Christmas

Weather: The persistently cold afternoons finally have killed most of the leaves on perennials.

Last token snow: 12/12.  Week’s low: 2 degrees F.  Week’s high: 52 degrees F in the shade.  Winds were up to 36 mph in Santa Fé before the storm on Saturday.

What’s still green: Needles on pines, piñon, cultivated and native junipers; leaves on cliff rose, yuccas, winecup mallows, alfilerillo, coral bells; bases of blue flax and Mexican hats

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves of four-winged saltbushes duller, winterfat only in bud clusters

What’s turning purple or red: Leaves on coral beard tongues; stems on some roses; twigs on apricot, peaches, spirea, and globe willow

What’s turned yellow: Branches on weeping willows

Animal sightings: I noticed several people had big dogs loose in their yards Tuesday.  I vaguely remember the one, but not the place with four different breeds.  Although one dog was wearing a fabric coat, it’s a reminder that this seems the wrong time of the year to get an outdoor pet.

Tasks: When my west neighbor died last summer he was in his late 80s.  As he became more infirm, he was able to do less maintenance in his yard.  Last Sunday, when temperatures were below freezing, the new owner and a friend with a flame thrower, were out burning piles of brush that had accumulated.  They also went after the Russian thistles along the outer fences.

They stacked the remains of the firewood pile on the back porch.  Another neighbor has stacked the wood to the roof of his porch.  It not only keeps it dry and handy on cold mornings, but may act as protection against the wind when he opens his west-facing entry door.

Weekly update: Each year, just before Christmas, when little is changing in the landscape, I look at what people have done for the holidays.

It’s not exactly related to plants.  No one has decorated any of the trees in the yard, although one person strung lights from one to another in the front orchard.  A few had fake trees: one had the spirals, another a stem with a few white horizontal branches.

Live greenery is hard to come by.  It’s been some years since Delancey Street had a temporary tree lot.  I suppose the big boxes have something; I know one had lots of poinsettias when I was in ordering rocks for my erosion project.  One family filled their window boxes with fake red and white flowers.

The stores may make more money selling artificial strings of green.  They’re certainly nicer to handle: no sap, no sharp needles.  They also are easy to store, and don’t have to be put in the trash, which is limited to one bin a week.  A few people wound strands around porch posts.

The most common greenery is fake wreaths.  At least seven people had them, usually on gates.  The local churches are shells, where the dioceses holds services once a month.  It’s up to local parishioners to decorate them.  One had a wreath on the door.  The other had a string of lights along a side fence.

The most popular decorations are lights, as mentioned last week.  A few have the plastic luminarias and one put out paper bags.

Other types of decorations come and go with what survives storage and what can be replaced.  Only one person still had wire reindeer, and two had creches.

I don’t know how long people are going to tolerate the inflatable figures.  Every one I saw Tuesday was flat on the ground.  The only fully inflated ones were in the front of a business that sells them, and has the tools to keep them filled them with air.

Stores are conservative: they may have decorations inside, but few have anything visible from the street.  Lights, of course, don’t work during the day, and few are open in the evenings.  The most common was that old stand-by, tempura paintings on windows.

Notes on photographs:
1.  Alfilerillos (Erodium circutarium) are staying green in the gravel of the driveway, all the tips sometimes turn bright red; 25 December 2022.

2.  Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota) leaves died this week; 25 December 2022.

Christmas Lights

Weather: We’re nearing the solstice, and as happens every year, morning temperatures are getting colder.  They reached 2 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday.  The sun shining in my eyes around 8:30 in the morning is no compensation.

There’s no moisture crossing the state, so the night sky is black.  I’ve been able to pick out Cassiopeia and Orion.  I’ve always been told the term “winter sky” referred to the particular location of constellations this time of the year, but here it has an additional meaning.

Last token snow: 12/12.  Week’s low: 2 degrees F.  Week’s high: 50 degrees F in the shade.  Winds were up to 39 mph in Santa Fé before the storm on Monday.

What’s still green: Needles on pines, piñon, cultivated and native junipers; leaves on cliff rose, yuccas, vinca, winecup mallows, alfilerillo, coral bells, Queen Anne’s lace, blue flax; bases of Mexican hats and needle grass

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves of four-winged saltbushes, winterfat, snow in summer

What’s turning purple or red: Leaves on coral beard tongues, purple asters; stems on some roses; twigs on apricot and peaches

What’s turned yellow: Branches on weeping willows

Animal sightings: Small birds were flitting about Monday morning, before the winds and rain/snow.

Tasks: The wood and stones I ordered to finish preventing further erosion by my fences arrived with the blustery rain on Monday.  Since then, it has been too cold to work outdoors.

Weekly update: Styles in outdoor Christmas decorations change with technology and store promotions.  When I was a kid in Michigan, two types of lights were sold.  Those meant for the indoor tree had smooth, 1" bulbs.  Those hardened for use outside had ridged 2.5" bulbs.  Both came in a standard mix of colors.  It was only in the early 1960s people began buying bulbs by color and blue trees appeared.

People then were concerned about fires caused by shorts in wires.  Outdoor bulbs tended to be strung on evergreens.  It took time for people to trust them enough to put them along their roofs.

The biggest change was the smaller, fairy lights.  They could come in colors, but more often were all white.  People strung them around the edges of deciduous trees to create fantastic shapes.  I’m still fascinated by their ability to create something from nothing.

When I first moved here in the 1990s, people were stringing multi-colored lights along their eaves.  Then came the icicle lights, and next the chase lights.  Again they were strung along roof lines.

This year I’ve noticed more people are stringing lights along their perimeter fences.  If one is paranoid about thieves, it is better to not highlight the house.

However, I think the fence lights serve a much more practical purpose.  Drunks are a problem here.  Every week or so, someone has part of a fence destroyed by someone who drives away.  Lights at the roadside are better than red or amber warning lights.

Notes on photographs: Chase lights from a distance, 17 December 2022.

Rabbit Tricks

Weather: The sun has been shining into my eyes at my desk around 8:30 am.  Most days, afternoon temperatures have not gotten warm enough to work outside.

Last useful snow: 11/13.  Week’s low: 11 degrees F.  Week’s high: 64 degrees F in the shade.  Winds were up to 29 mph in Santa Fé on Tuesday.

What’s still green: Needles on pines, piñon, cultivated and native junipers, yews; leaves on cliff rose, pyracantha, yuccas, grape hyacinths, vinca, hollyhocks, winecup mallows, alfilerillo, violets, bouncing Bess, pink evening primroses, coral bells, Queen Anne’s lace, Dutch clover, sweet peas, blue flax, lance-leaf coreopsis, anthemis, purple asters; blades on cheat grass; bases of Mexican hats and needle grass; some rose leaves are dark and leathery

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves on four-winged saltbushes, winterfat, snow-in-summer; bases of golden hairy asters

What’s turning purple or red: Leaves on coral beard tongues; twigs on apricots, peaches, and globe willow

What’s turned yellow: Branches on weeping willows; arborvitae and Japanese honeysuckle leaves are browning

Animal sightings: I think the birds I see flitting through leafless trees are transhumant rather than migratory, and have come down from areas where snow is covering their forage.

Tasks: A few people have been putting up their plastic luminarias.  People with icicle and chase lights installed on their eaves long have given up taking them down in January.  So far, only one of my near neighbors has turned his on.

Weekly update: Rabbits are one of those unsolvable problems.  My neighbors use dogs and cars kill them, but their numbers never change.

At least one lives under my neighbor’s tool shed, and comes in to eat.  Some animal scraped an opening under the gate, which I make uncomfortable by putting a rock in the middle.  The rabbit simply kicks it aside.  At least I know it’s been here, even when I don’t see it.

Several years ago I bought some lengths of wire mesh I laid over beds where I planted annual seeds.  The idea was that by the time the sprouts came through the mesh they would no longer be edible.  For the most part it worked, and this year, for the first time, I managed to grow some melons.  Of course they started so late in the summer they didn’t mature before frost.

There was one bed where nothing grew, annual or perennial or German iris.  I kept adjusting hoses thinking it wasn’t getting water.  Then, last winter, I saw a rabbit going through the area.  This year, I put down a screen after I planted zinnia seeds.  Voilà, the zinnias came up and bloomed.

Of course, there’s no such thing as a perfect solution.  Some grass sprouted in one zinnia bed.  I didn’t have time to pull it, and then when I had time, the zinnias had sprouted.  I no longer could move the screen.  The two lived together, though the grass became a pest.

This past week I finally lifted the screens and pulled the grass from the areas where only annuals grew.  I left it around the roses and rose of Sharon because, whatever its faults, it was a mulch of sorts.

After I cleared the annual areas, I troweled the area.  The ground was bone dry because it’s in the sun.  I dropped some larkspur and Dutch clover seeds I should have planted in the late summer, but couldn’t because of the grass.  Who knows if they’ll germinate.  For now, the replaced screens will protect them from the birds.

Notes on photographs:
1.  Watermelon (Citrullus vulgaris) growing under a screen that’s not visible; 29 October 2022.

2.  Drive with lower place scraped out my an animal under the center board; the rabbit kicked the large, flat stone aside; 11 December 2022.

3.  Zinnia elegans stem growing through wire mesh; a morning glory (Ipomoea tricolor) came through the mesh and spread, but never bloomed; 11 December 2022.

4.  Grass coming through a mesh screen, 11 December 2022.  This is after I lifted the screen and cut down the grass growing next to the zinnia bed.

Saltbush Strategies

Weather: Moisture crossing northern Baja has been streaming over the area, but not falling.  The clouds have kept afternoon temperatures down, and when they did manage to rise, winds began.  However, the clouds have whetted the appetite of the dry air, so less moisture has been pulled from the soil.

High winds on Tuesday were blowing Russian thistle carcasses across the road.  They broke loose more pigweed plants.

Last useful snow: 11/13.  Week’s low: 10 degrees F.  Week’s high: 57 degrees F in the shade.  Winds were up to 52 mph in Santa Fé on Tuesday.

What’s still green: Needles on pines, piñon. cultivated and native junipers, yews, arborvitae; leaves on cliff roses, Japanese honeysuckle, yuccas, vinca, bindweed, hollyhocks, alfilerillo, sweet violets, bouncing Bess, pink evening primroses, coral bells, Queen Anne’s lace, blue flax, lance-leaf coreopsis, anthemis, purple asters; blades on June and cheat grass; bases of needle grass

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves on four-winged saltbushes, winterfat, snow-in-summer, winterfat

What’s turning purple or red: Leaves on coral beard tongues; stems on apricots, fruiting crab apple

What’s turned yellow: Branches on weeping willlows.

Animal sightings: Birds keep flitting by my windows that I don’t recognize.  A spotted dark gray woodpecker landed on the globe willow on Thursday, but left without eating.

Tasks: I ordered the materials I need for the fences, and now am waiting for a delivery.  In the meantime, I continue opening the culvert on my neighbor’s side of the fence, and moving the dirt to the low area that flooded me last summer.

Weekly update: I made a one-sided truce with the salt bushes.  I accept that they’ve taken over parts of the yard, but I refuse to let them spread from those areaa.  They, of course, don’t agree.

I learned with Siberian elms it is useless to cut down suckers.  More stems sprout from the roots, creating a copse where once there was a single tree.  Now I bend the trunks over some gravel and spray the leaves with poison.  When the roots die, I cut them down.

I tried that with salt bushes, but it didn’t work as well.  The leaves are thinner and more vertical, so they provide smaller areas to catch poison.  Then, they are covered with tiny hairs that shed the poisons.

This past week I started cutting down the ones I didn’t want.  Even though many had been sprayed, the interiors of the stems were green.  Apparently the wood is softer than the elms, and so its splits.  More interesting, it sometimes pulls out the roots when I use the loppers on them.

What surprised me was that the ones near the copse were spreading by their roots.  I always assumed the seeds were important because that’s the only way they could sprout at the distances they do.  However, New Mexico is the one place where a rhizomatous form has evolved.

I cut the ends of the branches first and put them in the wheelbarrow, then went back for the lower stems and, if I twisted the loppers, roots.  Unfortunately, when I cut the tops the already loosened seeds fell to the ground.

I wondered for the first time exactly how those seeds germinate.  The dried wings that surround the seed would keep them from the soil.

The seed itself is embedded in the center column.  The photograph of the swollen area is fuzzy, but it’s a very small area.

I tried to get to the seed itself, and found it difficult.  Marvin Foiles said those who want to sow the seeds use a hammer mill to release the seed.  I could tear the papery wings away, but I could not get to the seed, even when I tried using a nail file to saw away at it.

In nature, the seeds only can germinate with they are leached, scraped, or go through cycles of heat and cold.  I supposed mine simply get so wet the wings collapse so they drop onto the ground.  Perhaps their own chemicals then can eat away at the hard, protective shell.  Something works, because they keep coming up many feet from their mothers.

Notes on photographs: Four-winged saltbushes (Atriplex canescens) taken November 27, 2022, and December 4, 2022.

End notes:  
Janet L. Howard.  “Atriplex Canescens.”  U. S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Fire Effects Information System database, 2003.

Marvin W. Foiles.  “Atriplex L.  Saltbush.  240-243 in C. S. Schopmeyer.  Seeds of Woody Plants in the United States.  Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Agricutlure, Forest Service, 1974.