The current pandemic and the stay-at-home order that followed it have upended my usual activities and thrown my schedule into total disarray. Like many people I know, I find myself struggling to remember what day it is sometimes. Rapid changes in the weather have also left me wondering what season it is. The calendar says it's spring but, in the middle of our second heatwave of the year, it feels like summer. Meanwhile, some of my trees are making it look like fall.
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| This is the Hong Kong orchid tree (Bauhinia x blakeana) in our front garden. After blooming for months, it dropped all its flowers and, since this photo was taken following our first heatwave, most of its leaves. |
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| The ornamental pear (Pyrus calleryana) also went into fall mode but it still held onto two-thirds of its leaves despite creating a fall-like mess of leaf litter |
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| The noID Guava also lost a lot of its leaves in response to the heat but managed to quickly sprout replacement leaves since this photo was taken last week. Cleaning leaf litter covering the spiky agaves below hasn't been a lot of fun, though. |
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| The Auranticarpa rhombifolium in the middle here has been showing signs of decline for some time but the last heatwave sealed the deal. Although the tall shrub on its right is the same species and looks fantastic (if perhaps in need of pruning), these shrubs in general haven't done well here. A neighbor told me that these shrubs originally formed a hedge along the street but quickly began dying and were replaced by Xylosma except for one stretch in this area. We've pulled 3 of them since we moved in and now I'm planning to take out both the dead one and the other one on its left. |
Sudden heat stress probably accounts for the behavior of the trees shown above but some trees in my garden are still firmly in spring mode.
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| Dwarf Acer palmatum 'Mikawa Yatsubusa' is looking great in partial shade |
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| Acer palmatum 'Sango Kuku' is also doing fine with morning sun and afternoon shade |
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| The persimmons also look great. 'Hachiya' is on the left and 'Fuyu' is on the right. |
However, the mimosa tree (
Albizia julibrissin) says it's clearly early summer, time to leaf out those bare limbs at last.
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| It'll probably be several weeks yet before it has a full canopy |
A lizard I met in my cutting garden this morning, as the temperature reached into the 80s, said the answer to my question is obvious: "It's lizard season!"
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| As oracles are known to do, he ignored me for awhile |
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| Before turning in my direction, giving me an answer and suggesting I leave the garden to those that can really take the heat |
I hope you're doing better than I am keeping the days of the week - and your seasons - straight! At one o'clock, we've just passed the 90F mark. Tomorrow is expected to be hotter still.
All material © 2012-2020 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
