I’m Not Dead! Where Phoenix Summer Gardening Meets Monty Python

I thought that the gardening concepts I would need to relearn in Arizona would center on timing. When to plant, prune, etc. Seasonal items. Then I learned about clay soil and caliche, potting mixes for native desert plants vs. desert-adapted plants, low-water irrigation, and on and on the list goes.

Have you ever gotten a little scissor-happy with the secateurs in your garden? I was struggling to deadhead for awhile. Then I was so happy that I had finally picked those secateurs up that I had trouble stopping myself. After all, these canna leaves clearly are not recovering. Good thing the plant seems indestructible. I’ve cut all the stalks back before and it grows bigger and better than before.

Sometimes, it’s fairly clear that vegetation is dead. I confess – I forgot to put the umbrella up one day and my beautiful English Rose (Princess Alexandra of Kent) got rather badly scorched.

The plant is still healthy but burned leaves like these are not coming back. Alex got a rather dramatic haircut and I expect her to come back stronger in the fall.

But what about this?

I saw these leaves one day and thought: “I need to cut those back.” The next day I couldn’t find them. There were only healthy leaves on the plant. This orange tree has new growth in multiple places, so I’m confident it’s happy. Perhaps I had just forgotten. Then the thermometer goes up and here we are again with curled up leaves. When I put a moisture meter in, the plant is not dry. What’s going on?

It’s hot.

A hot plant is not the same as a dry plant or a plant that has burned from the intense sunlight. It’s simply hot.  I wasn’t familiar with what a plant that was this hot looked because I’ve never gardened in temperatures approaching 120 degrees. I don’t blame it. I’m hot, too.

When we go outside in extreme temperatures, even if we are well hydrated, we’re going to start feeling uncomfortable almost immediately. That seems to be what’s going on with my orange tree. Will this branch eventually cry “Uncle!” and need to be cut off? Perhaps. I’m going to give it a chance and watch it. It’s been a fascinating lesson in the difference between hot and dry.

I’m excited that I finally have planted eryngium (sea holly). I never had the necessary light before. They have the potential to survive here, but as three season plants. They die back in the summer, then regrow for fall, winter, and spring. And what have they done?

These have fully crisped out by now, but I look at them and hear the words from Monty Python. It’s as though they’re crying that they’re not dead, that they feel fine, happy…no, it’s not time to bring out my dead. It’s time for, as the desert continues to remind me, being patient. This is what they look like full grown and happy, so I think it could be well worth the wait:

If you really feel the need to add new plants and see them thrive, here are some suggestions:

Kidding aside, summer is certainly making changes in my garden. Some for the good and some apparently bad – the star jasmine and amaranth are skyrocketing, while the acanthus and eryngium have died back as completely as promised. But I’m strangely excited by it all. After all, in colder climates, when roses are cut back for winter, they often explode with growth in spring, bigger and better than before. What does fall hold for my plants? Will I sit outside and hear my garden say:

“I am bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”

-Charles Dickens, “Great Expectations”

I hope so. I’m noticing that Arizona has that effect.

Once more unto the breach,
🌿 Ruby