Winter Light

Weather: Winter temperatures; last rain 11/10/12; 10:01 hours of daylight today.

What’s still green: Juniper, red hot poker, yucca, Madonna lily, Japanese honeysuckle, Saint John’s wort, vinca, moss phlox, soapworts, sea pink, pink and yellow primroses, sweet pea, snapdragon, beardstongues, gypsum phacelia, alfilerillo, horseweed, Shasta daisy, pampas, needle and cheat grass.

What’s red: Apple, apricot and sandbar willow branches.

What’s grey or blue: Snow-in-summer, pinks leaves, Silver King artemisia.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia, petunias.

Animal sightings: Small brown birds.

Weekly update: Every year, around this time, the sun begins to shine in my eyes when I’m sitting at my desk. I retreat to the kitchen for breakfast.

Even before, the zonal geraniums start to bloom. I used to wonder why the South African natives were putting out flowers when it was their regular summer back home, but was winter here.

I finally realized it wasn’t some impossibly inherited sense of time, but that winter sun, which blinds me, is pouring light directly into the east facing porch for hours.

This year I finally managed to get some petunias to survive the summer by buying some large enough to be beyond the barely weened stage of the usual four packs. When temperatures started falling, I brought them in to see if they could live on the porch.

In late October, came the expected crises when water wasn’t quite the same, and several died. Or appeared to. A few weeks later, the first part of November, new growth appeared at the bases, and in the past week or so new leaves have appeared amongst the dead leaves.

Through it all, one plant has continued to bloom. And, like the geraniums, it’s not the flowers that are beautiful, but the winter light coming through the pigments. Without that, they are just the foul smelling, sticky stemmed, flat colored plants of mid-summer.

This week I looked out the western bathroom window a little after 5:30 and discovered late afternoon winter light can be as magical. The dead leaves on the cottonwoods were golden.

I went out to take a picture and saw the sun, which usually drops behind the Jeméz in early evening, was now behind the black mesa, way to the south. Someone was burning and their smoke was blowing north toward my house. The particles of ash had diffused and were refracting the light that was coming through the trees.

I looked again a few days later. The sun was still falling behind the mesa. The leaves were still golden. But the early winter magic wasn’t to be seen. They were just leaves that should have fallen and now were waiting for the winds to fragment them.

Photographs:
1. Cottonwoods on the prairie around 5:30, 20 November 2012.

2. Zonal geranium on the east facing enclosed porch, 23 November 2012.

3. Wave petunias on the east porch, 23 November 2012.

4. Wave petunias that were blooming near the floor of the east porch, 23 November 2012.

5. Cottonwood in my neighbor’s yard, 20 November 2012.

6. Cottonwoods of the prairie with the smoke at the far left, winterfat in the foreground, 20 November 2012.

7. Aeonium leaves in winter light on east porch, 12 November 2012.

Shades of Green

Weather: Cold mornings; last rain 11/10/12; 10:10 hours of daylight today.

What’s still green: Juniper, red hot poker, yucca, Madonna lily, Japanese honeysuckle, Saint John’s wort, vinca, moss phlox, soapworts, sea pink, pink and yellow primroses, sweet pea, snapdragon, beardstongues, gypsum phacelia, alfilerillo, horseweed, Shasta daisy.

What’s red/turning red: Apple and apricot branches.

What’s grey or blue: Snow-in-summer, pinks leaves, Silver King artemisia.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia, petunias.

Animal sightings: Small brown birds.

Weekly update: Tuesday morning it was 15 on my front porch; mornings stayed below 20 most of the week. Evening skies were causally clear, the stars brilliant. Anything that survived is part of that nether world of winter plants who have a different metabolism than everything surrounding it.

The winter annual weeds, or biennials as some like to call them, are still there. The horseweed stalks were killed, but not the basal leaves.

The yellow evening primroses, that spent the summer hiding as a coral beardstongues, have revealed themselves, now that it’s too late to do anything until spring. By then, of course, their taproots will have insinuated themselves deep into the garden.

The cold loving perennials used the long fall, with its clearly defined gradients of coolness, to put out new leaves. The California poppies grew bushy, but their stems collapsed this week. Not so the snow-in-summer. The sub-sub-sub-alpines love this weather, and only tolerate the summers.

The sweet peas that died out in July, and only grudgingly came back when they got more water, are still there. The clump still hasn’t grown much, but neither has it retreated. It doesn’t even bother to say, “Next year will be different.” It’s been around too long to do anything but harumph.

Likewise, the snapdragons. The bedding plants never do much: if they come in bud, they release those flowers, then pout for the rest of the summer. Come fall, they muster their energy and bloom like they were advertised. Well not quite as advertised: there’s no great spike, only single flowers that follow one another for a few weeks. I wonder where they actually perform like advertised; it can’t be in a warm greenhouse. And now, they hint, maybe, if things go well, they’ll be around next spring and reward me for not pulling them up in disgust. Maybe. Then again, when it finally snows they may succumb.

Members of the olive and rose families spent the fall more productively. Next year’s buds now are visible on the apples, the Bradford pear, the cherries and the peaches. The privets produced shiny black berries, and only now are dropping their leaves. The forsythia kept its dead leaves as long as it dared, but now they are dropping. In their place, the debut of the next years leaves.

The annual grasses turned ecru long ago and released their seeds. Tops on the native needle grass have died, but the bases still are green.

The counterintuitive cheat grass germinated in the fall, and now is bright green. I’ve learned to live with it. The blades all may die in spring, but they work in winter, protecting the ground around the roses where no other live mulch has taken hold. Of all the winter weeds, they are the easiest to remove in spring.

Photographs: All taken 16 November 2012
1. Grey California poppy collapsed with the cold.

2. Next year’s buds on Bradford pear.

3. Basal horseweed leaves.

4. Yellow evening primrose leaves.

5. Grey snow-in-summer with darker, more linear pink leaves.

6. Sweet pea leaves.

7. Snapdragon leaves and opened seed capsules.

8. This year’s dead leaves and next spring’s buds on forsythia.

9. Base of needle grass clump.

10. Cheat grass.

11. Tansy, the last flower of the season; it’s head has browned a little; some of the leaves are turning colors before dying brown.

Barren Trees

Weather: A little rain yesterday; last rain 11/10/12; 10:25 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming: Golden hairy asters.

What’s still green: Juniper, red hot poker, yucca, Japanese honeysuckle, winecup mallow, hollyhocks, leather leaf globe mallow, moss phlox, soapworts, sea pink, pink primrose, sweet pea, snapdragon, gypsum phacelia, alfilerillo, horseweed.

What’s red/turning red: Rose, raspberry leaves.

What’s grey or blue: California poppy, snow-in-summer, pinks, catmint leaves.

What’s yellow/turning yellow: Privet leaves.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia, petunias.

Animal sightings: Small brown birds, hornets in garage.

Weekly update: The walk about, the aboriginal Australian term I use for wandering around the house looking at plants, changes with the seasons. In spring, there’s the discovery of new shoots, of plants come back. In summer, there’s always finding something new in bloom. In fall, you look for signs plants are preparing for winter.

This week, with gray clouds lowering overhead, I felt more like the weary householder, wandering around to check all the doors were locked before turning in for the night.

I wanted to see if trees had finally dropped their leaves, and were ready for the snow that would come sometime. The cottonwoods are always a worry, for they never seem to drop their leaves soon enough. And, it was only this week that mine, a flowerless one I bought at a local hardware, began shedding its leaves. The ones in the village have been releasing them with every wind, but the ones on the prairie are still brown and full.

The catalpas, both in my yard and down the road, all dropped their leaves early, as did the black locusts. Sometimes, the leaves are killed before the trees are ready to release them, and they linger through the winter. And, even though I’ve learned the snows don’t weigh them down, I still have the anxieties I developed in the north where winter ice broke branches.

The fruit trees have been the slowest to respond this year. The peach and sweet cherry shed their leaves early, but it’s only been in the past week that the village apples have dropped some of their heavy fruit and leaves. The sour cherry and apricot have been the slowest in my yard.

But when the leaves are gone, I can see next year’s buds are already formed, and next spring’s walk about is already in place.

Photographs: All taken 10 November 2012
1. Prairie, same view as 21 October 2012, only the lilacs are bare and the prairie cottonwoods brown in the distance. Between, the winterfat and salt bushes that took over the septic field in my yard, and the same growing between my fence and the cottonwoods.

2. Globe willow.

3. Cottonwood in my yard.

4. Catalpa.

5. Black locust.

6. Apricot.

7. Sweet cherry leaf buds.

8. Russian olive with fruit and some leaves.

Shades of Brown

Weather: Mornings routinely below freezing, afternoons not as warm; last rain 10/12/12; 10:38 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming: Golden hairy asters, chrysanthemums.

What’s still green: Red hot poker, winecup mallow, moss phlox, large flowered soapwort, bouncing Bess, Dutch clover, sweet pea, snapdragon, horseweed leaves; new gypsum phacelia, alfilerillo plants.

What’s red/turning red: Bradford pear, sand cherry, spirea, rose leaves.

What’s grey or blue: California poppy, snow-in-summer, pinks, catmint leaves.

What’s yellow/turning yellow: Cottonwood, privet leaves.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia, petunias.

Animal sightings: Small brown birds, hornets, harvester and small black ants.

Weekly update: The clouds to the east at dawn have captured the sun below before turning opalescent then disappearing for the day. Farther east, they converged, then swirled, then invaded New Jersey. They were transformed into high tides on the shore and snow in the mountains.

Here the clouds just smelled of wood smoke. Last Sunday the odor was so strong, I walked out to see if flames were visible somewhere, but nothing could be seen through the haze to the west. The Forest Service has been burning underbrush in the Jeméz and air masses they call inversions have been trapping fumes.

With no rain since mid-October, there have been no frosty mornings when you see white crystals clinging to grass blades and whatever else still is generating heat. Instead, temperatures have settled on a lower plateau: below 32 in the morning, not much above 60 in the afternoons. The textbook shutdown of life system has continued uninterrupted by unexpected changes.

The tender trees like the catalpas are nearly bare. The cottonwoods have turned brown.

So too has the chamisa. At a distance the gold looks burnished. Up close, you can see the petals are gone and the brackets remain.

Nothing has been bleached yet by the greedy sun that will suck every drop of moisture by mid-winter. The bright pigments are gone, but pigments still remain in shrubs

and grasses.

The seed heads on the salt bushes have turned rust.

The few plants that were blooming a few week ago now have white seed heads.

What real green remains is found on the plants that flourish in cold. New horseweed and gypsum phacelia plants are thriving.

Usually roses continue to bloom after the first freeze, but this year there has been no last gasp. The leaves on some are turning red, the leaves on others a bit yellow, but most still are green. The only flowers that remain are the nasturtiums, imported generations ago from the Peruvian uplands. Somehow they always manage to survive longer than any native, hunkered close to the ground.

Photographs: All taken 30 October 2012.
1. Purple coneflower seed head bereft of seeds.

2. Chamisa in the far arroyo; the white are the seed heads of broom senecio.

3. Cottonwoods on the prairie, with gray-green winterfat and bronze colored saltbushes in the foreground. The Jeméz are in back, across the river.

4. Chamisa in the far arroyo.

5. Dried caryopteris flowers.

6. Grasses along the road bank leading into the far arroyo.

7. Saltbushes and winterfat on the prairie.

8. Horseweed.

9. Gypsum green phacelia with grama grass in the foreground in the bottom of the far arroyo.

10. Nasturtium.

11. Tamarix and chamisa in the far arroyo.