they chose.  One in the driveway has many stems on a single plant with lots of flowers.  Same seed package.

Animal sightings: Ground squirrel, small gecko, monarch and cabbage butterflies, small bee, fewer hornets, sidewalk and harvester ants; hear crickets

My neighbor, with his mercenary backhoe, destroyed the habitat of the ground squirrel.  I saw it on my porch railing Saturday afternoon.

Tasks: Jobs never get done; there’s never that moment when I can look back and see something as it ought to be.  Before I finish with a row, plants have begun to reclaim the cleared areas.  On Monday I thought I had finished cutting Russian thistles in the front yard, after working with the string trimmer for five days off and on beginning September 1.  I did notice some I had missed on the wetter side, and Wednesday went out to get them.  Then I saw the weeds that had been cut had begun to regrow, especially in areas that were nearer where I water shrubs.  They were closer to the ground and denser, but easier to cut.  So far, I’ve spent two day redoing what I had hoped was done.

Weekly update: This week I finally began cutting dead wood from shrubs.  I never seem to get around to this until fall, when I have to worry about finishing before frost kills leaves.  The cutting can’t be done until summer, after the leaves all have emerged, and by then other areas demand more attention.

I called the man I’ve used before to cut the dead wood in trees.  He was last here in the winter of 2019, but I hadn’t had him back because it was so cold I didn’t want to disturb Nature’s precautions.

Back then the cottonless cottonwood had lots of dead wood because it had been attacked by borers.  A useful woodpecker had gone after them, leaving enlarged holes.  The tree trimmer brought his crane and cut everything that had died, then sprayed the tree with an insecticide.  He made no promises.  He hadn’t been able to save a relative’s tree with the same methods.

The next year, the cottonwood abandoned the limbs that had been pruned, and put out new growth nearer the trunk.  It also began sending out sprouts along the block paths.  By the time I called his crew this year, the tree looked nearly as bad as it had two years ago, but was recovering.

Cutting dead wood is tedious.  When I do it I begin with the obvious bare ends.  Then, I have to trace each barren stem back to point where there’s new life or to the ground.  There are no short cuts.  One has to bury oneself in the shrub.

They professional crew followed the same process.  They first cut everything they could from the ground with a chainsaw on a pole.  Then, one man went into the bucket and started at the outer edges.  Since many of the cottonwood branches were long, he cut them in small segments.

Next, he took the bucket into the tree itself to get to the beginnings of the dead wood.

The other crewman was picking up debris and feeding it into the shredder.  I asked that man how long he had been doing this kind of work.  He said he had a ranch north of town where he had to clear his own trees.  It’s how we all learn.

When the crew left, the tree looked better than it had looked in years.  It looked normal.

ANo doubt, some wood will die back from the cuts.  It always does.  But maybe, fingers crossed, the men finally were able to get the last of the borers.  The man in the crane only saw one diseased limb, and he cut it below the point of damage.

Notes on photographs:
1-2.  Thumbelina zinnias (Zinnia elegans), 17 September 2022.
3-5.  Souixland cottonless cottonwood (Populus deltoides), 16 September 2022.

A Scrapped Hillside

Weather: My internet was down for ten days after the storm on August 26.  During the last week, I was having breathing problems I couldn’t easily manage.  I began to wonder if I had developed new allergies.

Then, when I got my DSL back on Tuesday, I discovered we’d been getting smoke from fires on the west coast at the same time an inversion from the heat was trapping moist air coming up from Baja.  Once I knew the problem, I started wearing a mask whenever I went outside.  And sometimes, I kept it on in the house.

Monday, Labor Day, is traditionally the start of fall, and this week I noticed it was staying darker longer in the mornings.  When I walked around the entire yard on Friday, I discovered a number of plants, especially the cultivated ones, had peaked or gone out of bloom entirely.

Since I missed posting last week because the local brand X telephone company is operating with a large backlog of service requests, I’m including changes to bloom data that document the dramatic changes of the past week.  It does not include the many spring and early summer plants that have resumed their bloom cycles with a few, widely scatters flowers.

Last useful rain: 9/9.  Week’s low: 42 degrees F.  Week’s high: 90 degrees F in the shade.  No winds over 25 mph in Los Alamos or Santa Fé.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, buddleia, upright sedum, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, morning glories, Russian sage, purple salvia, sweet peas, David and purple phlox, bouncing Bess, roses of Sharon, winecup mallows, red amaranth, farmer’s sunflowers, cushion chrysanthemum, black-eyed Susans, marigolds, zinnias

In bloom last week: red-tipped yuccas, dahlia

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, datura, green leaf five eyes, bindweed, Illinois bundle flowers, alfalfa, fern leaf and leather leaf globe mallows, nits-and-lice, stick leaf, toothed spurge peaked, prostrate knotweed peaked, goats’ heads, green amaranth, white pigweed, Russian thistles, lambs’ quarters, snakeweed broom, native sunflowers, ánil del muerto, Hopi tea, tahoka daisies, wild lettuce, horseweed, dandelions; heath, purple, strap leaf, and golden hairy asters; ring muhly, six-week grama, smooth brome, timothy, barnyard, and quack grasses

In bloom last week: Purslane, silver leaf nightshade, ivy leaf morning glory, scarlet creeper, Queen Anne’s lace, alfilerillo, yellow evening primroses, velvetweed, chamisa, goldenrod, ragweed, goats’ beards, native dandelions, Nebraska sedge, black grama grass

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature and floribunda roses, cliff rose, yellow potentillas, garlic chives peaked, large flowered soapwort, lead plants peaked, lady bells, sidalcea, hollyhocks, golden spur columbines, perennial four o’clocks, blue flax, pink evening primroses, chocolate flowers, Maximilian and cultivated sunflowers, Mexican hats, blanket flowers, lance leaf and plains coreopsis, anthemis

In bloom last week: Desert willow, hostas, tomatillos

What bedding plants are blooming: Snapdragons

What’s blooming from this year’s seed: Cardinal climber, sweet alyssum, cantaloupes, watermelons, bachelor buttons, Sensation cosmos

The melons came up early, and one watermelon even produced a few flowers which the rabbit ate.  They went into remission with the heat, and now are blooming like they should have been in June.  I’m quite happy to see the flowers, but I’m not sure what good it does for them to be putting out fruit when 90 days do not remain between now and frost.

Animal sightings: Hummingbird, young geckoes, black swallowtail butterfly, small bees on ánil del muerto, bumble bees on Maximilian sunflowers, hornets, house flies, sidewalk and harvester ants; hear crickets; destroyed insect webs in some plants

Tasks: Farmers cut their hay.

Weekly update: The battle against flooding and erosion is never ending.  I’ve been spending part of every day, when I’m outside, resetting bricks that terrace my main bed.  After twenty-five years, roots have grown into the dirt that washed between the bricks, while some of the bricks themselves have tilted from water moving under them.  They had become dangerous to walk on.

After the rain that washed through the retaining wall, I went out with a hoe and enlarged the channel that carries water from the down spout on the front of the house.  When it rained a week later, again on a Friday, the water moved away from the house, and rapidly through the channel but did not reach the top.

While I’ve been working slowly, my uphill neighbor stopped tending weeds sometime last summer.  This past week she roused herself, and began pulling the pigweeds and Russian thistles that had taken over her border on the other side of our shared drive.

Her preference is to remove plants.  I pull them when they’re young, but when they mature I would rather cut them at the base.  My experience has been that, if I remove large root balls, I create disturbed soil for seeds to colonize, and the seeds often come from the plants I’m removing.

This Friday I heard a loud noise, and looked through the front window.  She or her husband had hired the same backhoe driver who destroyed the gas meter in the yard of my neighbor on the other side.  He has never meet a patch of green he didn’t want to vanquish.  Brown is his sacred color.
 
My neighbors may be from urban areas, and not particularly interested in the ways of native vegetation.  I know I’m unusual in tracking changes brought on by the drought.  I know the explosion of thistles was caused by the April wind that blew them from afar, but they may have concluded they came from their south yard.

Russian thistles usually grow in disturbed ground.  The neighbors had many in their north field and around their buildings, both of which had been stripped of native grasses and shrubs.  When I looked at the south field two weeks ago I was surprised that, not only had the grasses survived, but they had not died back like those on the prairie.

There were, to be sure, problems.  Thistles grew along the high ditch and berm.  Pigweed and some thorny shrub was thick along my wooded fence.  Saltbushes had colonized their septic field, and then spread.  But worse were the piles of debris left when my neighbor’s husban went out with a chain saw to cut down elms or Russian olives, and left the wood were it fell.  That was where the rabbits and ground squirrels took refuge.

The problem is that the north field gently slopes toward their house, while the back field slopes more quickly toward mine.  No one seemed to understand one cannot strip a hillside bare of its vegetation.  The backhoe driver does what he is told, but he doesn’t understand things like contour plowing.  Most of the traditional farms here used flood irrigation in fields that had been leveled by water.  When they needed to be cleared, it only mattered that the furrows direct the water where needed.

So, he started at the upper corner of their back field and drove downhill along the barbed wire fence to my fence.  

There he turned and drove at a right angle, and continued each lap of his rectangular pattern until he was in the middle.

What remained of the berm and ditch disappeared, and worse, he went on the other side of their upper fence, onto Pueblo land, and scrapped a wide swath there.

When it rains, and sooner or later it will, water will flow down the hillside, until it is stopped by omething.  It may be the piles of vegetation left at edges, it may be the salt bushes he left along the fence, it may be my cement block walk, or it may be my retaining wall.  The area north of it had fewer shrubs a month ago, and has none now.

I don’t know what will happen.  The only precaution I’ve taken is gathering all the unused bricks that were serving as weights, and lined them along the downhill side of the block walk above the retaining wall.  I don’t have enough to do more than 5' and won’t know until it rains if they do any good.  If they do, of course, I’ll go to the big box and buy more pavers to extend the dyke.

If not, I’ll have to see.  All I absolutely know is now that the ground has been scrapped, thistles will abound next year, and, sooner or later, the backhoe driver will be back.  He’s made two passes, so far this year, in the relatively flat yard across the road.

Notes on photographs: All taken on 11 September 2022.
1.  Watermelon flower (Citrullus vulgaris) coming up between morning glories.
2.  Melon, which is 2" across and heavy.

3.  My neighbor’s bare field sloping toward the south end of my fence; the backhoe driver left the salt bushes (Atriplex canescens).

4.  What remains of the berm and ditch shown in the photographs in the last post.

5.  South end of fence where the need to turn the backhoe saved the salt bushes and created a small change in direction of the furrows that will bring water downhill.

6.  Area of my fence where I was flooded in August.  Whatever had been growing on the opposite side has been destroyed.  The Maximilian sunflowers (Helianthus maximiliani) on my side, and the ánil del muerto (Verbesina encelioides) on the other side won’t stop anything.  The green is white pigweed (Amaranthus albus), which may do some good.  However, I’m allergic to its seeds.

A Ten Year Storm

Note: This was written for 28 August 2022.

Weather: It rained five of the ten days from August 17 to August 26.  There was 2" of water in the trash bins on Monday.  After they were emptied, it rained Monday night, and there was 3" of water in the bottoms Tuesday morning.  Since I’m the one who brought in the bins, rather than my neighbor, I tipped mine sideways, so don’t know how much water we got on Friday.  The internet went down, and stayed down until September 6 so I couldn’t get information before it disappeared from the weather bureau website.

Clouds passed through around 9 am on Friday, then some rain fell from about 3 pm to 3:30 pm.  I heard some thunder around 4:25 pm that became a continuous rumble by 4:35 pm.  Then it started.

I heard the first drops on the metal roof at 4:59 pm, and it was coming down within a minute.  Visibility disappeared as rain filled the air.  I could see water blowing horizontally across the prairie just inches above the grasses.  By 5:02 pm, just three minutes after the first drops, water was running down my driveway, collecting near the down spout for the front of the house, and pooling around shrubs that were getting the overflow from the back of the building.

Water continued to come down hard, with only slight breaks until 5:30 pm.  When I ventured outside a few minutes later, I heard the arroyo running a quarter mile away.  The last time I thought I heard it roar was 2018, and before that 2016.

Some residual rain fell, but not enough to stop water from sinking into the ground.  When I woke at 11 pm, it was raining quietly.  It probably just had started, and didn’t last long.  When I awoke again at 5 am, I could see stars in a black sky.

Last useful rain: 8/26.  Week’s low: 55 degrees F.  Week’s high: 84 degrees F in the shade.  No winds over 25 mph in Los Alamos or Santa Fé.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, yellow potentilla, buddleia, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, purple morning glories, red-tipped yucca, Russian sage, purple salvia, sweet peas, David and purple garden phlox, bouncing Bess, rose of Sharon, winecup mallows, cultivated and farmer’s sunflowers, cushion chrysanthemum, black-eyed Susans, marigolds, zinnias, yellow yarrow; pyracantha berries orange, apples and peaches beginning to fall from trees

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, datura, green leaf five eyes, silver leaf nightshade, bindweed, scarlet creeper, ivy leaf morning glory, alfalfa, leather leaf globe mallow, nits-and-lice, Queen Anne’s lace, stick leaf, alfilerillo, yellow evening primroses, velvetweed, toothed spurge, prostrate knotweed, goat’s heads, green amaranth, pigweed, Russian thistles, lamb’s quarter, chamisa, snakeweed broom, native sunflowers, ánil del muerto, Hopi tea, tahoka daisies, goldenrod, wild lettuce, horseweed, strap leaf and golden hairy asters, ragweed, dandelions; Nebraska sedge, ring muhly, six-week and black grama, brome, timothy, barnyard, and quack grasses

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature and floribunda roses, cliff rose, garlic chives, hostas, Johnson blue geranium, large flower soapwort, lead plants, lady bells, sidalcea, hollyhocks, golden spur columbine, perennial four o’clocks, blue flax, pink evening primroses, tomatillo, chocolate flowers, anthemis, Mönch asters, Mexican hats, blanket flowers, lance leaf and plains coreopsis, Sensation cosmos, white yarrow

What bedding plants are blooming: Snapdragons; petunias in pots in the village.

What’s blooming from this year’s seed: Sweet alyssum, cantaloupe, honeydew and watermelons, bachelor buttons

Animal sightings: Rabbit, hummingbird, geckoes, lady bug, monarch and cabbage butterflies, hummingbird moth, small and bumble bees, hornets, mosquitoes, house flies, sidewalk ants; hear crickets

Tasks: Usually this time of year I note the number of cuts farmers have made in their hay fields.  This year, the more important statistic is the number of times we’ve cut down our weeds.  I’ve used the string trimmer twice along the outer drive, my uphill neighbor had mounted his mower twice, and by west neighbor has had the yard scrapped two times.  Farmers cut brome grass and alfalfa in late July.

Weekly update: The rains Friday caused serious flooding for the first time in ten years.  Water used to come gliding over the top of the prairie until it hit the lip of my retaining wall.  Then, it came through the openings in the top tier of rail timbers, and washed out the plants below.

I stuck pieces of Talavera tile in the places where water seeped through the wall.  More important, my uphill east neighbor created a smaller berm and ditch that extended almost to the end of his property.

I hadn’t been flooded again, that is, until Friday.  Then it came under the fence, hit the wall, sank, and came through the openings in the lowest timbers.  Next, the water collected in the garden beds that were edged by bricks to keep the soil from washing down the slope.  Once it filled the beds, the water washed over the edge and through the crevices of the unmortared bricks.

My first response was panic of the “oh no, everything I’ve ever done is being washed away.”  I connected it to the big wind in April that changed the native parts of my yard from prairie and scrub into Russian thistle havens.

Then, more calmly, I asked what exactly changed.  One possibility was that my neighbor’s berm had disappeared.  Without constant renewal, winds level high spots and fill openings.  I walked out through the dense Russian thistles on the prairie and looked.  Sure enough, he had done nothing since he first dug it.

There’s nothing to be done there.  Neighbors are like acts of Nature that can’t be controlled.

Then, I realized I had made some changes that prevented the water that flowed under our shared fence from doing damage.  I had installed a block walk between the fence and the retaining wall so I could walk through there.

When the rain was coming down, I watched it flow down another block path into the gravel driveway.  It functioned like any urban pavement that captures and channels water.  However, the one by the retaining was not parallel with the flow of water.  In most places the 1.5" thick blocks are not level with the ground.  Along the fence, they first stopped the water from progressing.  Then, when the water in the temporary reservoir reached the top of the blocks, it flowed along the blocks and away from the retaining wall.

The block walk meant the problem was with the retaining wall itself.  I wondered if the ground squirrel tunnels had created a problem, then decided we’ve had so much rain that the water had sunk farther into the ground, and so reached a lower level.

It was then I remembered I had noticed some deterioration in the bottoms of some timbers.  I didn’t check it out when I saw it because, years ago I saw a black widow spider in the wall, and have never put a hand near it since.

That’s a serious problem, and I don’t yet know the solution.

In the meantime, all I can do is routine maintenance.  Ever since I dug the ditches with a hoe, garlic chives, winecup mallows, and dandelions have colonized the bottom.  I added pavers to keep them down.  It reduced my work, but also the volume of water the ditches could carry.

I retrofitted pavers into the ditch bottom.  Since they weren’t part of the design, there were gaps between them and the bricks lining the ditches.  In June, I pried out the bricks on one side of the ditch that had sunk into the mud, and reset them next to the pavers.  I added some soil behind them to expand the bed a few inches.

When I looked at the pictures, I saw that that part of the Ditch had done just exactly what it was supposed to, even if it was temporarily overwhelmed.  Everything got flooded, but nothing washed away.

Notes on photographs:
1. Stick leaf (Mentzelia nuda) blooming late in the afternoon, 27 August 2022.

2. My uphill neighbor’s berm, 19 November 2011.

3. Water rushing through the retaining wall at 5:34 pm, just after the rain had let up on 26 August 2022.

4. My uphill neighbor’s berm now, 27 August 2027.

5.  Water running down a block path, with garlic chives on either side, at 5:36 pm on 26 August 2022.

6.  Water dripping through the damaged part of the retaining wall at 5:47 pm, after the rain had stopped on 26 August 2022.

7.  Ditch carrying away water at 6:47 pm, after the rain had stopped and some water was sinkng into the bed on 26 August 2022.