Books and Dead Plants

[queerbychoice]

My books for the authors from Q through Z are now inter-alphabetized with Susan's. My favorite juxtaposition is how Susan's copy of The World According to Mister Rogers is sandwiched alphabetically between her copy of Death Warmed Over: Funeral Food, Rituals, and Customs from Around the World by Lisa Rogak and my copy of Science and Homosexualities by Vernon A. Rosario.

My buckwheat and coyote mint plants seem to have died! They're all brown and crispy. I don't know what happened to them. They look as if they died of drought, but Susan and I had both watered them. And the buckwheat is a plant that's native to the Mojave Desert, so it's used to less water than it'd get here even if it were never watered at all. Maybe it died of excessive water instead? I don't know. Anyway, they both look dead. The other plants are still alive, even the tattered little currant, although none of them are looking especially vibrant. Susan says it's been 108 degrees (42 degrees Celsius) here for the past several days, so I guess it's lucky that any of them survived. Still, it seems like if a 108-degree heatwave is going to kill off my plants, the one native to the Mojave Desert shouldn't be one of the first to die.

Susan is sick today, too. She says she's been throwing up all night. I think it's from stress, because her school year is about to start - stress does that to her sometimes. I hope she feels better soon.

Comments

Desert Plants

[morningloryblue.livejournal.com]

I have murdered so many plants since moving to the Mojave desert. At first, I transfered all of my plants from the south. Predictably, they were dead within a couple of weeks. Then, I was the fool who bought all of the spring plants in Lowe's (Las Vegas) that are irresponsibly shipped here, but will NOT make it through the extreme heat of the summer. A couple of times, too, I have over-watered the drought resistant plants. It is only of late that I am learning balance - meaning almost NO water at all - maybe once a month or so watering.....thus far, my favorite desert plant is the ocatillo, though...

Re: Desert Plants

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Yes - it's especially dangerous to water California natives or other Mediterranean-climate plants during hot summer days, because they're not used to getting any moisture in the summer, so they have no resistance to fungal pathogens that thrive in warm, wet soil. I hope we didn't actually kill our new plants by the very fact that we did water them. You really have to water plants when they're newly transplanted like these were, and it's not supposed to be as dangerous when they're young as it is when they're older. It's supposed to be okay to water them for the first year after transplanting them from a gallon-sized pot, and these were only a couple of weeks out of their gallon-sized pots. So I just don't know what happened. I can sort of believe that the coyote mint died of heat and drought, but the buckwheat confuses me.

I wouldn't want to grow ocotillo up here; our wet winters would probably drown it. But it does make wonderful living fences in your area. Have you considered growing a fence of it?

Re: Desert Plants

[morningloryblue.livejournal.com]

We really like the ocatillo...we only planted one to make sure we have the ability to keep it living. Since it is thriving in the ground and it's one year later, I think we will consider planting a fence-like row of them this year.

[bay-bus-rider.livejournal.com]

arlan_bishop and I have hashed out different plans of book organization/integration for countless hours, even considering using LOC call numbers.

At present, they're all just thrown on the shelf randomly. They've been like this for about four years.

I admire your coordination!