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.