According to our recently installed rooftop weather station, during the past two weeks we've received exactly four and a half inches of rain, an auspicious kick-off for our rainy season, which, if all goes well, should bring us about 25 inches of precipitation when it ends four months from now.The total could vary, of course, …
Tag: cacti
What is this? Summer, spring, early rains or what?
We haven't had any significant rain here for months, and that, in addition to a heat wave for the past couple of weeks, is making me doubt my own propaganda about San Miguel having the "perfect climate."It's been pretty miserable indeed, temperatures up in the low 90s. Not Baton Rouge, Houston or Phoenix miserable, mind …
Continue reading What is this? Summer, spring, early rains or what?
Tiptoeing through the succulents
Initially my interest in succulents and cacti (the latter a subset the succulent family) was mostly practical. The soil around here is very poor and rain comes only during a narrow, three- or four-month window; the rest of the year the landscape is bone-dry. Succulents seemed custom made for such harsh conditions, though I quickly …
Fleeting moments of grace
"Grace" is a concept usually associated with theology, as in how God's grace saves sinful humans from eternal damnation. I look at it from a more earthly and ephemeral perspective: Unexpected, wonder-full moments of beauty open to us if we only take the time to pause, look and savor them. Maybe both ideas of grace …
Spring arrives early at the ranch and succulents and cacti lead the festivities
The spring solstice won't arrive until Tuesday at 10:15 a.m. but at the ranch we've been enjoying a spring greening since late February, thanks to the succulents, cacti and other xeric plants already blooming even though not a drop of rain is expected for several months.Longer days and warmer temperatures spur this spring hubbub. Shallow-rooted …
Continue reading Spring arrives early at the ranch and succulents and cacti lead the festivities
From sere to jungly in two weeks
It's time to plant now that the rains have finally arrived As Saturday Night Live's premier journalist Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, "It just goes to show you, if it's not one thing it's another." A month ago the ranch was tumbleweed-dry, the levels of the rainwater in the cisterns had dropped down to eighteen inches and brush …
When the Succulents come out to play
Despite their often gruff appearance,succulents have a tender, flowery heartSucculents are split-personality plants, scornful and hostile one day, inviting and flirtatious the next. Cacti, a member of the succulent family, in particular sport razor thorns that warn strangers not to come near, but then, maybe the next day, or month or year, will set seductive …
April showers and succulent flowers
My fascination with succulents and cacti initially arose out of necessity—they are the natural denizens of semi-arid areas such as where we live—but has developed into a true fascination with these quirky and frequently beautiful plants.This aloe grows in a pot in our back terrace.They come in thousands of contorted and bizarre shapes and most …
Gardening with Félix and Mother Nature
It's a ritual among gardeners, really more like a booby trap of frustration, to amble around the yard long before the planting season arrives and fantasize about exotic combinations of flowers and plants swaying in the breeze, such visions reinforced by the arrival of seed catalogs in January and February, and glossy gardening books that …
Waking up to a world full of cobwebs
This morning Mexico went off Daylight Savings Time so we turned our clocks back last night. I'm never sure if we gain or lose an hour in the process, maybe neither.Stew woke up grousing about the soupy morning fog that lapped at our windows, coming after several days of iffy, partly cloudy weather. You get …
El Rancho Santa Clara 