Some Plants Like It Hot

 Roses are not one of them

We're twelve or thirteen days into a heat wave, with another three (at minimum) to go.  Gardening is a few minutes outdoors to spot-water plants just enough to prevent fatalities. 

Dog days:  ha ha ha Boris, I'm on the sofa and you are on the floor!

Plants enjoying the heat are the sub or sub-tropicals.  Because of their high-water needs, I have only a few.  

Pentas:  Planted only a few weeks ago, and doing great

 Cannas: winter dormant even here.  That roll of hardware cloth in the background is for a rodent-proofing project, on hold until it cools off

 Cuphea:  even small rooted cuttings are fine in ferocious heat, if watered sufficiently.  Growing fast:

Desperate for outdoor time, the best I could do was to top and pot up the indoor Ficus lyrata out on the shaded patio.

Previous pot on the left: 

Topped it, so the Ficus will branch:

Thought I would try rooting the tip, though it will likely be unsuccessful

Cut the huge leaf down--too big!

And stuck it in a humidity box

One to-do that was do-able was getting an inexpensive tool box for all the little garden supplies and tools that were scattered around the patio.  A little tidier now. A less obtrusive color would be better. 

Aloes, one would think, love heat.  Based on garden observation, A. deltoideodonta, A. dorotheae, and A. capitata seem happiest (and growing) in summer's heat.  I know for sure A. deltoideodonta  'Sparkler' needs dryness and the warmth of sun-bathed masonry in winter.  The rest of the Aloes in the garden seem to be in the built-to-withstand-heat category, surely different than "love".   

This year because I made (and tested) some irrigation changes on the front slope, the plants there got a lot more water than they usually do.  This initiated a couple of surprise Aloe flowers.  Aloe reitzii.

Reitzii's flowers emerge looking dry and sun-burnt, but that is misleading (to discourage grazing herbivores?):

Aloe rubroviolacea, its flowers scruffy because of the heat:

Other Aloes have drawn attention at the moment.  Back a year or more ago I bought a tiny pot of three "Aloe Vera" seedlings at Ikea of all places for a few dollars.  Just for fun.  They've grown some. Maybe they are 'vera's, maybe not.  Time will tell.

 A more recent purchase, mail ordered this past week:  Aloe broomii and another Aloe aculeata.  I had broomii before; it came down with Aloe mite, so out it went.  Trying again with seedlings, which should be clean.  Aloe broomii is the Aloe that looks most like an Agave, and has teeth that can puncture skin, rare for an Aloe.  Aculeata teeth are pretty sharp as well. 

The distinctive Aloe aculeata:

Two Aloe broomii

That's the garden for now.  The nights, at least, look to start cooling down this weekend, meaning the garden will be gardenable for an hour or two early in the morning.    

Last Friday, Natasha's leg was bleeding.  We got her up on the grooming table for a look.  She'd had a boil or skin cyst and licked or bit it open.  I called the vet for an appointment, they said two weeks.  Gee, thanks!  We cleaned up the area, cut the fur away, anti-biotic ointment applied, and then The Cone Of Shame, one we had around from previous issues, so the skin could heal.  Figured out by using an old collar we could keep The Cone on her.

She's Natasha.  She's feels no shame

Her leg is almost healed up already.  Skin is back to it's normal barely-pink.  When the little scab falls off, the cone will come off.

That's right, stick your tongue out at me:

"Can I chew up that pepper and then spit it out?  Please?"

Nothing much will be done in the garden until it cools off.  Except watering.  Some plants like it hot, but I don't.