Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to tell you that once again, I’m roasting hot. You may remember me from such similarly-themed posts as “Still Roasting”, “Beyond Super Roasting”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You can see how green it is after the rain two weeks ago. It rained today, for about ten seconds.
It’s pretty hot. It was 96 or something yesterday, the same today, and it’s supposed to be 99 tomorrow.
The weird thing is that it’s humid. Not like steamy, but more than we’re used to, for sure. About twenty percent humidity.
That almost never happens here; usually, as the temperature rises, the humidity goes down. But not right now. It does prevent the plants from transpiring too much water, so I guess the humidity is okay. It certainly is different.
I still have to check on things.
Cotton is flying through the garden, but it’s not from cottonwoods, rather from the willows along the canal. The guy I live with said cottonwoods and willows are in the same family.
It’s kind of hard to believe that just an inch and a half (give or take) or rain two weeks ago brought out the mushrooms in the “way back”, under the Wasatch maples.
This was a big one.
The Persian yellow rose is having an excellent year.
The guy I live with posted some different pictures of this rose on Facebook, and a couple of people said something about “blackspot”. Even with mushrooms growing in the garden, and the extra humidity, it’s too dry for things like “blackspot”.
There are other roses. This is kind of a crummy picture of ‘Darlow’s Enigma’.
‘Paul’s Himalayan Musk’ rambler. Tiny little flowers.
The salvias are starting to flower, too. This is Salvia sclarea var. turkestanica. Kind of a smelly plant.
Melica ciliata, too. We probably have too much of this in the garden. The guy I live with didn’t know it would seed around so much.
It started out in the “way back” border, but instead of going into the field, which would be wrong, it’s seeded in the other direction, toward the house.
Speaking of seeds, the guy I live with hasn’t been too happy about his overall results with seeds this year (not that the seeds didn’t germinate, but a lot of seedlings died), but the ‘Heavenly Blue’ morning glories have done really well.
There are two pots of these which will going into The Enclosure and hopefully the plants will climb up the fence.
Some plants came in the mail. They took longer to arrive than expected. I guess that’s nothing new, these days. The guy I live with was a bit concerned about plants in boxes in this heat, but only one plant didn’t make it.
Some were a little rootbound, so they’re being repotted into larger pots with the “special soil” surrounding the rootball, and then watered a lot. The “super genius” method I talked about some time ago.
Looking back on that post, it’s hard to believe how much the garden has changed just since I’ve been here. A lot of plants have died, some have thrived, and new ones have been added to the garden.
Anyway, this is the special soil.
Almost no organic matter at all.
So that’s really it for today. Oh, except that a hawkmoth flew into the kitchen last night. That was kind of exciting. The guy I live with caught it with his hands, let it go outside, and it flew back into the kitchen. It was caught and let go again. Of course I wanted to catch it and eat it, but the guy I live with told me not to do that. I guess he’s never tried moths.
I’ll leave you with another atmospheric picture of me taking care of the garden yesterday evening. The sunbeam didn’t quite illuminate me, which was disappointing.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Gads! That humidity is weird, and no fun! We got the same thing. I suppose that other climates must contend with humidity more regularly.
It’s not terrible, but it is strange.
The guy I live with said he’s been to places where it’s humid, and it was very different from here.
Yes, humidity can be icky, although some plants enjoy it.
Helps prevent excessive transpiration. I was really hot today. The guy I live with left me alone for a while. But it cools off very nicely at night.
and we got that humidity for the last two days in northern California as well (not liking it…) but it’s nice and cool tonight
The weather website says 85F and 13 percent humidity, but the guy i live with says that station os “way out east”. Here it feels much more humid. And weird.
I have watched the posts of a friend in Finland as her garden emerged (exploded into growth) from the winter’s covering of snow and I see the same – to me very fascinating and amazing – explosion in yours with the arrival of rain. This is so very different to our garden where we have growth all year round, granted much slower in winter but we do have snowdrops in full growth and flower right through the winter from late September to March without interruption. We never experience your, or her, period of absolutely no growth whatsoever nor that sudden rush of growth afterwards. It is fascinating. Re Paul’s Himalayan Ramber – we grew one on a tree on our road front – it leaned across the road and continue onto a tree on the other side!
The guy I live with said things used to be different here. Winter was more of a slowdown, with snowdrops flowering, with some interruptions, but not any more.
The slowdown actually comes as a relief, these days, because the guy I live with gets tired working in the garden, in ways he didn’t used to. He could work for hours in the heat, back in the old days.
I share the experience of getting tired! We’ve had a weekend of child-minding and I’m too old for that lark!
Part of the reason the guy I live with gets tired is from the aftermath of cancer therapy (he didn’t stretch his muscles enough, three years ago), and part of it is the weather. 34C here right now. Record high temperatures for June.
I can only blame advancing years!
There is that, too.
Roses are so wonderful in low humidity areas (20% would be refreshingly low humidity for us!) – while one can spray weekly against blackspot (and we have neighbors who do) my approach is just to avert the eyes from the bushes once they start to defoliate from the spots. And gradually remove the roses, sadly.
ceci
The guy I live with said he knew a rose expert, who has since passed away, who said he scraped two tablespoons of Kirk’s castile soap into a gallon jug of water, and used that as a spray, for the leaves. Blackspot apparently needs an acidic leaf cuticle to survive, and the soak alkalinized the cuticle.
But it’s not much of a worry here.
Mee-yow WOW a HawkMoth!!!! Wee have herd of them butt wee due not have them here Mani! Hee iss two beeuteefull to eat! Wee glad Guy took him back outside….
An so many lovelee flowerss! Yore garden lookss purrty specktaculur!!!
Wee love THE Persian Rosess alot.
20% purr cent Humidiity iss not a BIG deel here….wee get up to 90% Humidity an it iss pawfull….mee thinkss our 1st heetwave iss on itss’ way!
You look furry hansum inn yore fotoss Mani~~so hansum~~~
**nose bopss** BellaDharma an ❤ BellaSita Mum
Thanks.
There was a moth in the kitchen this morning. The guy I live with grabbed it, gently, and let it go, outside.
We get up to 90%..when it’s raining.
HURRAH fore uy catchin an reeleasin Moth!
An UCKY you get high humiditee two!
Low humidity now, and hot.
HURRAH humiditee iss low…ourss iss high with high tempyture,..,,mee an BellaStia Mum stayin innside all day Mani….it iss UCKY outisde!
The humidity is back, here, but nowhere like it is in the south and eastern North America.
It’s kind of different.
Your garden suddenly looks very lush Mani. Looks like everything is enjoying the extra moisture. Funny how things can change so fast. 10 days ago they were talking another catastrophic drought but today we have a storm system that is here for the next few days and will drop at least 5″ of rain on us so now flood warnings are in effect. Just gotta learn to take it in stride.
The guy I live with says that a lot of rain here would be nice, but maybe not five inches of rain.
We’re back to hot temperatures with some wind, and it’s becoming worrisome. We’d normally be having some rain at this time of year.