Our yard began to flood Sunday morning.Hey I always wanted a backyard pool and now we’ve got one!
Thanks but no thanks! Though Hilary was a tropical storm by the time it got here, it wreaked havoc on my yard.
We were very lucky to have so little issues with this big storm that caused road washouts, power outages, home flooding, and so much more. Our valley is still dealing with the aftermath of the extreme weather.
I took precautions and sandbagged the entry on the side of the house that typically floods beforehand. We put all our potted plants and patio furniture inside the garage as we were anticipating a year’s worth of rain and high winds. Well, in the humid conditions and the three days of stormy weather, the plants suffered in the garage.
This ficus is lifted out of the ground and was leaning on two other ficus across the yard. Our gardener said the way to save it was to anchor it to the house. Um, no! We are in the process of removing it. You can see it’s a little too close to the air conditioning unit anyway so good riddance. One thing I wasn’t expecting was how good the ficus smells when it’s essentially being hacked to bits. I would love an essential oil or candle in this scent please!This mother in law tongue is doing great (but its trailing roommate, not so great). It has many babies that I’ll be dividing up when the time is right. But it fell through the columnar planter it was resting on during the storm. It turns out the planter is rusted so I got rid of the tall planter box and will be keeping it like this on the ground instead. It’s tall enough to not need the height, and the tall planter was just collecting water anyway. The mosquitos will be sad their breeding ground is no more but that’s life. The last time I replanted it was in February 2022 and it was just one stalk.Ah, this one hurts my heart. This gumby cactus my friend gave me when she moved has root rot now. One of its arms fell to the ground so I’ve picked that up and I’m waiting for it to scab over so I can plant it. I wonder if this is the cactus’ survival mechanism, to drop a piece of itself when it knows it’s going to die, to ensure life goes on…Gumby II
We’ve only just now turned our sprinklers on, a week after the monsoonal storm conditions began.
Let's Stay Holmes 