Daily Dose Blogger Bios
The Santa Anas. The Devil's Wind. For those of you not familiar with Southern California, the Santa Ana Winds are the hot desert currents that howl down from the Sierras through the Mojave and arrive in Los Angeles right as the summer heat is winding down - just in time to fight off the beginnings of crisp autumn breezes and turn the southern half of California into a fiery convection oven. The winds turn everything brown and crunchy, perfect kindling, so come Santa Ana winds, it's fire fire everywhere! For the past week the sun has been filtered through smoke and ash, making it look like 6:30pm all day long. It's eerie; disconcerting. And stinky. People say that more murders happen during Santa Anas than any other time. The winds make people crazy. My shriveled garden makes me crazy! I don't want to increase the amount of water I'm using, but the drying winds are so much worse than any drought, as far as my plants are concerned. Give them no water, and they laugh - hit them with hot, blowing air for days on end and they reduce the amount of surface exposed to the elements by hunkering down and curling up. Not a pretty look. My hard-ass succulents? Well, most are keeping up appearances, but some are starting to curl up into closed fists. Heavy sigh. Sometimes this kind of weather lasts through Halloween, with tiny, one or two day reprieves here and there. But that's life in LA. The old saying is we only have 3 seasons, Flood, Fire, and Drought. What a place to be a gardener!
Those photos are eerie in a way. It looks like the sky is on fire and it's going to swallow up the houses. It must be a very scary time of year!
Thank you for reminding me of the downside of weather in CA. Here in New England, I'm dreading the winter, and would pack up and move in a second to your area if I could! The October Night of Death (frost) is coming soon, when you wake up and all the flowers are gone. It's heartbreaking. I hope you have something of a garden left after the winds die down.
Thanks for your kind thoughts, Simone - I broke down and gave the garden a few mistings the last couple of days, and what a difference a little humidity makes!
I've never heard of the October 'Night of Death' - is that a phrase you coined? I think it should be part of gardening vernacular, if it already isn't... there has to be a dramatic way to describe such a terrible night.
No matter where we garden, we have challenges - nature's way of evening the playing field, don't you think?
Oh my goodness, Ivy. Those pictures are shocking. I listen to the radio for my news and realize now how much I'm missing by doing so...
It is so surreal, but like everything, you get used to it-
I was at a dinner party last weekend at a friend's lovely hillside home, and a hill across the canyon was totally aflame! We had a clear view of it, and as we were dining outside, it made for a dramatic and unforgetable evening. If the winds would've shifted, it would have been a different story, of course.
Just as I'm typing this, a fire engine is blaring its siren while rushing to quench another flare-up... Tis the season!
Germinatrix, I'm enjoying your articles as always. I can't believe you are going to tear out that fabulous garden.
I always thought of gardening in California as sort of a paradise. What do I know? Those photos of the fires are incredible. It makes me glad that all we have to deal with are tropical storms and hurricanes.
I hope the weather clears and they get those fires under control soon.
Hi La Gringa! It seems like the fires are calming down - I don't see the smokey glow on the horizon, and I'm not coughing. I really wish we had some of your Honduran rain to clean the ash from the air and my roof!
I love my garden, but I have ants in my pants about it... I want to see something new there. But I won't tear out everything. I'm itchy, not crazy!