November rain

 The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it. ~Patrick Young

We are in a rain pattern for another day (day 4 to my reckoning).  My gardens are a total disaster. I stepped in one of the flower beds and nearly lost my garden boots!  A lot of suction wanted to swallow them up.  The garden soil is mostly very fine sand over a layer of red clay.  Quite an unpleasant mix.

The last I heard, this is the wettest year on record.  Oddly, the drought map still shows this area as light drought?  How much rain do we need to be declared a swamp?

I see a lot of areas of landscape and beautiful beds that are not under water.  I have to remember that I knew we were at the bottom of a hill when I started.  Back then, it had been so dry I was  moaning about things burning up.  This year things drowned in March through May and regenerated and burned up or lost all their leaves in self preservation?  I am not sure.

The Salvia Greggii bed which was the center piece when I began has gone through cycles of lovely red and pink blossoms, butterflies, hummingbirds .................................
The leaves all fell off.  mid summer. all looked dead.  I did dig out one and then decided to wait until cooler weather.  Voila' they greened up and bloomed just before rain started.  A light frost didn't bother them at all. This rain will probably finish them off.

Taken in early Summer

My plan is to move them anyway, so will wait and see.

All the rain totes and buckets and trash cans are full of water.  I cannot bear to pour the precious moisture just in case dry weather sets in,  From now on, I have to dump the water. No place to store any more.

I am in the midst of "resizing" garden area.  The first thing to go seems to be the gravel paths.  Maybe not such a good idea as water flows over, making muck and sinking places in the path underneath the gravel, thanks to ever present grub which is food for my enemy the mole.

Some things I have learned?  Sunflower seeds  WILL germinate in cool temperatures. Nights in the 30's. I had a favorite bird feeder with a cage around it to discourage larger birds.  It worked very well.  The sun took its toll as the plastic tube that holds the seeds had weakened and cracked.  I wasn't watching since the other feeders are of a more substantial plastic. That said, this one was  ¼ full of seeds when the rain started.  The seeds germinated and the expansion of seedlings and moisture caused the tube to split.  I would like to get a tube to replace the split one as the cage surround is fine.

The cage on the left

The weather forecast for the coming week looks promising for drying out.  There is an awful lot of cleaning up and redoing of flag stone path in court yard.  I had to move stones to allow water to flow faster. It worked, but now they have to go back into the path with some digging out to lower the stones for future rains.  It should have been done long before.  So, now, knee pad and gloves and I will do as much as I can. May take a while...

 The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Weather forecast for tonight: dark. ~George Carlin

Salvia Greggii surprise

Summer is over.  I, for one, am grateful.  I know there will be days when I will feel trapped inside, itching to see what is going on out there.
This year has been one of extreme wet, drought and moles.  Still, I am happy to have to wear that old hand me down  barn jacket with the big patch pockets I had added. It in itself brings back good memories of connecting with a niece who is so much like me, we have to be kin.

During the wet periods this Spring, my gardens were flooded time after time.  I lost most of my plants. Maybe not in the after math of the flooding, later when least expected.
This is the case of the Salvia Greggii bed.  It had been green and healthy looking.  Then, the leaves fell off.  I waited.  Not wanting to give up on them.  They have been the original focal point of my garden.

I waited, then a miracle, they greened up again and tried to bloom.  Then the dry heat set in and the leaves fell off. Sadly, I debated taking them all out and starting over.  I waited.

The drought hung on with months of high 90's and no rain.  I waited.
One bush looked dead for sure.  I did test branches and they all snapped off.  I dug it out.  Then, heat and sore hip kept me from doing much in the garden.

I have decided to remove a third or more of the gardens. There are 9 separate plots with a lot of gravel pathway.  I have worked at repairing mole damage and amending the garden soil.

As the weather has cooled, the shorter, more compact blue and white salvias and one butterfly weed have perked up and started putting on more leaves and flowers.

I love the blue salvis the most of anything in the garden.  They survive anything nature throws its way and even looking tired and faded in the heat of summer, I know they will show off in fall.  They have. This morning, chilly and windy, I took pictures of the deep, elegant blue flowers.  Thank you God!!

 

Back to the Salvia Greggii plants.  They are green and blooming!  I never expected this treasure.  I thought I'd just dig out the whole mess and move the mailbox/toolbox and let the whole thing go back to weeds and grass.     

 
Plans have changed.

Chinese Pistache tree

The gardener who imagines that his work can be reduced to a set of rules and formulae, followed
and applied according to special days marked on the calendar, is but preparing himself for a double
disappointment. Few things are so certain to be uncertain as the seasons and the weather; and these,
rather than a set of dates, even for a single locality, form the signs which the real gardener follows.
That is the great trouble with much book and magazine gardening. -   Frederick Frye Rockwell, Around the Year in the Garden, 1917

Back more years than I can remember, we had a wood pile.  The pile languished for years because I am very sensitive to smoke drifting into house from fireplace. Hubby wouldn't burn because  I would close myself up in the bedroom and endure until fire was out.
Thus, the wood pile ended up rotting and being host to numerous fire ant nests and mysteriously, a tree. The tree was insignificant for years.  The pile kept rotting, the ants kept nesting and the tree kept growing.
Finally, we took the wood away, and dealt with the ants and left the tree standing.  It spent numerous years hanging out, waiting for me to decide what to do with it.  It is not a bad location.  Just seems an odd place for a tree.

Years later, I have researched and find this is a desirable tree.  I had called it a "trash tree" for which I humbly apologize to the local organic gardener radio guy.
I don't care for the color of red that it turns in fall.  It has multiple colors, which does make interesting to watch.  Shades of yellow, orange, green, deep maroonish red.  I never noticed the berries until I seriously did some research.  Yep, a Pistache.

I am sure it is a "gift" from some bird years ago.  We will leave it as it is not supposed to get huge like some mistakes we have in the yard.  Worrisome huge things that we hope won't fall over til we are gone.