Yeah, in the desert it’s more complicated. Especially when using Love, Water and Kindness on plants! (Image courtesy of freepik)
By Dan Bodine
You know how most Mays are: Temperatures are cool, and days just seem to go on forever! Well, Noemi and I had so many yard projects going this Spring we forgot about plants altogether.
And adding bed space for ’em was one of the projects! Duh…Reckon, Ol’ Bo, that’s why your wife suggested going to a plant nursery?! Looking for Spring discounts on plants?
So…Well, we wandered into the garden section Monday morning at nearby Lowe’s — just to see what they might have, ‘ya know — and lo-‘n-behold, looky here!
Noemi first spotted them! Discount plants! Tall tray carriers on wheels, all shoved back to the back section and filled to the brim with … Rejects!
Or rather, plants that’d been taken off the showcase tables for lack of sales or showing stress factors, and thus wheeled back to the back area to be sold at discount prices. 1/2 price or more! Depending on shape they were in.
Walking closer, looking at each other now, there was no reason to say anything. Instant communication! Yeah, new beds had been made in our garden — but no one ever bought any plants for ’em! Uh…
Deliverance, you could say! This moment was.
No, too Trumpian!
Redeemed, maybe our mortal souls were — at Lowe’s discounts?!
Yeah, fits better.
But for a second or two, still I hesitated.
I was gripped with another, even darker thought — e.g.,
This is the next to last day of May! Wednesday is June! We’re in Far West Texas. In desert heat!
And JUNE IS THE HOTTEST MONTH!!!
Can these plants possibly survive without growing new roots? Immediately?
Noemi has the most beautiful brown eyes in the world, I’ve long argued. Looking at her at that moment, they were sparkling. Just bursts of different hues of light!
Dare I croak a few chords of Bing Crosby’s old “Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes, Don’t Let the Moon Break Your Heart” to her?
Nope!
Wouldn’t matter, anyway! She’d picked two plants off the shelves, already! For late spring plantings!
Thus, join in the fluttering fun, Bodeen! Git ‘ur 2 cents in!
We got some good ones, yes, finally! In all, well over a hundred dollars of discounted half-or-less bedding or basket plants! Including some planting soil, too, of course!
And you know what I did Tuesday??! Set out plants! Yep, all of ’em!
And yesterday, June 1? First day of over 100 degrees!?
Jethro, you dare say?!!!
Well…Uhh… Much of the day I was intermittently keeping this fine mist on ’em, from a spray hose, of course!
Just in case they got it in their heads that somebody would set out new bedding plants in desert weather like this and not know anything about what the hell he was a-doin’!
Yessiree, just whistling Dixie, some of us are in Life! While fryin’ outside! Waitin’ on the sun to go yonder horizon!
But, too, savin’ Los Plantos!
Hopefully!
Hee, hee!
— 30 —
I’ve never had issues with planting new plants in extreme hot weather. It’s a long story and won’t explain it here, but there are a number of things that made me realize it could be done. Ground prep done well ahead of time with planting holes, water soaking etc. I come to California to visit always in June or July or August which are the peak heat months. My mother’s property is in El Cajon and summer temps are 100F+. I go to the native plant and other conventional nurseries and purchase only one gallon specimens. Anything larger is a risk because water requirements will be greater. Presently I live in Sweden for the past 16+ years. But I never have lost a plant. Evening planting is the key, after Sun goes down and the sky is still light. I also inoculate with mycorrhizal fungi. Anyway here is the link below.
Is it safe to plant & water California Natives Plants in Summer ?
Kevin, thanks much for posting. Forgive me, first, for not responding earlier. Age and failing health have caught up to me, yes. But my passion remains my garden. Not because I’ve much experience in it but simply because I’d set it as a goal when I retired. I needed dirt under my fingernails to unwind, I felt, having literally “grown up” working after schools in a small neighborhood nursery in the DFW area — but decades later in older age, too, finding myself somewhat exiled to the rocky, largely caliche soil of the Southwest desert in Far West Texas. What do I do, was my first thought, after we’d reluctantly finished closing on this small house and tiny lot on EP’s far NE side? I was in a county government job 200 miles or so at the time downriver from here, and wife and I hadn’t the time or the money either one to do a better job in long weekend driving searches to find a better deal. Thus we retired to start over again. One more time! Here they call dumping several truckloads of small, colored gravel rocks on your yard and spreading it, Xeriscaping. They bring in truckloads of desert sand first, of course, then compact with the heavy rolling machines. Stick a Yucca or large cactus somewhere, and … Presto! You’re Xeriscaped! Not me! From D-FW, by gawd, I wanted a “garden” garden! Thick-headed I am, and for 12 years I’ve literally fought it! Thus I’m thrilled to’ve found someone to tell me about “mycorrhizal fungi”! Honestly, had never heard of it! My “gardening” experience was during the ’50s! In black-land soil! Desert rocks? Caliche? Hell, that’s what you put on roads! Here, folks stick plants in it! So thanks again for your valuable info; am impressed by your “children” approach to plants (yes, I’ve sat under moonlight and talked to my “kids,” too); and you’ve given me new energy to start thinking about soil (like an idiot, I’ve only dumped bags, bags, bags of Home Depot “garden soil” over the rocks) and root activators in my upcoming new chapter of gardening. Hope all is well with you, and again, much thanks!
Bodeen’s we are, till our dying day.
Hee, hee! Bless ‘ur heart, Sis! Yes, it takes one to know one! Praise the Lord and pass the whiskey!