Record Heat

The scorching March heat that has spread across the west for a week is record breaking, bringing 100 degree plus heat to Arizona - way too hot way too early in the year.

Here it has been pleasant, in the 70s and up into the 80s in the afternoons. Also record breaking for March. Nice, but also too hot far too early. 

The aspens are still leafless, the Virginia creeper vine is still an ugly brown, and sitting outside to enjoy the nice air is unsettling if you look at the garden.

Unlike some of the bare trees, the crabapple is leafing out, well before any flowers. It has bloomed some years and others not very much, but the flowers come out before the leaves, usually in late April. 

This is still March.

Other things in the ground are greening up and it's too early for them.

The extreme heat will break, but who knows if we'll fall back to more normal temperatures in April and May, when historically we've had nights below freezing and cold days at times. Sometimes even snow.

In fact, here are two posts from last year documenting snow and cold in April.

April 5 last year

Mid April last year.

I do wonder what the rest of spring will bring! I can't manage any garden maintenance this year, but I do get the scooter out on the upper patio to sit in the warm sun at times.

No Interference

Salvia greggii

I typed into A.I. my distress over the 12 weeks I'll spend non weight bearing and unable to even get into the garden much less do anything. 

All my garden plans have been canceled, and while I am coping one long day at a time and this will all be over by the end of summer, I just felt so sad and abandoned and I asked A.I. to say something calming to me about it.

This is what the stupid computer came up with -- as part of a longer and quite soothing conversation about coping.

While you can’t be out there digging or pruning, this is a unique window to observe your garden’s architecture from a distance. 

Gardens aren't just about the work we put into them; they are about the life that happens when we aren't interfering.

I read that again. I think I cried.

Gardens aren't just about the work we put into them; they are about the life that happens when we aren't interfering.

That is what I need to cultivate in my mind every day for the next three months. I am forced not to interfere in any way. The garden will get watered, and I'll get some help to tidy things up later in spring, but otherwise it will grow without me. All season. I can't get the scooter down off the elevated patio to trim the vine (which needs it badly every week) or to deadhead anything.

It will become untidy and some things will fail, the emitters don't reach every plant and this is a tough environment. I'll watch it happen. I won't have a clean look or be able to save the failures. But some things will survive. Some parts will grow. 

The garden will change without me.

Heat in the Morning, A/C in the Afternoon

After an incredibly warm winter, March is even weirder. For a week daytime highs will be in the low 80s!

 

The mornings are still cool, in the 40s, so the heat comes on but by afternoon, with no leaves on the trees for any shade, it gets hot. 

In Phoenix the temperatures are forecast to be well over 100° for several days. It's a heat dome over the southwest and even L.A. will be in the 90s.

Very unusual . .  and record breaking for this time of year.

Garden Season Canceled

I had hoped my recovery would follow a standard 6 weeks of non-weight bearing, some limited walking in a boot for a month after that, and almost normal function at least by late May. 

If I had that recovery schedule, with lots of help watering things, I could still plant all my new stuff before June and tend it through summer.

It's not going to happen. Everything I had meticulously planned and researched all winter is simply not going to occur. I have canceled the High Country Gardens and Bluestone orders. 

I may need surgery for the break and that means 8 weeks on the couch, no mobility, from the date of surgery -- hopefully scheduled before mid April. So 8 weeks means mid June before I'd have a walking cast for only very limited weight bearing. Then a gradual bit more weight bearing for the next 10 weeks, all through late summer.

I know I can get help from Andrea in the garden and Jim will help water and I could even hire garden labor. I could make my plans work somehow. But I'd really gone all out this year with new designs and spent over $900 at Bluestone and High Country Gardens on mail orders for 50 individual nursery plants needing care and installation. 

The High Country Gardens order, 2/3 of the plants, was scheduled to arrive around the 20th of this month, just over a week away.

I've never ordered that much at once for planting. This was an overenthusiastic revamp of my spaces.

The fuss and space to keep 50 nursery pots going til planting, the watering, the eventual placement and tending in the garden is too much. Too much to hire even, with all the detailed little things I was planning to move and install to make my gardens just so.

And the joy of the project would be utterly diminished if I hire it out. It's a relief not to even have to think about it now. Talk about "letting go".

It's a total scratch. I actually feel so much better about the cancellations -- I'll get refunds, and I can take the worry about how to manage it out of play while I figure out how to tend what I have already, which is no small need in itself.

Even the Gambel oaks and things I was trying to grow in the field are going to have to fend for themselves -- my vision there wasn't taking hold anyway.

And you know what? My plans were too much. 50 new plants! Total redesign! What was I thinking? 

I don't want a busy labor intensive garden, I just want a fuller more cohesive one. Let the stuff grow on that I already have, and I'll start my vision all over in 2027.

Which will probably change in a year anyway.

Coping . . . But

I am coping with my broken foot injury as best I can. It's still early days. It is a minimum of six or eight weeks to go with no weight bearing, but many more if I need surgery.

Thank goodness I got almost all the spring chores done during our warm February days. 

But I still have to trim back the rosemary and cut back the Blonde Ambition grasses and the one Japanese Forest grass. I'll need to ask Andrea to help with that. The Radio red salvias need potting up.

My biggest issue now, though is watering. 

I watered most stuff outdoors on February 24. It's been dry and no rain is forecast, so another watering two weeks after the last is needed. Mid March at the latest.

I need to hook up hoses and repair the front faucet - it leaks at the house junction and I can't tighten it. The leader hose has to be replaced to the hose around to the back.

Then I need someone to hose water the gardens and my pots.

I am thinking to ask Tommy Tapia, the handyman we've used, if I can hire him for a few hours to do those hose set up and watering chores. That would really help.

And Then . . .

I marvel each time I get something done in the garden -- I am 76 years old! It amazes me how I can still do the things I want to, slowly and not as vigorously. My garden is small, I can manage it.

But I'm very aware that could all change. That nagging thought is always with me even as I feel good about what I can still do.

And then . . .

I fell and broke my foot. Multiple breaks. I'm on crutches and in a full boot, with no weight bearing for 8 weeks.

After the Coates tree guys left I saw the brown pot I like nestled in the juniper under the cottonwood had been moved. I picked it up to move it back.

It was too heavy and I knew that. So I rolled it a bit, but then hefted it up to just totter a few feet with it. Just a few feet.

I crashed. I tumbled over, the pot hit my foot and I landed in a heap in the gravel. 

I am so mad at myself for lifting that thing when I knew I couldn't. I could have rolled it just the few more feet to its spot under the tree.

Now my garden chores and outdoor puttering on these warm late winter days are over. I'm inside, icing, elevating, and on crutches to go anywhere.

I'm not so amazed any more at my elderly capabilities in the garden.

Juniper Haircuts

Coates came and pruned the cottonwood and two of the junipers -- the tall skinny one by the garage door which was getting top heavy and the spreading Pfitzer juniper which was encroaching over onto the driveway.

Not inexpensive -- $1,900. Several guys were here for two hours. They did a nice enough job.

I was really hoping they could trim the spreading juniper by the driveway to look natural and I was concerned about getting it off the driveway. But neither was possible.

They did what they could, but it's not much of a difference, except it looks rounder. It does have a subtle shaped curve now. But instead of pruning out the bottom to keep a slightly arched look, they pruned the top edge and left the bottom still well out over the driveway.

So while it looks natural enough, the shape is heavy at the bottom where I had wanted it pruned, and more rounded at the top where I liked the upward spray of branches. It's the reverse of what I wanted.

In fairness, pruning out the bottom exposed brown stems, which is a horrible look, so they really couldn't do much there. 

I'm wondering if I can now try to do some more shaping at the bottom without exposing brown stems -- I can try a bit. 

It's less daunting than the thought of a total pruning job myself. At least a lot of it is done and carted away.

← But the tall skinny juniper by the garage door was well pruned. It's still an awkward tree in an unsuitable place, but it looks much better.

The cottonwood looks better too, although it is hard to tell until the leaves come out, and it is unfortunately lopsided from the slime flux problem on one side.

But they cleaned up the look quite a bit.

A.I. Garden Help

I've been having fun creating and modifying pictures on Gemini A.I. to see what tweaks I could make to my garden design. It's usually a bit off when creating whole garden scenes (not everything blooms at once or so prolifically). It comes up with some odd distortions. 

But for a simple request to compare two plants, it was really helpful. 

I wanted to compare Rocky Mountain penstemon (in my High Country Gardens order) and Black Adder agastache (I'll divide the pot of it that I have) both of which I'm going to plant in the new strip I'm adding between the birdbath and the left edge of the potting bench curve. 

Both are purple spiky flowering plants, quite similar looking, but I needed to compare bloom times, sizes, preferred conditions, etc.

Rocky Mountain penstemon versus agastache Black Adder

So I asked Google Gemini to compare the two and within seconds I had this really helpful and concise information, even a chart. I think it's accurate.

Response from Gemini --

Both 

Rocky Mountain Penstemon (Penstemon strictus) and 'Black Adder' Agastache (Agastache hybrid) are popular purple-flowering perennials known for their drought tolerance and ability to attract pollinators. Their primary differences lie in their bloom timing, foliage scent, and growth habit. 

Key Comparison

Feature	Rocky Mountain Penstemon	'Black Adder' Agastache
Bloom Time	Late Spring to Early Summer (brief, intense)	Mid-Summer to Fall (extended blooming)
Flower Color	Deep lavender to royal purple	Red-violet flowers from dark, smoky buds
Foliage	Smooth, dark green; non-aromatic	Blue-green; strong anise/mint scent
Hardy	USDA Zones 3–9 (very cold hardy)	USDA Zones 5–9 (prefers well-drained soil)
Height	24–36 inches	24–36 inches

Detailed Differences

• Flowering Window: Penstemon provides a spectacular but relatively short display in late spring, often acting as a bridge between spring bulbs and summer perennials. 'Black Adder' is a "season extender," blooming continuously for several months until the first frost.
• Aromatic Qualities: 'Black Adder' belongs to the mint family; its leaves release a spicy liquorice scent when crushed, which also makes it highly deer and rabbit resistant. Rocky Mountain Penstemon does not have fragrant foliage.
• Soil Requirements: While both are drought-tolerant, 'Black Adder' Agastache is particularly sensitive to "wet feet" in winter. It requires exceptional drainage to survive cold seasons, whereas Rocky Mountain Penstemon is more adaptable to various garden soils as long as they are not boggy.
• Growth Habit: Penstemon tends to form a basal rosette of leaves with tall, vertical flower spikes. 'Black Adder' forms a bushier, more branched upright clump with multiple "bottlebrush" flower heads. 

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