Fall news

Oh good, another couple of WordPress updates!

I’m sure this will all run together as one paragraph,  even though that is never how I create the documents…..instead relying on lots of  dots.

This summer was very unusual, and pretty hard on the plant life around here. 80’s and 90′ for weeks at a time, and no rain from June 1 to around  end of August. It wasn’t until the temps dropped back down into the 70’s that any of the plants came back to life. Even the mature Rhodies looked wilted and near death while it was still hot, despite  my providing some sprinkler assistance to some sites. But because we don’t have humidity to speak of, which also goes along with no rain, it was pretty pleasant for humans, especially into the evenings. We are used to it getting chillier at night, but we didn’t have to bundle up at night this summer. If we’d had a little more rain, some of the plants wouldn’t have been so stressed, and some might not have died.

BUT, the real stars  of “drought resistant” gardens here in the Pacific Northwest, meaning they not only survived but they looked OK   Delphoidea/Arrowleaf, Monardella odorissima, all the buckwheat species including ground covers and shrubs, Penstemons Richardsonii and Tolmei, Beargrass, Desert Parsley, Indian paintbrush (castilleja), many heuchera, Globemallow, the two pussytoes, and of course the sedums and all the spring emerging plants that are not subject to the drought because they die back in the summer anyway (bulbs, irises,  Columbines).  Some plants did OK if they were not in the sun, but there were literally sunscorched areas of otherwise alive plants where the Suns Rays were strongest, especially afternoon light (why did it capitalize “Suns” on me, twice now? This must be part of the upgrade).

I have found a new ‘feature’ fatal flaw in this version of WordPress. You may not appreciate it because this is a static document, but there is a huge lag time for typing the keystrokes and seeing the words being typed out, very frustrating. Guess I’ll wait a while till they fix this bug to come back. Bye bye!