Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the purebred border collie, Mani the roasting hot border collie, here today not only to tell you how totally roasting hot I am, but to talk about the enclosure. You may remember me from such posts as “Into The Garden, Endlessly Roasting”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
I’m facing the other way from my last characteristic pose, to cool off my hindquarters.
So, big surprise, it’s been hot every day here, since like forever. Denver does have hot summers, but this seems ridiculous to me. Even more ridiculous is that this is, so far, only the second hottest summer in Denver on record.
It’s 97 degrees Fahrenheit (36C), with eight percent humidity, right now.
The guy I live with said it’s best that we stay inside today, with the swamp cooler running. I don’t have many objections to that.
Yesterday he worked in the enclosure and I worried that he was going to get heat exhaustion, but he did come inside frequently, to drink cold rooibos tea.
One issue that he’s facing is what to do with the tree peony, Paeonia rockii ‘Highdown’.
This was his wife’s favorite plant. He moved it into the enclosure, where it took about a dozen years to recover and flower again, but it’s really suffering in this heat and very dry weather. He offered it to some people last year, but they declined. He then offered it to his sister, but after talking about how big this thing gets, and how many years it takes to recover from being transplanted, she didn’t want it either.
I don’t know what will happen to it.
The roses are another issue, but an issue that’s been resolved. There are four, and the guy I live with dug up three, so far. These are spoken for. They’re sitting on the patio, looking okay, and will get a weak foliar feed after a while. I discussed this in my post “The Pump.”
The roses will be buried in the ground over winter, and then dug up next spring, though the guy I live with wonders if we’ll even have a winter.
Anyway, he cleared out all the vinca from one part of the enclosure a few days ago, and decided to plant the Agastache rupestris he purchased earlier this year. This is a fairly high-water demand plant for our garden; earlier this year the guy I live with imagined filling the enclosure, which was regularly watered, with a lot of plants that hummingbirds would like, but the heat, drought, and watering restrictions put an end to that plan.
The agastaches really aren’t desert plants, like some people say. More of a mountain plant (rupestris means “rocky”, as in cliffs and stuff). The monograph on the genus says this species is found (at the type locality in southwestern New Mexico anyway) “growing among vegetation-covered boulders of pink granite, on north-facing slopes, in sandy soil” (or something to that effect). Hummingbirds love it.
There’s no north-facing slope or sandy soil in the enclosure, but the guy I live with does have some ugly pink granite, which his late father-in-law collected somewhere (so he obviously can’t return it).
There are two agastaches there, among the pink granite.
The plants were in “the waiting room”, with their roots grown out of the root balls using the “Super Genius Method”, but today they were wilted, which the guy I live with expected. He watered them.
There are some penstemons that will be planted here, watered, and then this little area will be mulched.
And that’s all I have on this roasting hot day. I’ll leave you with a picture of me on my morning walk; we got up extra early to enjoy the cool weather.
Until next time, day.
the miserable gardener 
What a lovely tree peony bloom!
We were ecstatic to get a half-inch of rain a few days ago (in 20 minutes; very efficient delivery by Mother Nature…) and now hoping the monsoon really does kick in. In late spring I planted a dwarf mugo pine (‘Wintergold’) which has either gotten terribly sunburned (is that a thing?) or is dying in spite of my watering to establish it. Needles and branches are flexible and intact but the color is a golden brown now. Like most of the West. Stay cool with that swamp cooler!
We’ve had hardly any rain here in the last month. About 0.20 inches total. The guy I live with said not getting rain here after mid-July or so has been a trend, this century.
When he read your comment about ‘Wintergold’ he said “Uhhhh…”. It’s quite possible that it’s dying, but it might be good to wait. We had one here, and the needles turn yellow in the winter. It died a few years later, for some reason.
The guy I live with said he’s lost a few new plants this year. Three agaves, $25 each, which he thought had been hardened to the sun,so he left them out for a day, and they were killed. Turned yellow, and then to mush. He said he should have known better and been more patient. So things like this do happen.
Such is gardening; the guy you live with is right. Hate to hear about the agaves.
He says he’s only spent about a trillion dollars on plants that are long dead.
If you buy agaves that are grown outside, like at Southwest Gardens, they’ll be fine. Greenhouse-grown ones are very tender and need a long sun-hardening period. Same with cactus.
That Paeonia is a treasure and such a pity that your garden conditions no longer suit it. We had no rain in July and temperatures not previously experienced so many plants, and the garden generally, are in poor condition. Rain is forecast for this afternoon – “downpours, with the threat of spot flooding!” Wouldn’t that be nice!
It’s been such a disappointing monsoon season in Arvada. On the days it actually rains, I can only measure by the number of drops it’s so sparse. 50 days and counting until autumn officially arrives and it can’t come soon enough for me and Wilson. 🥵 Try to stay as cool as you can, Mani.