Columbine Returns

Weather: Fall arrived on Friday when the morning temperature near my house fell to 33 degrees.

Last useful rain: 9/26. Week’s low: 33 degrees F. Week’s high: 82 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, yellow potentilla, buddleia, silver lace vine, Russian sage, rose of Sharon, datura, sweet pea, coreopsis, Maximilian sunflowers, chrysanthemums, zinnias, pampas grass

What’s blooming in my yard: Chocolate flowers, blanket flowers, Mönch aster, white cosmos, African marigolds, bachelor buttons, larkspur

What’s blooming outside the walls and fences: Apache plume, stick leaf, velvetweed, bindweed, silver leaf nightshade, greenleaf five eyes, leather leaf globemallow, broom snakeweed, Hopi tea, horseweed, wild lettuce, plain’s paper flower, áñil del muerto, native sunflowers, Tahoka daisy, pigweed, Russian thistles; purple, heath, and golden hairy asters; quack grass; seven-week, black, blue, and side oats grama

Bedding plants: Pansies, sweet alyssum; petunias and dwarf marigolds locally.

Tasks: The days get shorter, and so does my time to work outside. This week I switched from a three-day watering cycle back to a four-day one. It’s now dark at 6 am, when I used to start.

Animal sightings: Cat, small brown birds, geckos, small bees, hornets, other small flying insects, sidewalk ants, crickets

The neighbor’s cat doesn’t like cold air. Some mornings it looks like it would dive into the house in the morning, even though the rest of the time it treats me with suspicious indifference.

Weekly update: This summer I cleared the golden spur columbine that was crowding the daylilies. I also did some leveling with new soil.

The columbine is back with a vengeance. The plants in the new soil have woods that are at three to five inches across, and deeper than my spade will dig. I get out what I can, but the remains will regenerate. I had hoped to plant something else there, but not I fear the columbine roots will choke anything from underneath.

The plants also reburied the daylilies. There’s one small rose that’s disappeared completely. When I did them out, I find the same kinds of massive roots have replaced the smaller ones I removed earlier.

Seeds landed between and right next to leaves that stopped the flow of air. They put down narrow roots, then expand. It's hard to get them out without damaging the daylily or poker root. Even then, the buried remnant is likely to squeeze out the desired plant.

When I remove the plants, I discover the ground covered with small seedlings. What with the cool temperatures and bits of rain this is their season to grow.

Notes on photograph: Tree of life on sign for a business painted on the side of an adobe building, 19 August 2018.