I’ve got my seed packets of scarlet flax in hand, ready to sow for spring bloom, some interesting cool season cabbages and greens on order, and I can’t stop thinking about hot soup. I’m ready. And like waiting for the headliner at a show, I’m getting a little restless when the opening act (summer) refuses to leave the stage. I’m ready to hand the garden over to winter (and complain about how little rainfall we’re getting.) But heatwaves do bring undeniable benefits. There was such a glorious hush over the neighborhood yesterday, chased indoors by heat and televised sports. Today is supposed to top 100. Yesterday was high 90s, a throwback to those lackadaisical summer days when I pile a bunch of reading in the coolest spot outdoors I can find. But who am I kidding, September is always hot in Los Angeles and it’s foolish to expect anything else. I’ve always been out of meteorological sync with this season. As a kid it felt bizarrely, infuriatingly arbitrary to trudge back to hot, stuffy classrooms instead of heading again for the beach.
And I may have prematurely moved touchy Agave gypsophila ‘Ivory Curls’ into a full sun position for fall/winter.
And he’s just outgrown the leaf burn from a previous bout of sunstroke.
Sorry if I sound a little testy. Hot and dry in autumn is a signal to the termites to wing it, an event that always sets our teeth on edge as they flap against our little wooden bungalow. But ain’t life grand? Autumn light, insects that eat houses, grasses that catch the wind like schools of fish work the currents — I tell you, it’s simply too wonderful. Have a great week.
A couple of weeks of cooler weather had me suffering from delusions that fall was here too, even though I well remember that Santa Ana winds and heatwaves are a fact of life this time of year. I planted sweet pea seeds and put a new aster into the ground last week. I was up early giving the young and weak extra water this morning – the aster even got its own umbrella. Stay cool, Denise!
Yup. That’s the way it is. The way it always is. And, yup, I ordered brassicas — lettage (what it sounds like, a lettuce-like cabbage) b sprouts and broccoli. Dumb. They are languishing in the shade and growing too large for their tiny cells while I wait for cooler weather. But, hey, the nights are great, here anyway. Laughing.
I usually love September here in STL, but this year it’s been too humid. Finally cooled off today so I’m eating it up! Oh, and please stop showing those fantastic grasses with the upright “blooms”. So great, can’t grow here.
@Kris, happens every September, those delusions, right? Duh!
@Jane, since I was ordering ladybird poppies from Annies, I added some of her veggies to the order. I cleared out tomatoes added compost, and now the garden is getting properly “solarized” by this heat.
@Alan, I’m slowly figuring out that there’s a few perks to no rain — upright grasses! Not sure if that makes up for the lushness of your garden tho…
Are those grasses with the upright white blooms Sesleria? If so, which one? They set everything else off so beautifully.
*Finally* cool days and nights starting yesterday… This is the latest I can remember us making the turn to fall.
Nell, that’s Pennisetum ‘Fairy Tails,’ sterile, nonseeding. Planted in gallons this spring and girth is now as big as a trash can, so it thickens up fast. With blooms it’s over 5 feet. Yes, cooler this week hopefully – hang in there!
Yes to that ‘glorious hush’ Denise. I love Sundays in football season. Virtually the entire neighborhood spends the day shut up indoors, watching tv during some of the finest weather of the year. It’s almost as though I am alone in a deserted suburb.
Contrarian up here, I particularly enjoy it finally warming up consistently here in Berkeley in fall, best beach weather and the subtropicals and cloud forest type plants love it. The transition to colder weather comes soon enough, and far more radically at our latitude; few December/January days of balmy 70’s°F like down south. Even with the 99°F days yesterday, it still does down to the mid 50’S at night.
The down side is the need to watch out for bromeliads getting sunburned, and the increased fire danger. The Oakland hills Fire of 91 occurred on a very warm October day. We seldom get the equivalent of Santa Ana winds up here, but that fire had them spreading it fiercely for 3 days. Fortunately they weakened finally, or it would have been far more than 500 homes destroyed.
Gardening, which just started up again, once again stopped. Soon, soon. Waiting, waiting…
Stay cool!
You’re right, we should be used to September being hot–it’s still part of summer, not fall, in California. But like you, I’m so ready for it to be over, especially when the light is beginning to look decidely autumnal. SOON!!!