As The Temperatures Soar

It's hot and dry and very, very windy here. It's bad enough that we're in the middle of a terrible drought but now we have to have souring temperatures what seems like every other week on top of it. This time of year we are usually cool and cloudy. It feels more like September or October wildfire weather than the diddle of spring. I am thankful for the shade trees in the back yard that add a visual coolness to the yard as well as dropping the temperature in the area. Where the soil is exposed it is hard and cracked. Many of the roses have already been cut back after their first bloom and attack of sawfly larvae. (I need to seek out some worm castings for their soil.) But there are other plants like these natives that look like they aren't bothered at all by the 90 degree spring temperatures. The pretty pink Mexican Evening primrose (Oenothera speciosa) is a native that can be invasive once it starts reseeding, but it doesn't bother me. I welcome the pretty pink flowers in the spring that disappear altogether the rest of the year. They thrive in terrible soil with little water so they are perfect in a spot where nothing else will grow, like under this clump of palm trees. They are mixed in with another reliable native, Santa Barbara Daisy (Erigeron Karvinskianus). The threadlike stems and tiny daisy flowers grow year round and act as a filler almost anywhere in the garden. It is not easy watching the gardens trying to survive under trying conditions, so it is nice to see some plants that take it all with not much stress at all.