Weather:  Snow pellets from passing storms fell on Monday and Thursday.  They were enough to make it uncomfortable to be outside, but not enough to provide any moisture.

Since then, we’ve had bright stars at night that signify no moisture moving is through the air.  The humidity is created by the atmosphere sucking up water from the ground.

Last useful rain: 10/17.  Week’s low: 21 degrees F.  Week’s high: 65 degrees F in the shade.  Winds were up to 40 mph in Santa Fé on Thursday.

What’s blooming in my yard:  I don’t remember when cold temperatures that kill the remaining flowers came so near the Day of the Dead as this year.  I know the holiday developed in an area with a very different climate than ours and the coincidence is just that, but still it wasn’t far from my mind as I went out each afternoon to see what had survived.

Tuesday morning it was 30 degrees F around 5 am, and 28 at 8 am.  The cold temperatures killed the exposed zinnias, and morning glory leaves at the north end of the retaining wall planter by the Drive.  Other plants, especially those in massed in the retaining wall or near buildings survived.

Wednesday morning it got colder sooner, 26 at 5 am, 25 at 7:30 am.  The cold killed everything except some African marigolds and cosmos that were next to the west facing stucco garage, or buried in the morning glory leaves in the retaining wall. The catalpa dropped half its leaves, and one sandcherry dropped almost all of its.

Yesterday, the morning temperature fell to 21 degrees F.  All that’s left are a protected sweet alyssum stem, pink evening primroses from buds that were closed when it got cold, cushion chrysanthemums nearest the house, and maybe one chocolate flower near the house.

Animal sightings: Western chickadee, crickets, a few grasshoppers of different types, and hornets.  Monday and Thursday, I heard flocks of birds near the river.

Tasks: Hay trucks are driving south, perhaps from Colorado to Texas or México.

Weekly update: I’m still trying to fix my erosion problems, but hiring help is difficult.  The people I’ve talked to expect one thousand dollars a day for manual labor.  That’s what the man who trimmed my trees charges for two men and expensive equipment.  Unlike them, he also has to pay insurance, gross receipts taxes, and the other overhead of running a licensed business.

Part of the problem is supply and demand.  There are enough people in Santa Fé and Los Alamos who have so much money, they don’t blink at those estimates.  Landscape contractors in the capital can do enough business on maintenance contacts for people who only visit their homes a few times a year.  They no longer need to look for other work.

Contractors never exactly say no: they either demand so much money a bid will be rejected, visit but don’t bother to send a proposal, or don’t return phone calls.  I had one person who wanted $10,000 to do work in cash.  When I back off, and said I might do half the work, the person wanted full payment, before he did any work.

The other problem may be there no longer are enough people willing to do manual work, because states like Texas and Arizona are attacking immigrant workers.  They simply aren’t bothering to come.  It has the intended affect of raising wages, and the unintended one of eliminating the middling class customer.

I finally hired one of the thousand dollar men to clear 830 square feet of Russian thistles, and cut down some salt bushes from my neighbor’s side of my wooden fence.  Someone had stolen his tools, so he used a heavy pick to do most of the work.  He took his up front cash payment and left to buy a gas-powered string trimmer.  If I subtract the cost of that tool, his price was about right.

The money I spent probably saved me a great deal more.  I discovered the water that flooded me in August came from one low place.  The wooden boards had created a sufficient barrier when blown dust accumulated at their bases.  The only other place water came through was the section of fence that was damaged in April.

Before I cleared the area on the other side of my wooden fence, I thought I was going to have to dig a ditch or erect a 170' barrier.  I decided against the ditch, because it would be hard for me to maintain.  Then I found I couldn’t get rail timbers delivered, because I only needed one bundle of sixteen, and the minimum delivery was two bundles.

I thought about two courses of cinder blocks, which I probably could get delivered by a local hardware store.  However, it had the same logistics problem as the rail timbers.  They would have to be carried the length of my neighbor’s metal building, and then up to 166 more feet to be laid down.  That would be 100 trips carrying something that is moderately heavy.

I finally decided maybe all I needed to do was hire that man to fill the low area and embed a line of galvanized steel edging two feet from the fence.  I could order all the materials on-line, and have them delivered to my post office box for free.  His only tools should be a wheel barrow, hammer, and shovel.

For now, everything is on hold while I try to collect the materials and test them for durability.

Notes on photographs:
1.  African marigold (Tagetes erecta) after freezing temperatures, 29 October 2022.

2.  Back side of my fence, after land was cleared near it, 11 September 2022.

3.  Same section of my fence after I had it cleared so I could inspect problems, 29 October 2022.

Sweet Peas

Weather: Solid rain on Sunday, with mists continuing on Monday.  It may be the last rain of the season.  Temperatures have flirted with freezing, so perennials have mostly gone out of bloom.  Annuals that like cool weather are continuing to flourish.

Last useful rain: 10/17.  Week’s low: 32 degrees F.  Week’s high: 75 degrees F in the shade.  Winds were up to 31 mph in Los Alamos on Wednesday.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, morning glories, hollyhocks, red amaranth, Maximilian sunflowers, dahlias, zinnias, marigolds, Sensation cosmos

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Queen Anne’s lace, sweet peas, ánil del muerto, heath asters, dandelions

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature and floribunda roses, large flowered soapwort, pink evening primroses, chocolate flowers, Mexican hats, black-eyed Susans, plains coreopsis, anthemis

What’s turning red: Leaves on sand cherries, Virginia creeper, Johnson’s blue geranium

What’s turning orange: Leaves on peaches, which drop quickly

What’s turning yellow: Leaves on cottonwoods, catalpas, ash trees, Siberian peas, grape vines, roses of Sharons, hostas; most green leaves drain chlorophyll to chartreuse before turning yellow and dropping

Animal sightings: Gecko, cabbage butterflies, small and bumble bees, hornets, crickets, grass hoppers, harvester and sidewalk ants

Tasks: State mowed shoulders.

Weekly update: Sweet peas are one of those plants that are fussy, until things to right for them, and then they take over.

I planted some seeds of the perennial species, Lathyrus latifolia, by east fence in 2003.  The area was shaded by the wooden slats, and was between some tamarix trees.  They hobbled along, coming up but not blooming until 2006.

Then, in 2013, a plant appeared by the retaining wall; the following year they came up among the Dr. Huey roses that line the back porch.  The legume’s flowers were white, not pink.

The following year they started spreading.  Now they clamor through the canes, producing flowers all summer.  They also spread out over the sprayer hose, stopping the water from going where I desire.  It has become an annual, or rather a twice a year task, to cut them down.

I usually cut them in early summer, but never got to them this year.  The heat and Russian thistles spread by the April wind dictated much of what I did.

So, this past week, with frost imminent, I went after them.  They provide a useful mulch in winter, but I didn’t want the dead leaves draping over the canes when water from the roof froze on them in winter.

In early summer, I’m careful about what I do, but now I felt a greater sense of urgency.  I cut the stems somewhere near the base, and yanked them down.  There was so much herbage, I threw them on the burn pile rather than filling trash bags.

I found them wherever there was water: next to the hoses, and along the tiles I placed along the porch to keep plants back.  They also spread into root areas where I feed the roses.  When I couldn’t reach them because of thorns, I used the loppers.

I didn’t cut them to the ground, as I might in summer.  They retain their leaves into winter, which suggests they are still alive.  I’m hoping that some may grow back a foot or so in the more barren areas to provide protection for rose roots.

I wasn’t just interested in clearing the sweet peas, which I could do after the frost.  I also wanted to cut dead wood from the roses.  That is best done while the canes still have leaves.  For various reasons, I hadn’t gotten to this for several years, and there had been some die back the past winters.

I finished yesterday morning as the winds were beginning, but before the clouds started to roll in. 

Notes on photographs:
1.  Pink perennial sweet pea (Lathyrus latifolia) and Dr. Huey rose flower, 31 May 2020.  Dr. Huey is the root stock used on roses sold in Española, and survives when the hybrid graft has failed.

2.  Sweet peas blooming among the Dr. Huey roses, 10 June 2022.

3.  White sweet pea, 10 June 2022.  This is a natural example of the research Gregor Mendel did to establish patterns of genetic inheritance.

4.  Burn pile, 22 October 2022.  I burned last Saturday, so all that is here is dead wood from the roses and sweet pea vines.

Nature Disposes

Weather: There’s a feeling of farewell to summer as the temperatures got down to 32 or below three mornings.  Because of the early drought and heat, the annual seeds didn’t get growing until late summer.  They are just coming into their peak, and probably will be killed before they ever can reproduce themselves.

Last useful rain: 10/8.  Week’s low: 31 degrees F.  Week’s high: 75 degrees F in the shade.  Winds were up to 30 mph in Santa Fé on Tuesday.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid rose, morning glories, red amaranth, Maximilian sunflowers, cushion chrysanthemums, dahlias, zinnias, marigolds, yellow cosmos

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Datura, white pigweed, chamisa, native sunflowers, ánil del muerto, broom senecio, purple aster

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature and floribunda roses, hollyhocks, large flowered soapwort, pink evening primroses, chocolate flowers, Mexican hats, black-eyed Susans, blanket flowers, plains coreopsis, anthemis

What’s blooming from this year’s seed: Cantaloupe, Sensation cosmos

What’s turning red: Leaves on sand cherries, Virginia creeper, leadplant, timothy

What’s turning orange: Leaves on peaches

What’s turning yellow: Leaves on cottonwoods, catalpa, Siberian peas, grape vines, roses of Sharon, goldenrod

Animal sightings: Rabbit, flocks of birds, gecko, cabbage and sulphur butterflies, bumble bee, drowsy hornets, crickets, few grasshoppers, harvester and sidewalk ants

Tasks: I continue to cut dead wood from shrubs before leaves fall and it’s impossible to tell what is barren.  Saturday morning, I burned what had accumulated because the brush pile was getting close to 2' high.

Weekly update: Drought continues to take its toll.  In April, when the winds blew Russian thistles into my back yard, I discovered wind and rain had been eroding the dirt away from the posts that supported my south fence.

I had neglected the area the past few years because the mid-summer heat kept me indoors.  This past week, I’ve been clearing the area directly in front of the fence so I could see the problem.

When I went out after it rained, I could see marks where water was coming from the other side of the fence and gnawing away at the dirt on my side.  You can see the two levels in the photograph above.  The top layer of cement around the post at the front left has nothing around it.

The amount of erosion inside the fence depended on what was growing in the area.  In the far west, where there’s less seepage from the house, winterfat had grown up to the fence.  The black sticks in the photograph are winterfat.

Farther east, where more water crept from my watering shrubs at the back of the house, four-winged saltbushes grew.  They didn’t go beyond the moisture and did not reach the fence.  In that clearer area, Russian thistles emerged this summer.  Many were huge with a fringe of small ones on their perimeter.

As I’ve mentioned before, the winterfat died over the past few years as it got less water, and the saltbushes expanded.

You can see the boundary between the two members of the Chenopodium family in the above photograph.  Nothing is growing where the two shrubs have branches, but June grass has sprouted along the border.  Those three plants kept the thistles from rising.

As I cleared the area near the fence, and hacked a path so I could get to the fence, I left as much of the dead winterfat as possible.  I suppose it could be a fire hazard, but the wooden fence is probably more ignitable.

June grass always rises with the spring or early summer rains, and dies in the summer heat.  It has thrived this year, but will disappear next year if the drought returns.  Then, its mounds of dead, gray vegetation will join the dead winterfat as tacit protests against erosion.

Nature’s arrangement looks a bit like a Japanese landscape.  I imagine that, if one put a photograph in a glossy magazine marketed to the wealthy, people in Santa Fé would pay gardeners to replicate these effects of weather.

Notes on photographs: All taken 14 October 2022.
1.  African marigold (Tagetes erecta), Sensation cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus), and California Giants zinnia (Zinnia elegans) growing in the retaining wall built to keep dirt from drifting down from my upper neighbor’s yard and stopping my gate from opening in winter.  All are annuals.

2.  Effects of water erosion along south fence.

3.  From top to bottom, four-winged saltbushes (Atriplex canescens), winterfat (Eurotia lanata), and June grass (Koeleria cristata) keep the soil from eroding.

Siberian Elms

Weather: It rained five of the last seven days.  While my drainage ditches were filled, the water didn’t fall hard enough at any one time to cause flooding.  So, I still don’t know what problems I will have after my uphill neighbor scraped his field bare.

Last useful rain: 10/8.  Week’s low: 45 degrees F.  Week’s high: 70 degrees F in the shade.  No winds reported over 25 mph in Los Alamos or Santa Fé.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, desert willow, Japanese honeysuckle, silver lace vines, morning glories, Russian sage, red amaranth, Maximilian sunflowers, cushion chrysanthemums, zinnias, marigolds, yellow cosmos

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, datura, leather leaf globe mallow in afternoons, purple mat flower, white pigweed, lambs’ quarters, goat’s heads, chamisa, snakeweed broom, native sunflowers, ánil del muerto, broom senecio, Hopi tea, dandelion, purple and golden hairy asters, Nebraska sedge, cheat grass

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature and floribunda roses, yellow potentillas, hollyhocks, large flowered soapwort, pink evening primroses, chocolate flowers, Mexican hats, black-eyed Susans, blanket flowers, plains coreopsis, anthemis

What’s blooming from this year’s seed: Sensation cosmos

What’s turning red: Leaves on sandcherries, Virginia creeper, toothed spurge

Whats turning orange: Leaves on choke cherry; peach leaves drop immediately.

What’s turning yellow: Leaves on sweet cherry drop immediately

What’s turning brown: Russian thistles

Animal sightings: Rabbit, starlings, goldfinches, cabbage butterfly, bumble bee, crickets, grasshoppers, harvester and sidewalk ants

Tasks: Some hay fields cut.

Weekly update: Now is the season for hunting Siberian elms.  During the summer they grow up inside shrubs where they are invisible, but as those shrubs drop their leaves the elms are revealed.

The species’ tan, papery seeds have regular habits.  When they are ripe, they are blown by the wind until they hit some obstructions.  My neighbor has a large tree is front, whose seeds blow into the shrubs lining the driveway, or hit the garage.  Seeds from the trees in back of his house drop when they hit the shrubs in back of my house.

The mystery this year was the number on the far side of the house.  It has been years since my uphill neighbor had a mature tree.  The seeds only live about eight years, and that’s if they are in dry, cool conditions. [1]

This year I pulled twenty seedlings around one sapling that had gotten to be about 4' tall.  I finally realized they were just south of the utility pole.  Apparently it, or the transformer at the top, is enough to arrest the flights.

This year’s dramatic weather has exacerbated the problems.  It was a dry, hot spring.  My neighbor’s front tree began turning green the first of April, but the ones in back looked dead.

The big winds occurred from April 22 to April 25.  A few days later, I began finding seeds on my back porch and in the newly cleared beds where they don’t normally land.   I constantly was removing them when I was planting my flower seeds.

Then, the spring drought was broken by rain on June 18.  By the end of the first week of July my neighbor’s dormant trees began to leaf.  I don’t think they flowered.

More sustained rains began the end of July.  Seeds take about six days to germinate when the temperature and moisture conditions are right. [2]  After a month they may reach 4" in ideal conditions. [3]

I pulled seedlings around the utility pole on September 18, which were at their second leaves and about 2" high.  They may have germinated three weeks before, around August 28.  While it had begun raining on August 15, the flooding rain had occurred August 26.  They were probably the children of the deluge.

No matter how vigilant, there always are the ones that get away.  I’ve found more this year than usual.  Most would have sprouted one to two years ago, and remained camouflaged.  So far, the trunks still are pliable, and I can pull them over gravel and weigh the heads down to spray with an herbicide.  Before that, I cut all the branches that won’t be treated.  I only do this with trees that are not too close to existing plants, since the poison can migrate from root to root underground.

My biggest problem was one that grew inside the beauty bush.  It has gotten as tall as the back porch, so it was not visible last summer until it was higher than the roof.  By then the trunk was 2.5" across and had become rigid.

I had to hire someone to remove it.  The crew couldn’t just cut it down.  One man used a 10' pole to hook a high branch and pull it towards an opening between the shrub and a neighboring rose of Sharon.  When it was in position, the other man was able to cut it down.

It very likely will grow back.  Elms do not die when they are cut; new growth emerges from the leaf buds buried between the bark and the wood.  A single tree can become a shrub or copse.  When I looked at the stump of this one, I saw two earlier stems had been cut.

Notes on photographs:
1.  Moss in shadow of east retaining wall and fence, 3 October 2022.
2.  Siberian elm (Ulmus pumila) growing in row of shrubs, 4 November 2021.
3.  Same Siberian elm being pulled down to be cut, 16 September 2021.
4.  Stump of same Siberian elm, 8 October 2021.

End notes:
1.  Kenneth A. Brinkman.  “Ulmus L. Elm.”  829–834 in Seeds of Woody Plants in the United States, edited by C. S.  Schopmeyer.  Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 1974.  Technically, seeds and their papery envelopes are called samaras. To remain viable, they need to be kept at 36F to 40F.

2.  Jeong-Ho Song, Hyo-In Lim, and Kyung-Hwan Jang.  “Germination Behaviors and Seed Longevities of Three Ulmus Species in Korea.”  Korean Journal of Plant Resources 24(4):438–444:August 2011.  Cited by Lee.

3.  Hwa Lee, Gyu Han Il and Eun Ju Cheong.  “Effect of Different Treatments and Light Quality on Ulmus Pumila L. Germination and Seedling Growth.”  Forest Science and Technology 17(3):162–168:2021.

Recovery in the Rain

Weather: When morning temperatures drop, my sprayer hoses begin to fail.  The holes near the connecting fittings get enlarged, and great plumes of water spew upwards onto my house and garage.  It doesn’t happen in the spring when the temperatures are equally cool.  I can’t explain it, but it happens each year.  I used to blame the ground squirrel, but now I think it has something to do with how the plastic in the hoses behave.

Last useful rain: 9/22.  Week’s low: 37 degrees F.  Week’s high: 82 degrees F in the shade.  Winds got up to 45 mph in Santa Fé on last Saturday.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, buddleia, silver lace vines, morning glories, Russian sage, roses of Sharon, hollyhocks, red amaranth, cultivated and Maximilian sunflowers, cushion chrysanthemums, dahlias, zinnias, yellow cosmos

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, datura, bindweed, white pigweed, lambs’ quarters, chamisa, snakeweed broom peaked, native sunflowers peaked, ánil del muerto peaked, broom senecio, Hopi tea, dandelion; heath, purple, and golden hairy asters

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature and floribunda roses, cliff rose, yellow potentillas, sweet peas, large flowers soapwort, pink evening primroses, chocolate flowers, Mexican hats, black-eyed Susans, blanket flowers, plains coreopsis

What bedding plants are blooming: Snapdragons are perennials, and so have gone out of bloom to prepare for winter.

What’s blooming from this year’s seed: Cantaloupe, scarlet flax, Sensation cosmos, African marigolds

My Heavenly Blue morning glories finally are producing some flowers.  Some plants began blooming in the middle of August, but they were dark purple, not the variety that was supposed to be in the seed packet.  Apparently, the special variety had a harder time with the weather this summer than the more common purple and maroon ones.

What’s turning red: Virginia creeper, toothed spurge, Russian thistles

What’s turning yellow: Cut leaf maple, bush morning glories

What’s turning brown: Corn, tamarix

Animal sightings: Monarch, cabbage, and sulphur butterflies; hawk moth, ladybug, small bees, few hornets, crickets, few grasshoppers, sidewalk ants

Tasks: Some farmers have been cutting their hay.

Weekly update: Our rain this year came at the expense of others.  Instead of going into the Colorado River, it fell east of the Rockies.  Instead of going into parts of Texas, it’s been going farther north to flood Kentucky and Tennessee.  One notes the consequences, but feels little guilt.

I know the rain won’t stem the drying trend of the past half century, but it is giving new species a chance to become established.  Thus, the needle grass hasn’t recovered, but tobosa is spreading in areas that get at least seepage from areas where I water.  

Actually, most of the new plant’s aren’t new, but ones that had disappeared with the drought, and are returning from seeds buried in the ground that weren’t stimulated to sprout until they got wet at the right temperature.  For instance, ring muhly came back in places, while a great deal more six-week and sideoats grama emerged.

The one that has surprised me is black grama.  There were only a few patches in my yard when I moved here thirty years ago.  This year, it is everywhere.  I’ve seen it along the curb at the post office, and in fields by the road.  It’s in a number of places in the prairie in back, and, especially large plants are growing in my gravel drive.

It isn’t just grasses.  Áñil del muerto, the tall yellow flowers, haven’t bloomed much.  This year they fill fields again.  In my yard, they usually only grow along the fence that edges the gravel driveway.  This year they’re invading other areas.

Apache plumes usually bloom in May and June.  This year there were flowers until last week.  In addition, plants that had only leafed in the past, were blooming this year.

Prickly pear cacti are proliferating.  It’s hard to tell if they are responding to moisture or its consequence.  The ones in my yard seem to be eaten by rabbits or the ground squirrel.  Those pests may have found more palatable food with the rain, and so left the cacti alone.

The concept of normal is tricky, because there is no base line.  All one can use is the equivalent of a rolling average: what has grown in the past five years.  Thus, if I look back twenty years, this year is normal, but if I look at the recent past it is an aberration.

I suspect the latter is more true, but I won’t know until next year at this time.  Even if next year is a dry, this year has allowed plants to replenish the seed bank, so that, if conditions ever do improve, the seeds will be ready.

Notes on photographs:
1.  Morning glory that sprouted from seeds that rolled down my neighbor’s hill, 21 September 2022.  This is the color most of my Heavenly Blues have been.

2.  Áñil del muerto (Verbesina encelioides) growing across the road, 11 September 2022.

3. Cactus that sprouted in my yard, 20 August 2022.  It may be a cholla, but I’ve never one with that kind of basal stem.