Abscission

Weather: Despite the occasional snowfall, the exposed ground in my yard is dry as a beach several inches down. The wet soil under the tiles I’m resetting has not frozen.

The house loses heat its retained gradually, so it’s now colder in the house than it was when temperatures were much lower. This week I made the transition from lambs wool sweaters to those made from Shetland wood. Those sweaters are now collecting hair and lint impelled by static electricity activated by the furnace.

Last useful snow: 10/27. Week’s low: 17 degrees F. Week’s high: 654 degrees F in the shade.

What’s still green: Cholla cactus; leaves on privet, juniper and other evergreens, Japanese honeysuckle, yuccas, red hot poker, chives, grape hyacinth, bouncing Bess, pinks, sweet peas, pink evening primroses, golden spur columbine, snapdragons, blue flax, green leaf five eyes, hollyhock, winecup mallow, Queen Anne’s lace, anthemis, yarrow, purple aster, dandelions, June, needle, and cheat grass

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves on Apache plume, cliff rose, fernbush, winterfat, snow-in-summer, catmint, Silver King artemisia

What’s still red: Leaves on Bradford pear, woods and pasture roses

What’s turning orange: Tansy

Tasks: I began cutting dead wood in the back roses, and clearing the weeds from underneath them. There was lots of cheat grass stems that came away easily. The new growth is up, and providing some kind of ground protection for the rose roots.

Some sideoats gramma came up along the new soaker hose. I planted seeds elsewhere in 2005, and a few came up in 2015. Two years ago there were plants to the south of the roses. I don’t know if seed from them or native plants landed along the back porch and was just waiting for the right opportunity to sprout.

Animal sightings: Small birds, ants, worms. Insects are coming into garage; I saw two crickets, a moth, and a dying hornet this week.

Weekly update: As I indicated in the post for 1 September 2019 on Duff, the mere work of clearing dead wood and leaves from trees and shrubs is an education in the ways plants protect themselves. It also is a reminder there are no easy generalizations.

When levels of sun light decrease in the fall and the metabolism of plants slows, hormones begin the process of isolating, then dropping leaves. This year’s onslaught of early cold temperatures preempted the process, leaving dead leaves on trees. What happened next has varied.

The apricots, peaches, and some sweet cherries quickly dropped the dead matter, or let the winds remove it. They either had begun the process of abscission, or were able to complete it in the afternoons when temperatures warmed enough to allow some metabolic functions.

The members of the rose family whose leaves had turned red were arrested. The leaves are dead, but still in place. If I touch the ones on the sandcherries, they fall. The leaves on the Bradford pear, however, do not come down. Whatever the interplay of chemicals that produced their fall colors has been reacting differently than the apricots that didn’t have time to change color.

The trees that always hold their leaves still have them. The leaves are still clinging to the cottonwood, and if they fall do so when the wind can blow them away. These are the ones I suspected created problems for the tree’s ability to drink when they accumulated, as they do, on the side where the fence traps them.

The Russian olive also retains its leaves, and the ground is nearly bare under it.

Notes on photographs: Taken 9 November 2019.
1. Bradford pear (Pyrus calleryana) with full set of dead, red leaves.

2. Apricot (Prunus armeniaca) with a few dead, brown leaves; the rest are on the ground under it.

3. Cottonless cottonwood (Populus deltoides) with dead, faded green leaves on the tree, and a few accumulated near the fence. The rest of the fallen leaves have blown away.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (in Technicolor)

Weather: Mornings have been very cold, and afternoons only get above 50 in the afternoon. Saturday, it was comfortable to walk in sunny areas, but not ones in the shade. My hands began to get cold after about 20 minutes.

Last useful snow: 10/27. Week’s low: 11 degrees F. Week’s high: 65 degrees F in the shade.

What’s still green: Cholla cactus; leaves on privet, juniper and other evergreens, Japanese honeysuckle, yuccas, red hot poker, chives, grape hyacinth, tansy, bouncing Bess, pinks, sweet peas, pink evening primroses, golden spur columbine, snapdragons, blue flax, green leaf five eyes, hollyhock, winecup mallow, Queen Anne’s lace, anthemis, yarrow, purple aster, dandelions, June, needle, and cheat grass

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves on Apache plume, cliff rose, fernbush, winterfat, snow-in-summer, catmint, Silver King artemisia

What’s still red: Leaves on woods and pasture roses

Tasks: Before it turned cold, I finished clipping dead wood from the Siberian pea, and moved on to the lilacs. They have been neglected for a number of years, and the dead wood turns too hard to cut easily.

Animal sightings: Goldfinches on Maximilian sunflowers, chickadees

Weekly update: My sense of normal temperatures in New Mexico is that it gets very cold just before the winter solstice and very warm before the summer one. Very cold means below 20, and temperatures remain cool into January. Summers are always hot, but usually in the 80s.

That pattern changed in the past few years. 2016 was a warm winter. It got down to 18 on November 30 and the coldest morning was 12 on January 7. The next year was dry and cold. It went down to 10 on November 26, and the coldest day was 5 on December 12. Last year was a bit better: temperatures fell to 17 on November 9 an the coldest day was 2 on January 27th.

This year we had a normal spring; it didn’t get really hot until June 25, and then afternoon temperatures were in the 90s through the first week in September. We went from mid summer to early fall, bypassing late summer when the annuls bloom and produce seed.

Then, on October 11 we went from early fall to early winter, with no late fall. Trees did not get the gradual messages to prepare for winter, and slow their metabolisms. Instead, morning temperatures went from the low 20s to 18. They rose into the 20s for days, then hit the occasional 18. This week temperatures dropped to 16 on October 29, 15 on Halloween, 11 on Friday and 18 on All Souls’ Day.

No autumn color. Leaves died and fell in masses. When I walked around yesterday, leaves on some, like the sandcherries that had turned red, fell as soon as they were touched.

This year the anomalies in temperature coincided with problems in areas far removed from this high mountain country. Temperatures had fallen into the 80s in the second week of August, presaging a normal transition into late summer. Then Hurricane Dorian began forming in the Atlantic on August 23, and on the 25th our temperatures returned to the 90s and stayed there until the hurricane finally dissipated on September 7.

Our cold weather was preceded by high winds that accompanied the fronts. In California, the utilities started cutting power in anticipation of Santa Ana winds on October 9. That was more than a week before we got high winds on October 17. Winds there continued. We got four days of high winds starting a week ago Saturday, and then the severely cold mornings.

The year has been one of traveling smoke. In May we started getting smoke from fires in México that lasted until the first hurricanes formed in the Pacific in late June. Then, during the worst of the winds we got smoke from California. Since Thursday it has been going north.

One begins to think about what climate change looks like. Some nursery catalogs advertise one can now grow zone 6 plants like azaleas because the USDA map shows average winter temperatures warming. That may be true on the east coast and at low elevations.

Here, we’ve had two years without many late summer annual flowers. They won’t die out, because, of course, they aren’t natives. The seed is grown in warmer climates and sold here. They will continue to thrive elsewhere.

It won’t be a return to the Carboniferous Age of Ferns either. The plants of early summer like bouncing Bess, pink evening primroses, and golden spur columbine did very well. Then in early fall, they grew everywhere after temperatures cooled.

I think of them as sub-alpine although most really are lower elevation plants. I used the term incorrectly to refer to plants that thrive in cool temperatures.

They’ll keep our corner of the world green when plants that can’t handle the extremes either die or go dormant in the summer. It won’t become a landscape of sere browns, but it also may not be one where corn, melons, and tomatoes do well.

When I looked around at what still was green in my yard yesterday, it was an inventory of those invaders that were shoving everything aside this past September. Many, like golden spur columbine and cliff roses, were native to this area. Others were varieties imported from the north, like Cheyenne privet and Queen Anne’s lace.

Many were bulbs, like the grape hyacinths, or had thick, fleshy, deeply-buried roots like the yuccas and hollyhocks. Many produce seeds, but the perennials can survive for a few years without reproducing. They don’t need to adapt to the atmospheric changes. They did that eons ago.

Notes on photographs: Taken 2 November 2019.
1. Cliff rose (Purshia mexicana).
2. Cheyenne Privet (Ligustrum vulgare).
3. Fernbush (Chamaebatiaria millefolium).

End notes:
Wikipedia. "2019 Atlantic Hurricane Season"

Olga R. Rodriguez and Janie Har. "California Faces Historic Power Outage Due to Fire Danger." Associated Press 8 October 2019. WSB television website, Atlanta.

Location Rules

Weather: Some warm afternoons, but the winds begin soon after it’s warm enough to be outside.
Last useful rain: 10/04. Week’s low: 23 degrees F. Week’s high: 73 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming: Scarlet flax, broom senecio, snap dragons, a few blanket flowers and plains coreopsis, one chocolate flower

What’s still green: Cholla cactus; leaves on Bradford pear, crab apples, Siberian elm, beauty bush, juniper, German iris, red hot poker, regular and garlic chives, tansy, bouncing Bess, pinks, sweet peas, pink evening primroses, sweet violets, coral bells, golden spur columbine, blue flax, green leaf five eyes, bindweed, vinca, Johnson Blue geranium, winecup mallow, Queen Anne’s lace, Mönch asters, yarrow, dandelions, purple coneflowers, chrysanthemums, lance leaf coreopsis, Shasta daisy, June, needle, and cheat grass

What’s still gray or gray-green: Leaves on Apache plume, fernbush, winterfat, snow-in-summer, catmint, Silver King artemisia

What’s turning yellow: Leaves on cottonwoods, lilacs, Maximilian sunflowers, goldenrod

What’ turning orange: Leaves on peaches, choke cherries

What’s turning red or purple: Leaves on woods rose, sandcherries and purple leaf sandcherry, purple leaf plum, leadplant

Tasks: Finished clipping dead wood from the Siberian pea, and moved on to the lilacs. They have been neglected for a number of years, and the dead wood turns too hard to cut easily.

Animal sightings: Small birds, small gecko, grasshoppers, ants

Weekly update: It’s not Herbert Spencer’s survival of the fittest that defines what survives the first cold temperatures, but the realtor’s "location, location, location!"

Temperature fell to 23 degrees a week ago Friday, and then went down to 18 on Saturday. Nothing prepared the floral world. The lowest it had been was 33, and that was almost a week before.

Anything that was exposed was killed: leaves on trees, stems on herbaceous perennials, and most annuals from warmer climates.

But not everything. Grape leaves along the top rails of fences along the main road died, but not those lower to the ground. The outer leaves of one person’s datura died, but not those between the dead leaves and the stone wall.

Wherever there was a heat sink, something might survive. I have three apricots. The leaves on two, which stand by themselves along the gravel drive, died. The other is next to a juniper. All the leaves died, except those nearest the evergreen.

Because the preceding days were warm, the ground retained heat. Most of the green leaves mentioned in the above list are near the surface. Most of the chocolate flowers that grow over Saltillo tiles died, but the a few leaves on one growing in dirt survived. It produced a flower, barely visible behind the protective stems.

Species does make a difference. The other plants that still have flowers are ones adapted to cold climates, like snapdragons, or native ones that are used to climatic extremes like the purple asters and broom senecio.

Landscapers like to tell homeowners how they can exploit microclimates created in their yards by buildings and trees. They can’t control the even smaller nanoclimates made by plants themselves.

Notes on photographs: All were taken 20 October 2019.
1. Blanket flower (Gaillardia grandiflora).
2. Chocolate flower (Berlandiera lyrata) growing close to the ground.
3. Apricot (Prunus persica) protect by a one-seeded juniper (Juniperus monosperma).

Arrested Development

Weather: Last Thursday’s morning temperature was 42; Friday it was 23. The lows have been below freezing ever since.
Last useful rain: 10/04. Week’s low: 18 degrees F. Week’s high: 76 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming: It’s too soon to know if any of the visible flowers are alive or freeze dried. Virginia creeper leaves turned burgundy before the cold, but other leaves simply died with the cold. It remains to be seen if any more change color.

What’s still green: The full effects haven’t been processed by plants, so many leaves are still green.

Tasks: My order of spring bulbs arrived after temperatures fell. It had rained 10/4, and water remained in the ground. However, the soil was cold to handle and to stand on.

The peaches seemed lighter when I put some bags in the trash this morning. I’m not sure if the cold forced them to give up more water, in effect partially freeze drying them. Of course, they warm every afternoon.

Animal sightings: Small birds, grasshoppers, ants and small flying insects still active. I heard migrating geese Sunday afternoon near the river.

Weekly update: I didn’t realize until this summer how much my sense of passing time is related to what I see in my garden. When plants stopped growing because of the high heat, I went into a hiatus. I knew what the calendar said, but my sense of time was that it was still early July. Until certain plants, like zinnias and cosmos bloomed, my internal calendar was frozen.

In the past few weeks I had a hard time adjusting to shorter day lengths. There were certain areas I watered in late afternoon, usually after I had eaten. Suddenly, when I did that, it was dark before the watering was done. I couldn’t remember to start earlier, because, or course, I was still waiting for the annuals to bloom.

We had another jolt this past week, when temperatures went from those of fall to winter. Plants didn’t have time to go through their usual deceleration. Since leaves didn’t change, my internal calendar again was suspended.

The cold temperatures mean nothing will get watered again: the hoses probably contain ice in the early morning.

Instead of doing any weed removal, all I can do now is continue trimming dead wood. I’ve only got a few more days left to use the presence of leaves as my criteria. After that, the only way I can judge if a limb is alive is if it is pliable. That isn’t a sure sign, but one can be sure that one that’s rigid probably is dead.

Notes on photographs:
1. Broom senecio (Senecio spartioides), 14 October 2019. This only started to bloom on a week ago Monday. The fact an insect was actively foraging suggests the flower is still alive.

2. Pink evening primrose (Oenothera Speciosa), 14 October 2019. This is blooming in a protected location, low to the ground and next to the heat-retaining rail-timber wall. They have been actively growing this fall. However, I doubt the presence of the ant signifies anything.

3. Catalpa with dead wood marked by glittery, light-catching pipe cleaners, 10 October 2019.

Chemistry Isn’t Everything

Weather: Humidity remained normal, even though there were little to no low-level moisture in the atmosphere. That means water was being sucked out of the earth and plants.

The cooler temperatures forced me to begin watering when it got warm enough to not harm the hoses; in the summer I start as soon as I can walk about safely. The annuals and recently planted shrubs haven’t like getting watered less frequently when they are fighting transpiration.

Last useful rain: 9/23. Week’s low: 33 degrees F. Week’s high: 83 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, Russian sage, bird of paradise, roses of Sharon, datura, chrysanthemums, Maximilian sunflowers.

This past week someone had some cosmos come into bloom, and another had some Heavenly Blue morning glories. I have a few short zinnias with very small flowers. This is at least a month later than usual.

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Bindweed, green leaf five eyes, alfalfa, white sweet clover, goat’s head, yellow evening primrose, pigweed, Russian thistle, broom snakeweed, native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, Tahoka daisies, golden hairy, heath and purple asters, quack grass

What’s blooming in my yard: Betty Prior and miniature roses, yellow potentilla, calamintha, lead plant, winecup mallow, large-flowered soapwort, David phlox, perennial four o’clock, Silver King artemesia, African marigolds, chocolate flower, plains coreopsis, anthemis, bachelor buttons, zinnias, blanket flowers

Bedding Plants: One snapdragon, two nicotiana

What’s Coming Up: Golden spur columbine, cheat grass

Tasks: Last week when I put some bags of peaches in the trash, I slit them to drain the water that had separated from the pulp. This week that water had evaporated and the bags were slightly lighter. The smell still was sour.

Animal sightings: Chickadees, geckos, monarch butterflies, bumble and small bees, heard crickets, grasshoppers, hornets, small ants

I’m ambivalent about woodpeckers. On the one hand, they clean out insects in wood and help solve a problem. I’m convinced the reason I had fewer hornets this year was one was banging away on the eaves of the house last year. However, their mere presence signals a problem exists. The one I’ve been hearing recently has been in the cottonwood. The one time I saw the small black-and-white bird, it was on dead wood, but if it’s in the leaves on live wood it wouldn’t be seen.

When the neighbor’s cat patrolled the yard, the mice stayed away. Now that they’re, wisely, keeping the cat in the house, the mice are back. There seems to be no getting rid of them completely.

Weekly update: People are fascinated by the fact some plants produce chemicals that inhibit the growth of others and give them more control of their territory. I think black walnuts are the best known.

The interest is partly an extension of developments in biology that followed the development of more sophisticated microscopes. Biochemistry has explained some diseases, and researchers are continuing to find new ways it affects our brains. It has become the single key to everything.

Others are interested in chemicals as weapons. As soon as botanists discovered the plant hormone that controlled senescence, the military turned it into Agent Orange. It became the basis for herbicides like Round-Up, which are used as expensive, labor efficient ways to handle weeds.

Note the constant interest we have in finding the easiest, cheapest way to do things. Our obsession with productivity blinds us to recognizing the many ways plants have of controlling their environment.

One of my chrysanthemums, the yellow Mary Stoker, remained relatively short all summer. Then, when it came time to bloom, the stems grew longer. They got both taller and reached wider until it became a ball.

The result was the water, which came from a spraying hose, was diverted to it at the expense of all the neighboring ones. They are now suffering.

A week of so ago I cleared part of a bed where golden spur columbine ranges to make room for some iris. This week I returned to the area to plant some lilies, and found some columbine had come back.

The seeds must be tiny. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any. They fall thickly on the ground, especially around other plants and the brick walks. When I trowel around to uproot the young seedlings, all I do is remove competition so ungerminated seeds have an easier time.

They crowd out other plants with their leaves on arching stems that divert water like Mary Stoker. Worse, the roots go down lower that those of neighboring plants, then expand into tubers that monopolize water in their areas. It’s impossible to do more than break off the tops without destroying the unsuspecting neighbor.

Notes on photographs: All taken 26 September 2019.
1. Mary Stoker chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum rubellum). Blanket flowers (Gaillardia aristata) can just be seen behind it.

2. Golden spur columbine seedlings (Aquilegia chrysantha) surround the stem of a lily.

3. Mass of golden spur columbine seedlings that came up under a Kelway anthemis (Anthemis tinctoria).

Damp Leaves Don’t Burn

Weather: I wasn’t able to work outside yesterday because smoke was bothering me. I checked my blood oxygen level to make sure I wasn’t getting paranoid, and found it was down to 93. 95 is normal, and I usually register 96. Ten minutes after I put a mask on in the house, it was up to 94.

The problem with chemicals and smoke, either the ones used to dowse a fire or the ones to ignite one, is they don’t just evaporate. They get mixed in the dust on the forest floor. Once, they get thoroughly dry strong winds pick up the dust.

I had the same kind of breathing problems on Monday. This time there had been some wind, that I assume brought debris from the caldera fire site.

Last useful rain: 9/16. Week’s low: 41 degrees F. Week’s high: 86 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, red-tipped yuccas, Russian sage, buddleia, bird of paradise, roses of Sharon, datura, chrysanthemums, Maximilian sunflowers

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Buffalo gourd, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, alfalfa, white sweet clover, goat’s head, yellow evening primrose, pigweed, Russian thistle, broom snakeweed, Hopi tea, native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, wild lettuce, horseweed, goldenrod, Tahoka daisies, golden hairy, heath and purple asters, Nebraska sedge, quack grass, seven-weeks, side oats and black gramas

What’s blooming in my yard: Betty Prior and miniature roses, yellow potentilla, garlic chives, calamintha, lead plant, winecup mallow, large-flowered soapwort, David phlox peaked, perennial four o’clock, Silver King artemesia, African marigolds, chocolate flower, plains coreopsis, anthemis, bachelor buttons, white Sensation cosmos

Bedding Plants: Wax begonia, pansies, nicotiana, snapdragons

What’s Coming Up: Golden spur columbine seedlings are up everywhere. Plants I cut to the ground two weeks ago have already come back with the encouragement of the high temperatures and humidity.

Tasks: The county cut vegetation along the shoulder this week.

Most of the peaches have fallen, though the ones at the top of the main tree continue to ripen during the day and drop after I’ve cleaned the area in the morning.

I ordered some iris that I thought would be shipped in October. They arrived August 31, when afternoon temperature were in low 90s. Temperatures finally cooled on Thursday, and I spent that day and Friday planting rhizomes. I watered them in, and now, last night and today we’ve gotten enough real rain that they may be able to settle.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, chickadees, magpie, geckos, toads, earth worms, bumble and small bees, heard crickets, grasshoppers, hornets, small ants

Weekly update: It may have been in the late 1960s, when I was in graduate school, that I first heard forestry experts had decided fire suppression was bad. They argued fire was a tool used by nature to maintain healthy stands of trees.

I had no reason to question what I heard until this summer. The promos for converting small fires into controlled burns said the natural cycle for fire was one every seven to fifteen years. [1] I’ve lived here twenty years. If I applied a literal reading of their argument, everything should have burned at least once since I’ve been here. Instead, we’ve only had serious spring fires caused by humans or power lines.

Following the pattern of science defined by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, forestry experts have sought an explanation for why their theory didn’t match reality and the fire regime didn’t reassert itself after they stopped putting out fires. They decided the problem was forest floors had become too cluttered from lack of fire, and no longer were able to burn naturally. That’s the rationale for controlled burns.

While the forest service was inducing fires this summer, I was cleaning debris from under some trees that had been neglected. Under the cottonwood, I only found leaves and remains of winterfat that had died when the cottonwood blocked their sun and water.

The Russian olive was a smaller tree. I found remains of grass that died when it first started growing. Inside the grass clumps I often found broom snakeweed whose seed had been stopped by the grass, then nourished by it. Over the dead snakeweed stems, I found winterfat that had started to grow in the ground protected by the snakeweed. Their limbs had gotten leggy or died as the olive canopy expanded and blocked their access to sun and rain.

It was the kind of woody mess the Forest Service deplored. It also had enough layers of wood with some air between to make them burnable, if they could be ignited.

Natural succession under a tree doesn’t necessarily follow the script of foresters. One reason they were reburning a burn scar near Taos was the wrong things had returned. Gambel oak thickets were growing instead of the desired aspens. [2] I might have preferred bunch grasses when I removed winterfat a year ago, but I got purple asters instead.

As I cleaned out debris and clipped dead wood, I put the woody things into a wheel barrow and the rest into plastic bags. The reason was simple: stiff twigs tore the bags.

Early in the season I put the dead wood around the peach and Siberian pea branches that had come down. Each time I set the pile on fire, the small wood disappeared and the bigger limbs charred and dried. It took three tries for the larger wood to ignite and become hot enough to burn. In a sense, this followed the foresters’ model for fire behavior in woodlands: fire consumed the small wood and left the healthy trees.

After working under the cottonwood, I had so many bags of leaves it would have taken a month to get rid of them with the restraints imposed by our trash company. I was skeptical the leaves would burn, but I thought it was worth a try.

The leaves and grass got compacted in the bags, then it rained on them. While the plastic kept out most of the water, moisture crept in as it does.

The middle of August I dumped the bags around another peach limb that had come down. They wouldn’t ignite. I usually can start a fire by using a match on a single piece of paper stuck into the twigs. I finally had to put a piece of cardboard over the leaves and start the fire under it for the fire to begin.

Then, the leaves and grass didn’t actually burn like the woody parts of shrubs and trees. They smoldered, and turned black. I had a deep pile of black debris, instead of a thin layer of thin ash when I was done, and the peach limb hadn’t dried. The fire never got that hot.

The Amole fire near Taos was started by lightening on September 2, and had grown to four acres by September 4. [3] The fire behavior was described as "creeping," which is exactly what I had seen happen in my yard when an ember landed in green grass. The blades would dry and burn, and maybe the blades closest to them would then ignite. But, the fire died out when it reached the space that separates bunch grasses.

That the Amole fire did no more than creep calls into question the idea that natural fires caused by lightening maintained the forest floor. It would have been a slow process to build up enough heat to ignite the dead, woody undergrowth that would then burn like the dead twigs in my burn piles.

The Forest Service’s answer was to artificially expand the fire. It cut and chipped trees around the perimeter of their proposed burn area, and added them to the fuel. Then they used "hand" and "aerial" ignition. One assumes that involved chemicals, and not matches put to tinder and kindling.

Fires started by lightening are slowed by that fact lightening usually is accompanied by rain. The Forest Service succeed in getting the Amole fire up to 1,917 acres by last Saturday, but still had a problem. Its spokesperson wrote:

"The fire carried well in the mixed conifer stands on south and west facing slopes. However, on the north and east facing slopes the fuels were not as receptive to burning due to recent rains. Green pockets of unburned fuels remain and an attempt will be made to burn these areas today weather permitting." [4]

That final attempt to finish the burn coincided with movement of water vapor from Kiki and other disturbances in the Pacific off the coast of México. I’m guessing the rising smoke mixed with the moisture and was trapped by it, then fell in the night when temperatures cooled. All I know is that, while I was miserable Sunday morning, the Forest Service was declaring victory. [5]

Notes on photographs: All photographs taken 15 September 2019.
1. African marigolds (Tagetes erecta) are the only annual that has bloomed this year. The odd leaf is from a corn plant behind the marigolds.

2. Purple asters (Symphyotrichum ascendens) that came back after I cut down a winterfat (Eurotia lanata) a year before.

3. June grass (Koeleria cristata) grows under the peach tree, where it seems to need water more than sun. It got trampled while I was picking fruit, much like it would have been if large animals had come through.

End notes:
1. SFNFPIO. "Cueva Fire on Coyote Ranger District, SFNF." New Mexico Fire Information website. 3 August 2019. "Historically, low-intensity wildfires burned through southwestern dry conifer forests like the SFNF every seven to 15 years as part of a natural cycle that removed leaf litter, eradicated disease and thinned the understory, making room for new growth and improving habitat for wildlife." SFNF is the Santa Fe National Forest.

2. cnfpio. "Smoke Expected to Increase on Amole Fire." New Mexico Fire Information website. 12 September 2019.

3. cnfpio. "Lightning-Caused Amole Fire to Aid in Forest Restoration." New Mexico Fire Information website. 4 September 2019.

4. cnfpio. "Firing Operations Near Completion on Amole Fire." New Mexico Fire Information website. 14 September 2019.

5. cnfpio. "Amole Fire Final Update." New Mexico Fire Information website. 15 September 2019.

Nature’s Bounty

Weather: Rain last Sunday from the north, followed by a week of July temperatures with no low-level water vapor. That means all the humidity is from water being sucked out of the ground and plants. Soil that’s not being watered every third day behaves like dry sand when it’s disturbed.

Leaves on a few area cottonwoods have turned yellow. Many of my cherry tree leaves are yellowing, and some spirea leaves have turned orange.

Last useful rain: 9/1. Week’s low: 50 degrees F. Week’s high: 95 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, red-tipped yuccas, Russian sage, buddleia, bird of paradise, roses of Sharon, datura, coreopsis, chrysanthemums, cultivated and Maximilian sunflowers.

One may has selling pears, apples, and peaches. One person has at least three large melons on the ground.

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Buffalo gourd, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, alfalfa, white sweet clover, leather leaf globe mallow, goat’s head, yellow evening primrose, pigweed, Russian thistle, broom snakeweed, Hopi tea, native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, wild lettuce, horseweed, goldenrod, Tahoka daisies, golden hairy asters, quack grass, seven-weeks, side oats and black gramas.

Stems on Virginia creeper turned red.

What’s blooming in my yard: Betty Prior and miniature roses, yellow potentilla, garlic chives peaked, Royal Standard hosta, catmints, calamintha, lead plant, winecup mallow, sidalcea, white spurge, large-flowered soapwort, David phlox, perennial four o’clock, Mexican hats, African marigolds, chocolate flower, plains coreopsis, black-eyed Susan, anthemis, Mönch asters peaked, bachelor buttons, white Sensation cosmos

Bedding Plants: Wax begonia, pansies, sweet alyssum, nicotiana, snapdragons

Animal sightings: Rabbit, chickadees, magpie in cottonwood, geckos, small toad, monarch butterfly, bumble and small bees, heard crickets, grasshoppers, hornets, small ants

Weekly update: I’ve had trouble with aphids ever since I had someone do some yard work for me in 2013. The insecticides I’d used didn’t seem to help, so this year in May I tried systemics. They seemed worthless as well.

In mid-August I noticed some leaves on a cherry tree and a younger peach were distorted. As I mentioned last week, when I tried to find an insecticide locally I couldn’t.

So, Sunday I finally sprayed the trees with something from a Santa Fé big box that was supposed to handle insects, mites, and powder mildew. It even was supposed to last for 14 days.

I sprayed early in the morning when the bees weren’t out. And, while I sprayed as much of the yard as the bottle would do, I didn’t spray the garlic chives where they’re active.

The air was still. At most there was a 20% chance of rain in Los Alamos, and nothing less than 50% ever comes to my yard. Very little low-level water vapor lay over the state. It was so dry, the Forest Service was exploiting conditions to expand the fire in the caldera and was eyeing one at Canjilon.

Around 3 pm, the weather bureau reported heavy rain in Los Alamos County. At 5 pm, some thunder. Then, the wind started throwing water at my north facing windows. It didn’t last long, maybe 20 minutes, but everything was wet. So much for the insecticide.

When I went out Monday, there were peaches everywhere on the ground. It was trash day, and we’re limited to one of those plastic containers a week. Boxes had been accumulating for weeks, because I was getting rid of the weeds I’d cleaned and bagged.

I spent my yard time breaking down boxes and cursing tape. When I was a kid, sealing tape was considered a luxury and used sparingly. Now, people who ship cover every opening with tape, and sometimes the entire box. It’s dangerous and arduous to get boxes designed for easy opening to flatten.

I finally got out Tuesday. I began by sitting in the June grass under the main peach and picking up nearby fruit. That proved unproductive, so I got out a small hoe - its handle is about 4' long and the blade 3". I used it like an oar, pulling fruit in to where I was sitting.

The younger peaches had very thorny Dorothy Perkins and Woods roses growing under them. I stood with the hoe pulling the fruit out. I developed different techniques for guiding them between dead rose canes. It was more like miniature golf than a putting green or croquette court.

Random thoughts come when you’re doing mindless tasks. Earlier in the summer, when the fruit was just turning color, I speculated on fruit trees being the original model for Christmas trees. How else would someone think of hanging colored balls on a branch?

Later, as the boughs began to hang heavy I thought of the "Cherry Tree Carol" in which Mary asks Joseph to get her some fruit. He refuses, and tells her to get the father of her child to do it. Then, like magic, the fruit-laden bough bends down.

At that time I was going out every week or so and removing fruit to protect the tree. Because it wasn’t ripe, I had to use nippers to cut it. And, it only did so much good. I still had three branches break that had been damaged by aphids years ago. The last is still in the burn pile, where it has only been reduced by three firings.

This week, after I cleared the free fall from Sunday, I came out each morning to find more peaches on the ground. A number were half eaten. I had to wear rubber gloves to handle them.

The phrase "if you don’t like my peaches, don’t shake my tree" ran through my mind. When I sat in the grass under the main tree, I wondered if it was possible to get some of the fruit before it fell without having to pick it. I took the hoe and used it to shake a branch. I was lucky nothing hit me on the head.

I now have about 250 pounds of peaches in plastic bags rotting in the burn area. I think the limit for those trash containers is about 50 pounds. That means, if I get rid of 30 pounds a week, it’s going to take more than a month to get rid of the harvest. Meantime, not everything has come down. I’m adding 10 to 15 pounds a day.

So far, the rabbit is only eating the day’s bounty. It comes out before there’s enough light to work, and eats its fill. Few ants have been interested, and the hornets are still over on the garlic chives.

But, of course, I can’t use the burn area until the bags are gone. That means, as I remove dead wood from the Russian olive and other trees, it’s going to accumulate and create its own kind of lure for vermin. Some carnivore left the remains of an animal on top of a grass clump in the pile last night.

Notes on photographs:
1. Maximilian sunflowers (Helianthus maximiliani) starting their annual sprawl, 7 September 2019.

2. Peaches as they fell Sunday night, 3 September 2019.

3. Peaches raked out from the grasses and dead wood, 4 September 2019.

Duff

Weather: Afternoon temperatures are still climbing into the 90s. The Forest Service found another small fire it could escalate into a major one with aerial ignitions. This one was in Valles caldera. For three days now I’ve been suffering from the effects of the polluted smoke.

Last useful rain: 8/11. Week’s low: 47 degrees F. Week’s high: 93 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, red-tipped yuccas, Russian sage, buddleia, bird of paradise, roses of Sharon, purple garden phlox, datura, coreopsis, cultivated sunflowers

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Buffalo gourd, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, silver leaf nightshade, alfalfa, white sweet clover, leather leaf globe mallow, goat’s head, yellow evening primrose, toothed spurge, prostrate knotweed, pigweed, Russian thistle, Hopi tea, native sunflowers, gumweed, wild lettuce, horseweed, goldenrod, golden hairy asters, quack grass, seven-weeks, side oats and black gramas.

Áñil del muerto has been blooming much of the summer in fallow market garden fields. It has only now begun to bloom along the roadside.

What’s blooming in my yard: Betty Prior and miniature roses, yellow potentilla, garlic chives, Royal Standard hosta, catmints, calamintha, winecup mallow, sidalcea, white spurge, large-flowered soapwort, David phlox, perennial four o’clock, Mexican hats, African marigolds, chrysanthemums, chocolate flower, plains coreopsis, black-eyed Susan, anthemis, purple coneflower, Mönch asters, bachelor buttons

Bedding Plants: Wax begonia, pansies, sweet alyssum, nicotiana, snapdragons

What’s Coming Up: Early summer seedlings have not grown; some are still at their second leaves. The ones that did come up have to be watered every day when the temperatures return to July highs. This is now September.

Tasks: With the moisture in early August, hay and other grasses revived. This past week people have been mowing.

Insects and fungus are taking advantage of the disappearing moisture and heat: powdery mildew has appeared on the Dr. Huey roses, and leaves on the peaches and cherries are getting disfigured. When I treated them with the available sprays nothing happened. I’m sure the base chemicals work, but I’m not sure the products do.

One thing I noticed this year was it was difficult to even find insecticides in the plant stores and local hardwares. This week I finally went to one of the big boxes to get something I hope works. I don’t know whether the chains or the manufacturers have instituted exclusive contracts, but I do know it seems as if they have.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, chickadees, hummingbird, geckos, bumble and small bees, heard crickets, grasshoppers, hornets, small ants

The Flame red grapes have been ripening for the past two weeks. I was able to eat a few each day. Saturday morning they were gone; not even a stem was left. I assume the rabbit leapt up, bit the cluster stems, then ate the fruit. It tries the fallen peaches, but only eats a little.

Weekly update: Earlier this summer, I cleaned leaves and dead shrubs from under the cottonwood. Recently, I’ve been doing the same under the Russian olive and some sandcherries. The tasks were similar, but the execution was not.

In each case, I first have to cut low dead branches to create a clearance. I was helped with the cottonwood by having someone cut some of the biggest limbs this past winter. All I had to do was cut smaller branches and winterfat.

The Russian olive was a different problem. The winter of 2013-2014 was particularly severe. Wikipedia said a polar vortex broke down in November, "which allowed very cold air to travel down into the United States, leading to an extended period of very cold temperatures. The pattern continued mostly uninterrupted throughout the winter." [1]

I wasn’t keeping detailed weather notes then, so don’t know exactly what happened. I did post an entry on 11 May 2014 on the consequences. Russian olives are not Siberian, but from a more temperate, moisture climate. [2] Trees everywhere in this area died back.

Once I cut or broke off the biggest branches, I had to defang the tree. It produces sharp, hard, wooden thorns. They aren’t poisonous, but pieces do produce infectiongs if they break off and get lodged under the skin. I didn’t always nip off the ones pointing up, but anything pointing down had to be removed.

It was after I had removed dead wood that I noticed the differences in the duff beneath the three species. Standard texts tell you that the duff is composed of three layers: the top strata of leaves and twigs, the bottom one of humus, and a middle one of organisms converting the one to the other. [3]

I know this basic model is valid. I remember seeing the various sorts of insects and worms that inhabit the middle world when I was in camp in Michigan. It was second growth hardwood, and I remember I would see them if I kicked over piles of oak leaves. But, of course, that was more sixty years ago, so I wouldn’t swear they were oaks.

That model does not appear here. As I mentioned in the post for 9 June 2019, the cottonwood leaves were fairly large and created a mat that stopped water from penetrating. It probably evaporated before it had time to seep down. [4] There was no humus, just bare dirt under the leaves.

Sandcherry leaves are smaller and seem to blow away. One is growing under a catalpa, and its leaves also move on. What falls to the ground are the dried shells of the seed pods. They create a web that allows water to go through. There were no signs of humus, but the soil had darkened from contact with decaying materials.

Russian olive leaves are small ovals that do drop. What I found under the tree was a caked layer of leaves and twigs, completely dried even though I watered the area every three days with a sprinkler hose. It had so much integrity, I could pick it up. It seemed like something that, given enough time and water, would turn into peat moss.

Under that layer, the ground was even darker than it was under sandcherry. Ironically, this hated invader seemed to be the only species capable of creating soil in this arid environment.

Notes on photographs:
1. Russian olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia), 24 August 2019. You can see the dead branches at the base of the tree on the right. I have a limited ability to cut thick limbs. Often the loppers act pliers that twist and break what I can’t cut.

2. Russian olive thorns, 15 March 2014. They are aborted twigs.

3. Russian olive as it was recovering on 19 April 2014. All the low growth was dead, and it was putting out new stems from the trunk. All of that still has to be removed. I haven’t worked that far under the tree yet. I’m still removing pigweed from the periphery.

4. Cottonless cottonwood (Populus deltoides) duff, 30 August 2019. Different colors marked the different generations of leaves, with the grayer ones the older. You can see in the bare spot that there has been no creation of new soil. There’s a volunteer juniper growing with it.

5. Sandcherry (Prunus besseyi) duff, 24 August 2019. The bare shot shows this duff is sitting on the bare ground, without interacting with it. However, you can also see that debris allows water to penetrate.

6. Dried Russian olive duff, 30 August 2019, seen from the side.

7. Duff under the Russian olive after the caked layer has been removed.

End notes:
1. Wikipedia. "2013–14 North American Winter."

2. Kris Zouhar. "Elaeagnus angustifolia." United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service "Fire Effects Information System" website. 2005.

3. B. J. Stocks. Moisture in the Forest Floor - Its Distribution and Movement. Ottawa: Canadian Forestry Service, 1970. 1.

4. Stocks discussed the problem with evaporation from the duff.

Supply and Demand

Weather: The rains coincided with morning and afternoon temperatures dropping about 10 degrees. From June 25 until August 8, 35 of 43 days had highs in the 90s. Now they’re in the 80s. Morning temperatures usually were in the upper 50s or 60s. Since, they’ve been in the low 50s. Both were the result of changing sun angles and tropical water temperatures that control the change in seasons.

Meantime, the Forest Service was nursing a small fire near Coyote, slowly getting it up to 300 acres between the rains. [1] Finally Thursday, it was able to act. Thursday the Cueva fire became a thousand acres, [2] and we got the smoke.

Portugal has a climate like ours, if not drier. Its government is experimenting with restoring the forests by reintroducing brush-eating livestock, rather than controlled burns. It’s been recruiting goatherds and their flocks. [3]

This, of course, is one of those things the goernment prohibited when it took over barren lands. Overgrazing, especially by sheep, had destroyed low vegetation and caused serious erosion. I understand, goats aren’t as destructive as sheep, but they still eat plants to the ground.

The real problem, the Portuguese find, is people no longer want to be goatherds. It’s a lonely job. Here it would be worse here because the remote forests aren’t served well by our uneven internet and cell phone towers. But there are people is this area who have herds they move from one person’s yard to another for a few hours of grazing.

Last useful rain: 8/11. Week’s low: 44 degrees F. Week’s high: 93 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, red-tipped yuccas, sweet peas, Russian sage, buddleia, bird of paradise, roses of Sharon, purple garden phlox, datura, squash, melons, coreopsis, blanket flowers, cultivated sunflowers, corn tasseling

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Buffalo gourd, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, silver leaf nightshade, alfalfa, white sweet clover, leather leaf globe mallow, lamb’s quarter, goat’s head, yellow evening primrose, toothed spurge, prostrate knotweed, Queen Anne’s lace, plains paper flowers, pigweed, Russian thistle, Hopi tea, native sunflowers, gumweed, wild lettuce, horseweed, goldenrod, golden hairy asters, quack grass, seven-weeks, side oats and black gramas

What’s blooming in my yard: Betty Prior and miniature roses, yellow potentilla, caryopteris, fernbush, garlic chives, catmints, calamintha, winecup mallow, sidalcea, blue flax, coral beard tongues, sea lavender, lead plant, white spurge, pink evening primroses, large-flowered soapwort, David phlox, perennial four o’clock, Mexican hats, African marigolds, chrysanthemums, chocolate flower, plains coreopsis, black-eyed Susan, anthemis, purple coneflower, Mönch asters, bachelor buttons

Bedding Plants: Wax begonia, pansies, sweet alyssum, nicotiana

What’s Coming Up: Purslane

Since temperatures have dropped and moisture returned to the air, some seeds have sprouted. Most won’t have time to mature before frost. This week I finally had a Sensation cosmos bloom. After the heat of June and July it was only 3" high and produced one flower.

Tasks: Some farmers got in another crop of hay. I’ve noticed since I bought the string trimmer to cut my brome grass and alfalfa, the grass has not regrown, but the alfalfa needs mowing every couple weeks. The legume is the desirable plant. The grass is planted with it to keep its from choking itself. Mine, of course, are in different parts of the yard.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, chickadees, hummingbird, geckos, monarch butterfly, bumble bees on alfalfa, small bees on garlic chives, heard crickets, grasshoppers, hornets, small ants

I’ve been told by friends about birds that get giddy from eating fruit that’s dried and fermented. I haven’t seen the birds here, but I’ve noticed the eating habits. My sandcherries were ripe in early July. Without the ground squirrel climbing the shrubs, the dark berries stayed put. Now that they’ve shrunken in size, they’re disappearing. I assume the local birds simply couldn’t handle the larger diameters, and the increased sugar content was just a bonus.

Weekly update: Fruit is hanging heavy in local orchards as the apples begin to change color. My peaches are turning red at the tops, and may soon be ripe.

I talked to my neighbor whose son wanted the fruit two years ago for preserves. Last year, frosts killed the blossoms and there was nothing. He must have found another source, because he’s not interested this year.

The laws of supply and demand never change in agriculture, despite the opinions of ideologues and egotists. One cannot manipulate them to meet one’s needs.

Southerners had this illusion before the Civil War. They knew cotton was in demand, and assumed the British would support the rebel cause to keep its mills running.

British middlemen had different ideas. They recognized the problems with single sources, and perhaps anticipated the problems with war. In 1851, they began importing more cotton from Brazil, Egypt, and the East Indies. [4] The next year, an entrepreneur sent seed and gins to Sierra Leone on the west African coast. [5]

In 1859, when Lincoln was preparing to run for President, the newly formed Cotton Supply Association of Great Britain sent seed to "Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Malabar, Ceylon, Singapore, Sydney, Savanilla, and Baranguilla, in South America; Honduras, Guatemala, Cuba, Jamaica, Hayti, Tunis, Lagos, Fernando Po, Sierra Leone, Cape Coast Castle, Natal, Monrovia, Macedonia, Aleppo, Jaffa, Sidon, Kaiffa, Broussa, Salonica, Constantinople,

Messina, Attica, Argolis, Laconia, Arcadia, Achaia, Eubaea, and many other places. Cotton gins were forwarded to several of the above towns and countries, and cotton presses were sent to Cape Coast Castle." [6]

When hostilities ended, Southern planters thought of ways to sell their hoarded inventory. Only, they’d been replaced in the market. Cotton production didn’t become profitable again until mills in this country increased production to meet the requirements of a population swollen by immigrants.

Then, prices were never as good as they had been during the shortages of the Napoleonic wars that started the cotton boom. Clothing is a necessity, but the price cannot be manipulated the way food can be in a famine. People simply do without for a short period. Thus, the price of finished goods is always low because the market is dominated by the lowest paid, and the cost of raw materials cannot rise.

Notes on photographs: All taken 18 August 2019.
1. David phlox that has multiplied along the northwest side of the garage, with some purple coneflowers that also naturalized.

2. Elberta peach. This tree was planted in 2012, and this is the first year it’s born fruit.

3. Flame grapes. They were planted in 2012, and this is the first year they’ve born. The seedless grapes are small, not particularly flavorsome, and are not ripening all at one time. They are at the stage of attracting hornets.

End notes:
1. SFNFPIO. "Cueva Fire Update – Aug. 15, 2019." New Mexico Fire Information website. 15 August 2019. 294 acres.

2. SFNFPIO. "Cueva Fire Completes Firing Operations, Meets Objectives." New Mexico Fire Information website. 16 August 2019. 1,011 acres.

3. Raphael Minder. "Scorched Portugal Turns to the Goat as a Low-Cost Firefighter." The New York Times website. 17August 2019.

4. E. J. Donnell. Chronological and Statistical History of Cotton. New York: James Sutton and Company, 1872. 389.

5. Donnell. 398.

6. Donnell. 478

The Anatomy of Trimming

Weather: Lots of rain the past three days.

Although the days aren’t quite as hot, nothing has recovered. No one has any annuals blooming. One person lost all their melon plants this week.

Last useful rain: 8/11. Week’s low: 55 degrees F. Week’s high: 96 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, red-tipped yuccas, sweet peas, Russian sage, buddleia, bird of paradise, roses of Sharon, hollyhocks, purple garden phlox, datura, squash, melons, coreopsis, blanket flowers, cultivated sunflowers, corn tasseling

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Trees of heaven, buffalo gourd, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, silver leaf nightshade, alfalfa, white sweet clover, yellow mullein, leather leaf globe mallow, lamb’s quarter, yellow evening primrose, Queen Anne’s lace, plains paper flowers, goat’s beard, pigweed, Russian thistle, Hopi tea, toothed spurge, prostrate knotweed, native sunflowers, gumweed, wild lettuce, horseweed, goldenrod, golden hairy asters, quack grass, seven-weeks grama

What’s blooming in my yard: Betty Prior and miniature roses, yellow potentilla, caryopteris, fernbush, garlic chives, catmints, lady bells, calamintha, winecup mallow, sidalcea, blue flax, coral beard tongues, sea lavender, lead plant, Dutch clover, white spurge, tomatillo, pink evening primroses, Saint John’s wort, large-flowered soapwort, David phlox, perennial four o’clock, Mexican hats, African marigolds, chrysanthemums, chocolate flower, plains coreopsis, black-eyed Susan, anthemis, purple coneflower, Mönch asters

Bedding Plants: Wax begonia, pansies, sweet alyssum

Tasks: Trimming is impossible when stems are wet. Have spent my time laying the last section of a block walk.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, chickadees, hummingbird, geckos, larger monarch butterfly, bumble bees, crickets, grasshoppers, hornets, small ants

Weekly update: Trimming dead wood is tedious. No wonder people take chain saws and electric pruners to their shrubs. While they get the satisfaction of instant neatness, they miss the contact with the plants that reveals their inner natures.

Most of the shrubs I’ve been clearing of dead wood are in the Rose family. They share a habit of leaving short bare twigs, though the reason seams to vary.

The actual roses seem to abandoned the parts of stems that held flowers, and die back to a node where a new stem grows.

The peaches simply leave dead sticks, usually on the undersides of branches. I think they once held fruit, though not all fruit is isolated that way. A lot seems to be directly attached to the branches.

Sandcherries, on the other hand, extend their branches and abandon the twigs farther back, leaving a nest of dead wood in the center. WheI pruned one back this spring to clear a path, new wood sprang from the cut area, and the branches are back in the way.

Notes on photographs: All taken 5 August 2019.
1. Garlic chives (Allium tuberosum) have gotten much taller this year. Partly it’s because the black locust that shaded them is gone, and partly because they’ve gotten more water.

2. Dr. Huey rose stem that’s died back. This particular variety produces so many flowers that deadheading it would be worse that removing the dead ends.

3. Peach (Prunus persica) stem holding this year’s fruit, and a dead one on the underside that snags whatever passes under it.

4. Sandcherry (Prunus besseyi) leaves at the end of a stem riddled with dead twigs.