Fall Gardening in the Desert Southwest
We had lots of rain this monsoon. I turned off the irrigation; it seemed redundant. And then, it wasn't. The rains stopped and I forgot to turn it back on and now the containers which are on the main system are looking quite raggedy. I'm embarrassed. I'm not taking pictures. The well-established plants in the front and the back yards are quite happy. They are drying out, acclimating themselves to the cooler, drier autumn. Though the temperatures are still in the triple digits, it's not that hot. Oxymoronic? Not really. Just very hard to describe. The gardening guides in the glossy magazines designed to entice tourists to return again and again tell me to prune the dead canes of my roses and to replant my containers. They use phrases like rip out and replace . That makes it easier to deal with the detritus which was once zinnias. I'll go to the nursery and see what looks beautiful. I'll prune befo...