An Old Apple Tree

Weather: Rain Thursday afternoon; last rain 8/22/2013; 13:52 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, bird of paradise, silver lace vine, Russian sage, roses of Sharon, purple garden phlox, zinnias and African marigolds from seed, cultivated sunflowers, alfalfa.

Beyond the walls and fences: Trumpet creeper, sweet peas, buffalo gourd, purple mat flower, stickleaf, leather-leafed globe mallow, bindweed, greenleaf five-eyes, ivy-leaf morning glory, silver-leaf nightshade, velvetweed, yellow evening primrose, Russian thistle, pigweed, ragweed, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, golden hairy aster, native Mexican hat, gumweed, horseweed, goldenrod, native sunflowers.

In my yard, looking east: Hosta, baby’s breath, coral bells, winecup mallow, sidalcea.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses, Illinois bundle flower.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Johnson Blue geranium, David phlox, catmints, calamintha, sea lavender, ladybells, lead plant, bachelor buttons from seed, Mönch aster.

Looking north: Golden spur columbine, chocolate flowers, blanket flowers, anthemis, chrysanthemum, dahlias.

In the open, along the drive: Fern bush, Dutch clover, hollyhock, Shirley and California poppies, larkspur, black-eyed Susan, lance-leaf coreopsis, yellow, red and mixed Mexican hats, Sensation and yellow cosmos.

Bedding plants: Wax begonias, snapdragons, sweet alyssum, French marigolds, gazanias.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Geckos, small bees, hornets, large and small black ants.

Weekly update: Agatha Christie often uses gossip as a way to present information about characters in her mystery novels. I don’t doubt I have neighbors who are equally nosy, and just as willing to talk. I suspect the main difference is Christie’s old tabbies, as they were called, passed on information about sex. Now, drugs are more important.

I don’t worry much about who’s doing what. I don’t even worry much about who’s stealing what. Professional thieves or gang members cruising public roads are a greater danger than someone’s out-of-control teenage son, and more likely to be armed. The one may be an eight on the scale of potential violence, but the other’s a ten.

When I walk along the road, I want to know who has savage dogs that could jump a fence. I want to know which paranoid man has fried his brains so seriously he would use a gun to attack a strange shadow. While I rarely take pictures of people or their houses, I often take pictures of their animals. Just in case.

I had one neighbor who threw a firecracker at me when I was stopped in front of another house surveying its new dog. The Savage, as I called him thereafter, had his own dogs that once got loose and circled me, until someone stopped to help. He had another dog his girlfriend told me was so vicious they had to keep it away from the first dogs. She was hoping they wouldn’t have to put it down.

Just another victim and victimizer of drugs. It had belonged to her daughter and been abused. All very interesting, but not as important as the quality of the chain they used to keep it in its pen.

I never could decide if his yard was so overgrown because he was too lazy to keep it clear, or if he wanted trees to hide his house and block the light from entering the windows. The local utility came through periodically and cropped the Siberian elms in their right of way.

The landscaping was typical for the area. Volunteer Siberian elms at each end of the trailer. Two apple trees and an arborvitae in front. Two years ago, the apples produced too much fruit. Like almost every apple in the area.

This year, they survived by putting out suckers from the base. Like almost every apple in the area.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

The reason it seemed overgrown was the man had built an addition in front of his trailer that filled the space between it and the trees.

Nothing odd. Things just happen that way when people put down roots.

The man and the dogs are gone. Without Christie’s gossips for friends, I don’t know if he was arrested or just moved on.

My first clue was the elms. First I heard saws. Then I drove by. Two men were hacking away. When I returned from the post office, I had to move right to pass two pick-up trucks with beds filled with branches.

At first I thought the Savage was tearing down the addition because the roof leaked and damaged the walls beyond repair. Then the trailer disappeared.

Without Christie’s gossips I don’t know when. I only know what I saw driving by.

I deduced the Savage must have rented the land. Maybe he took the trailer with him. Maybe the landowner cleared it as a nuisance. Unlike some, he didn’t patch the holes and rerent it to even poorer people who would share the space with other families.

When I walked by yesterday I was curious how much had been cut. I wondered if the guys clearing out the property were the type who hated everything that grew, and weren’t happy until everything was plain brown dirt ripened for pigweed.

They must have been men very much like the Savage. They took out everything that was in their way - the elms and the arborvitae. But, they knew apples.

They may have had to do some pruning, but they knew apples.

They weren’t agents for some Santa Fé entrepreneur looking to export the city’s poverty to my neighborhood.

When you don’t live near an old tabby, plants are sometimes all you have to tell you about your neighbors.

Unfortunately, all they signal is values. They can’t tell you anything about potential danger.

 Photographs:
1. House a year ago, soon after the utility cut the front Siberian elms, 28 March 2012.

2. Arborvitae at front of house, 12 December 2011.

3. The vicious, but bored and curious dog, 11 January 2012.

4. Siberian elms trimmed by the utility company, 28 March 2012.

5. Apple trees, 19 April 2012.

6. Same apple trees, 14 May 2013.

7. Empty trailer space, 24 August 2013.

8. Same apple trees, from front, 24 August 2013.

9. Same apple trees, from side, 24 August 2013.

10. Siberian elms grown back along the road, 24 August 2013.

 

Sanitation

Weather: Clouds; last rain 8/08/2013; 13:52 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, bird of paradise, silver lace vine, Russian sage, roses of Sharon, purple garden phlox, zinnias and African marigolds from seed, cultivated sunflowers, alfalfa.

Beyond the walls and fences: Trumpet creeper, sweet peas, buffalo gourd, purple mat flower, stickleaf, leather-leafed globe mallow, blue trumpets, bindweed, greenleaf five-eyes, silver-leaf nightshade, velvetweed, yellow evening primrose, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, golden hairy aster, native Mexican hat, gumweed, horseweed, goldenrod, native sunflowers.

In my yard, looking east: Hosta, baby’s breath, coral bells, winecup mallow, sidalcea.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses, Illinois bundle flower.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Johnson Blue geranium, David phlox, catmints, calamintha, sea lavender, ladybells, lead plant, bachelor buttons from seed, Mönch aster.

Looking north: Blackberry lily, golden spur columbine, chocolate flowers, blanket flowers, anthemis, chrysanthemum, dahlias.

In the open, along the drive: Fern bush, Dutch clover, hollyhock, Shirley and California poppies, larkspur, black-eyed Susan, lance-leaf and prairie coreopsis, yellow, red and mixed Mexican hats, Sensation and yellow cosmos.

Bedding plants: Wax begonias, pansies, snapdragons, sweet alyssum, French marigolds, gazanias.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Ground squirrel, geckos, small bees, hornets, large and small black ants.

Weekly update: Sanitation is one of those things you think everyone learns as a child. Even dogs and cats have rudimentary concepts.

But, it took decades to convince doctors to wash their hands before delivering babies after Joseph Lister and Louis Pasteur had established germs are real.

There are two simple parts: remove and contain things you don’t want, and prevent the spread of things you can’t remove. These are the basis of our first civic improvements, safe drinking water, sewage control, and trash removal.

When you live in the country, there is no local community. The state controls wells, but only to protect the aquifer. Nothing stops someone from putting in a septic field that leaches into someone else’s well - or just dumping chemicals that migrate.

Trash removal is a more distant concept. My local service is now refusing to take away bags they suspect contain weeds, even when the bags are in their required containers.

As people become isolated from farming, they lose their understanding of seeds. You can throw your Siberian elm cuttings over the wall, but the seeds will blow back and the roots creep under. You can burn Russian thistles, but chemicals are released into the air, and the seeds may not be destroyed. You can plow pigweed under, and the seeds come back. You can mow, and seeds fall into the freshly opened soil. You can poison goat’s heads, but the debris remains, with the seeds.

The only way you finally control an unwanted plant is prevent seeds from forming, and getting rid of the ones that do form.

If you get fungus or insects in a plant, burning may or may not help. Getting the diseased material away is all that will work, until nature interrupts the reproduction cycle.

But here, they leave the trees killed by bark beetles to feed future fires. They think only a cold winter will stop the insects from spreading. I have no idea if shredding the trees, and treating them with some chemical would help. It’s too much effort, too much money, too much beyond the imagination of politicians. So, the Jaroso fire was declared contained August 5, but who knows what effect those killed, then burned trees will have on soils and winds that feed the streams that flow into the Santa Cruz lake. From the irrigation channels of my neighbors they spread to me.

When the fire service removed its equipment from the Tres Lagunas fire it announced, "all vehicles that were assigned to the fire are pressure-washed" to prevent spreading some invasive forms of algae to another part of the country.

Do you think anyone who hears that would think they should wash their backhoes when they move from one job to another?

When I ask men if they’ll get their gravel from a particular company, they answer their brother or cousin is cheaper. When I asked if the gravel is cleaned in some way, they look puzzled. What do I mean cleaned? It’s dirt.

I didn’t even bother to ask the tree service if they wash down their tools with bleach. I just refused to take their offer of the free mulch they made from the trees I had cut. I knew one had locust borers. Their feelings were hurt.

When I was teaching English composition in a junior college in Michigan, I discovered the biggest problem was getting students to transfer what they knew about grammar to their own writing. They could do any verb recognition exercise I gave them from a text book. When I asked them to identify the verbs in their own paragraphs, they could not do it.

I don’t know what mental or cultural mechanism prevents or facilitates the transfer of knowledge from the public to the personal, but it is real. Those doctors who refused to wash their hands drank pasturized beer.

Diseases and weeds are not cheaper than the costs of prevention. They are freeloaders that exploit the refusal of politicians to spend money and the difficulty individuals have recognizing universal laws apply to them.

If I do find someone who will remove my bags of garden weeds, it will be the unintended consequence of the failure of individual utilities to consider the public. The first time someone came to look at my inoperative telephone line, "they" were paving the road. A handyman followed his truck into my drive. The road crew had said, take the alternate route, and he wondered if the lineman knew where it was. There is none, unless you’re on an ATV. The signs are put up because that’s standard procedure. Determining if the signs mean anything is not.

As for the telephone line, my internet provider finally figured out the telephony company upgraded the telephone company's equipment and obsoleted the modem the telephone company supplied. No one yet has figured out why my telephone line itself is better at transmitting high-pitched squeals than voices.

There is hope. The internet company is close to providing a wireless DSL alternative that frees me from the telephone company, and allows me to switch to a cell phone. Then, alternate routes will not matter.

Technology advances, but bleach is still necessary.

Notes:
Markel, Howard. "The Doctor Who Made His Students Wash Up," New York Times, 7 October 2003, review of Sherwin B. Nuland, The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis

Tres Lagunas Fire News Release, "Rock Snot and Whirling Disease Also Formidable Foes for Wildland Firefighters," 9 June 2013

Photographs:
1. The backhoe arrived from some unknown place, 14 May 2012. When it returned, the driver had been working in the hay fields of the Four Corners area.

2. The first day he spread sand that had come from some arroyo near Velarde, 14 May 2012. My neighbor, who ordered the sand, said it was cheaper than the local supplier.

3. The second day, the backhoe spread the gravel that came from some quarry west of town, 15 May 2012. The tires, the underbelly, and the bucket/scraper all had places for hitchhiking seeds.

4. A few weeks later, amaranth seedlings emerged near the location of pictures #1 and #3. The picture is of this year’s seedlings taken 25 May 2013.

5. The seedlings grew into three foot plants by mid-August, 13 August 2012.

6. Some kind of white-flowered nightshade came up in the area of picture #2, 17 August 2012.

7. When I was cleaning the drive this spring, I discovered it might be some kind of nettle. When the seeds emerged, I removed them. They were the most vicious seedlings I’ve ever seen, 7 May 2013.

8. The unknown rust-colored loco came up in the same area last summer. It now is producing seed pods, 18 August 2013. So far, it is a benign addition, like the handyman who followed the lineman down my drive.

Red Loco

Weather: Soaking rain with hail Thursday; last rain 8/08/2013; 13:52 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, bird of paradise, silver lace vine, Russian sage, roses of Sharon, purple garden phlox, zinnias from seed, cultivated sunflowers, alfalfa.

Beyond the walls and fences: Trumpet creeper, sweet peas, buffalo gourd, purple mat flower, stickleaf, leather-leafed globe mallow, blue trumpets, bindweed, greenleaf five-eyes, silver-leaf nightshade, velvetweed, yellow evening primrose, Queen Anne’s lace, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, golden hairy aster, native Mexican hat, gumweed, horseweed, goldenrod, native sunflowers.

In my yard, looking east: Hosta, baby’s breath, coral bells, winecup mallow, sidalcea.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses, Illinois bundle flower.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Johnson Blue geranium, David phlox, catmints, calamintha, sea lavender, ladybells, lead plant, white mullein, white spurge, bachelor buttons from seed, Mönch aster.

Looking north: Blackberry lily, golden spur columbine, chocolate flowers, blanket flowers, anthemis, yellow yarrow, chrysanthemum, dahlias.

In the open, along the drive: Fern bush, Dutch clover, hollyhock, Shirley and California poppies, larkspur, black-eyed Susan, lance-leaf and prairie coreopsis, yellow, red and mixed Mexican hats, Sensation and yellow cosmos.

Bedding plants: Wax begonias, pansies, snapdragons, sweet alyssum, impatiens, French marigolds, gazanias.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, geckos, swallowtail butterfly on zinnias, small bees, hornets, large and small black ants.

Weekly update: Whenever I read science reports that contain clear narratives of discovery, I marvel at their luck. My adventures never are so successful.

I have a red legume blooming in my drive that appeared last summer after I had work done on the gravel. That should be easy to identify. One can quibble about the verbal description, but there’s no question it is red.

And, there’s no doubt it has leaves like a vetch or loco.

The flower is definitely a pea.

I suppose it's some form of the Bigelow’s loco, but I can’t be sure. With locos, the identification depends on the pods. There are few photographs of the obvious - the flowers. Most that I’ve seen show something more purple than what I have.

I saw a patch of red flowered plants two years ago near the entrance to one of the casinos. Since the flowers were so brilliant, I thought it might have been a deliberate wildflower seeding. Maybe, the scarlet pea that grows in Texas.

The county came through a week later and cut them to the ground. Alfalfa and sweet clover came back.

I gave up on discovering what it is. I have learned to take things as they are, known or unknown.

I still was curious about where it came from. Again, the choices were fairly simple: the sand from a Velarde arroyo, the gravel from north of town, or the backhoe tires which most recently had been in the four corners area.

I thought it would be fun to find it blooming in the wild.

The location of the gravel quarry is a mystery. Telephone books and official records give a town name and an indication it is in the country. No road names.

I started by driving along the road that paralleled the Hernandez ditch. It had rained some, though not as much as the last two weeks. Nothing was growing. Or, almost nothing. A few prickly pear, a patch of Santa Fé thistles, a magnificent buffalo gourd, but otherwise nothing wild.

The road went through the badlands to skirt the irrigated land. No signs. No roads toward the river where rock could be dug. Nothing.

I drove back on the Chama highway looking for possibilities to the west. One gravel operation with a different name was near the road. Near it I saw a gravel truck turn down some dirt road. I followed.

The road left civilization quickly, but remained in good condition. One lane covered with fine rock, hard in the center and soft on the shoulder. No room to pass a returning gravel hauler.

The land remained level, but probably was rising slightly through the badlands. Nothing was growing except juniper. Nothing by the road, except a very rare golden hairy aster.

I reached the limit of my adventurousness. That actually has a clear definition: how far do I have to walk if I break down. I turned around.

Back home, it took a while to find the road on a map. The area immediately north of town has been developed recently.  None of the landmarks showed on the USGS map. Not even the bridge over the Rio Grande.

I think I was on a pueblo road that ultimately ended near the Santa Clara canyon. On the way - and the road spread across three USGS map sections - there are some pumice pits. I suppose that’s where the gravel came from.

But, not the flowers.

Notes: Bigelow’s loco weed is now called Astragalus mollissimus var. bigelovii. Scarlet pea is Indigofera miniata.

Photographs:
1. Flower near casino entrance, 28 May 2012.

2. Flower habit in my drive, 24 July 2013.

3. Flower bud in my drive, 13 July 2013.

4. New growth after rain, 27 July 2013.

5. Flower, 27 July 2013.

6. Flower patch near casino entrance, 28 May 2012.

7. Road side north of Española, 25 July 1013.

8. Road to pumice pits, 25 July 2013.

9. Elongating flower buds, 16 July 2013.

10. The plant came up where I planted zinnia seeds. A swallowtail butterfly was mining the zinnias, 6 August 2013. Legume leaves to front left.

Green

Weather: Rain last Sunday, with showers since; last rain 8/03/2013; 13:52 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, bird of paradise, silver lace vine, Russian sage, roses of Sharon, purple garden phlox, zinnias from seed, cultivated sunflowers, alfalfa.

Beyond the walls and fences: Trumpet creeper, sweet peas, buffalo gourd, purple mat flower, stickleaf, leather-leafed globe mallow, blue trumpets, bindweed, greenleaf five-eyes, silver-leaf nightshade, velvetweed, Queen Anne’s lace, goat’s beard, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, golden hairy aster, native Mexican hat, gumweed, horseweed, goldenrod.

In my yard, looking east: Baby’s breath, coral bells, winecup mallow, sidalcea, reseeded morning glories.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses, Illinois bundle flower.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Johnson Blue geranium, David phlox, catmints, calamintha, sea lavender, ladybells, white mullein, white spurge, bachelor buttons from seed, Mönch aster.

Looking north: Blackberry lily, golden spur columbine, chocolate flowers, blanket flowers, anthemis, yellow yarrow, chrysanthemum, dahlias.

In the open, along the drive: Fern bush, Dutch clover, hollyhock, Shirley and California poppies, larkspur, black-eyed Susan, lance-leaf and prairie coreopsis, yellow, red and mixed Mexican hats, Sensation and yellow cosmos.

Bedding plants: Wax begonias, pansies, snapdragons, sweet alyssum, impatiens, French marigolds, gazanias.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, geckos, small bees, hornets, large and small black ants.

Weekly update: It finally rained last Sunday. There had been occasional five minute showers the week before, but this was the first really rainy day. Nothing much happened in Los Alamos or Santa Fé. The clouds must have been moving at a lower altitude than usual.

When I went out Monday, there was green under my tree. People’s yards that had been brown when I went to the post office Saturday were glimmering. Even the hills had a new sheen.

The peculiarities of the land and people’s habits determined which plants germinated.

The ideal prairie grasses are needle and black grama. Only one area had sprouted them yesterday: the great hill that collects water from great distances to the east. The charcoal tufts had captured water and new growth was coming up from the roots.

Across the road a tiny grass was up. The inch or two long blades grow at a low angle to the ground. They’re stiff and a bit coarse, a little like quack grass.

Two years ago, after the Las Conchas fire, I saw something that was even shorter. The seed heads were inch-long, black, horizontal spines with seeds below. I though maybe black grama had revived. They were gone the next time I walked out. Nothing has been there since.

I think they must be six weeks grama grass, Bouteloua barbata. The annual form comes with the monsoons, then disappears. Its stubble remains to protect the ground from winds.

Up the road, a great cone must block the movement of water. Its ridge must keep the water moving toward that prairie bowl where the needle was coming up. The six weeks grama dominated the grasslands downslope from it, but the area directly in its shadow was still dry. Between the dark tufts, the bright green was Russian thistles.

My one neighbor, who keeps his yards bare, has a bright green patch on the far side. I suspect a new crop of thistles. Goat’s heads are flourishing in the yard of my other neighbor. They stay shorter than his mower.

The ditches vary. One person who burned everything this year has been rewarded with toothed spurge. This must need more water. It hasn’t come back in its usual places, but is bright in some ditches.

Another who destroys the whorled milkweeds and morning glories to get to the Russian thistles and pigweeds, has goat’s heads and golden hairy asters. But scrambling over them are the newly germinated ivy-leaved morning glories.

 

In my own yard, the area that has been barren is still dry. A little ring muhly is greening on the uphill sides of the formations. The area near my peach that got overwatered a few weeks ago is now solid prostrate knotweed.

Few flowers are blooming yet. The áñil del muerto is up in a few places. Wild sunflowers are still rare. Pigweed and cheat grass haven’t arrived yet.

Photographs:
1. Six week grama grass growing between tufts of dormant or dead grasses, 2 August 2013.

2. Russian thistles growing between the tufts of dormant or dead grasses, 2 August 2013.

3. Black grama and needle grass reviving, 3 August 2013.

4. Six week grama grass growing on the sheltered side of a road cut, 3 August 2013.

5. Six week grama grass in seed after the Las Conchas fire, 25 September 2011.

6. Six week grama grass head getting ready to bloom, same location as #4, 3 August 2013.

7. Russian thistles growing across the road from #2, 2 August 2013.

8. Toothed spurge on the uphill side of a ditch (left), golden hairy asters blooming on the road side, 2 August 2013.

9. Ivy-leaved morning glories coming up through goat’s head in ditch, 2 August 2013.

10. Knotweed coming up in area already wet, 31 July 2013. The area behind did not get watered. It’s still barren.

11. Green amaranth (front) and pigweed in ditch, 2 August 2013.

Clippers

Weather: Some rain in the nights; last rain 7/26/2013; 14:08 hours of daylight today.

The weather has been more threatening than rainy. I do get tired of turning on a hose when there’s lightening in the area, but if you water when the sun is low, that’s what you do.

The wild lands still are brown, but the cloudy, humid afternoons favor plants that get irrigated. Bermuda grass lawns are finally bright green. The brome grass still hasn’t recovered, but the alfalfa is blooming.

Late summer grasses, like barnyard grass and Nebraska sedge, are coming up in my garden. Dormant seedlings that had germinated when the weather warmed, are growing, especially the columbine. Baby hollyhocks are appearing everywhere.

Annuals are beginning to show themselves, though the usual wild ones - the native sunflowers, áñil del muerto, Tahoka daisies - are still waiting for some rain. Even, the pesky pigweeds, ragweeds, and Russian thistles are subdued.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, bird of paradise, silver lace vine, Russian sage, roses of Sharon, purple garden phlox, fading bouncing Bess, zinnias from seed, cultivated sunflowers, alfalfa.

Beyond the walls and fences: Trumpet creeper, sweet peas, whorled milkweed, buffalo gourd, purple mat flower, stickleaf, leather-leafed globe mallow, bindweed, greenleaf five-eyes, silver-leaf nightshade, scarlet bee blossom, velvetweed, Queen Anne’s lace, goat’s beard, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, golden hairy aster, native Mexican hat; buds on gumweed.

In my yard, looking east: Baby’s breath, coral bells, pink salvia, winecup mallow, sidalcea, reseeded morning glories.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses, Illinois bundle flower.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Johnson Blue geranium, David phlox, catmints, sea lavender, ladybells, white mullein, white spurge, bachelor buttons from seed, Mönch aster.

Looking north: Golden spur columbine, coral beardtongue, chocolate flowers, anthemis, yellow yarrow, chrysanthemum.

In the open, along the drive: Fern bush, Dutch clover, hollyhock, Shirley and California poppies, larkspur, white yarrow peaked, Illinois bundle flower, black-eyed Susan, lance-leaf and prairie coreopsis, yellow, red and mixed Mexican hats, Sensation and yellow cosmos.

Bedding plants: Wax begonias, pansies, snapdragons, sweet alyssum, impatiens, French marigolds, gazanias.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Hummingbird, geckos, dragon flies of several types, sulphur butterfly, small bees, hornets, large and small black ants.

Weekly update: Tools have this way of hurting as much helping. Usually, fatigue is the problem. This week it was a sharp point that caught in my sleeve and pierced my hand.

It’s actually fairly difficult to find stem clippers that are sharp and stay sharp. Whether it’s the metal alloys are too cheap to hold an edge, or manufacturers are afraid of lawsuits from parents whose children get injured, most garden tools dull quickly.

The change is gradual, and I only detect it when my wrist starts to ache. It tires more quickly when more pressure is needed to cut through a stem.

The ergonomic solution is usually cushioned handles. That really is no help. Thicker handles force the hand open wider and cause pain sooner.

The real culprit for me are the springs they use to reopen the blades. They often are too vigorous. My wrist feels the kick.

 

I have two pairs of clippers. One is intended for cutting rose buds. I bought it because the ergonomic trend has made it harder to find clippers with handles that don’t hurt. I use it when I can, simply to vary the motions of my wrist.

I’m not sure why the tips are so sharp. I’m sure their advertising agency has some explanation. I suspect it's simply manufacturing efficiency. Adding a step to round the tips would increase the cost.

The only useful idea manufacturers have introduced is the use of bright colors. I really do spend more time than I should looking for tools I’ve laid on the ground. I finally added a band of yellow tape to the green handles of one’s I bought this year.  Unfortunately, the orange didn’t stop the small nippers from getting lost and hurting me when I was searching for them.

Mulch

Weather: Lying clouds left some moisture Friday night; last rain 7/20/2013; 14:08 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, bird of paradise, silver lace vine, Russian sage, roses of Sharon, purple garden phlox, bouncing Bess, zinnias from seed, cultivated sunflowers, alfalfa.

Beyond the walls and fences: Trumpet creeper, scarlet and sweet peas, whorled milkweed, buffalo gourd, purple mat flower, stickleaf, leather-leafed globe mallow, bindweed, greenleaf five-eyes, silver-leaf nightshade, scarlet bee blossom, velvetweed, Queen Anne’s lace, goat’s beard, Hopi tea, Tahoka daisy, golden hairy aster, native Mexican hat; buds on gumweed.

In my yard, looking east: Baby’s breath, coral bells, pink salvia, winecup mallow, sidalcea, reseeded morning glories.

Looking south: Rugosa roses.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Johnson Blue geranium, David phlox, catmints, sea lavender, ladybells, white mullein, white spurge, bachelor buttons from seed, Mönch aster.

Looking north: Golden spur columbine, coral beardtongue, chocolate flowers, anthemis, yellow yarrow, chrysanthemum.

In the open, along the drive: Fern bush, Dutch clover, hollyhock, Shirley and California poppies, larkspur, white yarrow peaked, blanket flower, black-eyed Susan, lance-leaf and prairie coreopsis, yellow, red and mixed Mexican hats.

Bedding plants: Wax begonias, pansies, snapdragons, sweet alyssum, impatiens, French marigolds, gazanias

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, hummingbird, geckos, hummingbird moth on columbine, bumble and small bees, hornets, large and small black ants.

Weekly update: Mulch!

Whenever anyone says that to me in that confidential voice self-styled experts assume, I think of Mr. McGuire pinning Benjamin in The Graduate.

It’s not like I don’t know what they mean. I see the same mass media they do. When I first moved here, I put in plants and seeds, then covered them with mulch. I came back in a few days. Everything had dried and blown away.

The only tree in my yard that saves its leaves is the black locust. It sends out low branches that shoo away the wind. Cut them away to clear a path, and they’re back within a week armed with thorns.

Last spring, I boxed in a small area next to the back porch foundation to sow annual seeds that no longer grew in my perennial beds. The ground sloped just enough, nothing would grow. I thought, with a brick perimeter, I could level it and improve the soil.

Nothing germinated. The area had become too shaded when the lilacs finally started to grow. The bricks trapped too much water from the soaking hose that ran through the area on its ways to the roses.

This year, I put in shade loving, water tolerant annuals like pansies. They at least have survived the heat of June to begin blooming again.

Now is the season I clean out weeds. As I go, I add dry fertilizer and composted manure to existing beds to keep them fertile. I hope the snow will soak in what the monsoons leave undigested.

When I came to the annual bed, I added some locust leaves I had removed when I was clearing that area. I hoped the lilacs and house protected them from the winds.

All was well, for a week. Then, it finally rained. The water tumbled off the roof and ran down hill. The mulch and manure washed away.

Mulch is the product of forests where leaves decay on the ground, dissolving into the duff layer. You don’t see it between cacti in the Mojave.

When I was driving on the access road to Albuquerque last Sunday, I stopped whenever I saw signs of green.

Outside, Pojoaque it was an illusion. Fine grains of soil on the surface had blown away, like my mulch. Left behind were the heavier bits of gravel that trapped water.

There are those who recommend gravel as a mulch, usually with the added hint it suppresses weeds. Have they never had a gravel driveway?

Nature treats mine like a rock garden. I’m still getting rid of the more noxious seeds, that came last summer when I had the drive expanded. There is no room in my yard for goats’ heads and nettles.

The Tahoka daisies and purple asters are banished to the edges. In the fall, their stems get taller than the clearance of my car. Then, they dry into wood.

It’s harder to sacrifice purple mat flowers, alfilerillo or greenleaf five-eyes. They stay low, and bloom, and have no thorns.

Last summer I extended some of my walks that paralleled the upgraded drive. I laid concrete blocks side by side. Egotistical plants think I did it for them. The skunk bush and Apache plume have taken them over. The black locust tries every summer. They may be native plants, but if you look carefully, they like those soils around Pojoaque with the gravel.

I inadvertently recreated their ideal environment.

When I was leaving Santa Fé last Sunday, I passed through the Mesita de Juana Lopez land grant. That’s the area before La Bajada hill where cholla displaces juniper.

There was a tinge of green. Something may have been growing in the distance, but near the fence where I could see, only dead vegetation spread sparsely on the surface. With the rains, it had reabsorbed moisture and turned darker.

Anchored mulch.

It took me years to find a place where roses would grow. Dr. Huey root stock thrives under the black locust. The floribundas like the drip line up hill from my experimental annual bed.

Several years ago, I noticed cheat grass grew around the canes that survived the winter icings. It died in spring, but was anchored mulch in winter.

I tried planting more desirable grasses, like blue grama and buffalo. Some took, but generally the seed wasn’t any more tolerant of wind and flooding than the annuals. Then I tried Dutch clover. I knew it needed water, but thought it if sprouts in late summer, it will leave a brown cover in the winter that can be removed in the spring and replanted the next summer.

When the backhoe left me with large, barren areas last summer, I scattered the left over clover seed along the slopes of the drive. I had put in new grape vines. The ones I had rarely survived the winter. The clover grew. White flowers appeared the first week of May, just days after the first vines emerged under the densest plants. The ones where little clover grew finally broke ground around June 20.

Dutch clover didn’t survive around the roses, but it turns out it creates an ideal environment for Shirley poppies. They have always come up each year when I planted new seed, but never perpetuated themselves. Last year’s seed has been blooming since June 20 in the clover.

Now the clover is asserting its rights to a nature preserve. It’s spreading across the walk. At least its easier to walk around than the Apache plume. And, if it dies this winter, I still have seed.

Mulch is nature’s way of trapping moisture. It’s just that in this area, you have to study nature to find what works. The mass media sees gardens on Long Island and outside London. Their idea of the west is the moist Mediterranean climate of southern California where The Graduate was filmed.

The arid west is a different place, Mr. McGuire.

Photographs:
1. Shirley poppies growing in Dutch clover, 13 July 013. Seed was planted last summer.

2. Mulched yard down the road, 5 February 2012.

3. Black locust, 11 July 2013. On June 15, I pruned back the locust, so I could cut dead wood from the forsythia at the front left. The locust quickly took advantage of the opening. Those low branches are the ones I think protect the brown understory from the winds.

4. Annual bed, 15 July 2013. I spread dried manure and black locust leaves on July 2. The leaflet branches caught on the dogtooth violets and wax begonias. Those dams trapped some of the manure. Most has returned to bare ground.

5. Coming into Pojoaque from the north, 14 July 2013. Differences in color are not changes in vegetation but surface soils with differing amounts of gravel to retain water.

6. Alfilerillo blooming in gravel drive, 8 April 2013. Stickleaf is blooming in bottom left.

7. Apache plume taking over block walk, just visible in front, 20 July 2013.

8. Mesita de Juana Lopez land grant, 14 July 2013. Cholla cactus with dead, water absorbent grasses.

9. Back drip line in winter, 19 February 2010, with green cheat grass in front.

10. Flame red grape with Dutch clover, 21 May 2013.

11. Same yard as #2, four months later. The straw mulch has been thinned, I assume by the wind.