A Quiet Summer

I live for summer mornings. Even in this hot dry year, with no rain and afternoons in the 90s, our mornings are lovely.

Overnight the temperatures drop after a sunbaked day, and when I get up it's in the 60s. The winds that torture my plants in the afternoons have died down and mornings are perfectly still and quiet.

It's been a quiet summer overall. 

Without the seasonal monsoon -- which doesn't seem to want to arrive this year -- there are no roiling clouds or stormy downpours. No hail. Left unmolested, my plants carry on, although they do not seem very happy about the lack of moisture. A lot look stunted, holding back any growth or fullness until some wet arrives.

I irrigate and I water constantly, but it is no substitute for moister air and a good landscape-wide soak.

Surprisingly a bowl of pansies and violas, which don't like heat and usually go by before July arrives, are doing well in this quiet summer.

And my little crabapple in the center of our narrow back yard is coming into its own finally.

Like the ironwood tree I wrote about earlier this summer, this crabapple, planted three years ago, had a rough start. One year it never even set buds. One year it had iron chlorosis, causing yellowed leaves. This year the newest growth at the branch tips had aphids. 

But I dealt with each calamity and, in a show of gratitude, the tree is suddenly thriving. It has lots of growth. 

Three pots and a self seeded yellow flowering weed by the deck do well but look a bit ragged. I tell myself it's a wildflower meadow and it's supposed to look like that. Half of gardening is attitude adjustment.

Everything is very hushed as I sit in those red chairs in the mornings waiting for rain. It's cool, refreshing, and just really nice.

Later, when the day heats up, I'll turn on the air conditioning and do my waiting for rain inside.