Santa Anas again and will continue through the week

 I seem to recall only once did it rain on a holiday and that was I believe Easter about ten years ago. Or longer. We rarely ever have 'typical' Fall weather on Thanksgiving. So here we are having weather that is dry, hot and no wind. Not the best weather for being in the garden.

I went and checked on it anyway due to the dry air and hadn't watered in two or three days. Tomato is still plugging along and oddly enough, so are the cilantro. Nobody wilted!

The white-ish color behind the cilantro I at first thought was stressed or dried out leaves, nope. A small rock behind it so it's doing fine and so is the smaller seedling. So hard to get good pictures of them when they're so small. I don't think they've grown much and might have to get some liquid food that will give them a boost. There's some old MG in the storage closet next to the garden but then I would need a watering can and... don't have that.

Something else I noticed, that is another tidbit of info about soil. It shrinks and expands. 

It was dry enough that it shrank away from the retaining board. The grey haze on the soil is from the foam that formed when I flooded it last time. But this is something to keep in mind with pots as well. Soil will shrink and when you water it will just run over the top of the soil and down the side barely touching the actual root ball. Only succulents should get this dry and use the same soaking to thoroughly hydrate it after. Unless... it is a California native and only then lightly water and step away. Some plants don't want a flooding after being dry especially in the middle of summer. Keeping soil 'evenly moist' is tricky because in my situation I would have to be down there every day to water. Instead.... going back to mulching, that will keep it evenly moist and saves water and work.

My previous post about pruning roses? We were out shopping and stopped at a light near a large mall and what do I see next to us? Pruned roses and what I think is Dianella, judging from the thatch and size of the roses, they've been there for at least a decade.

The pruning of the roses was wrong in a few categories... wrong time of year for our area and it seems they only cut them down and stripped the leaves. Someone must have learned pruning in the midwest or some other colder region. Or their boss/whoever told them to do it that way. Sigh. Not my circus not my monkeys, they've obviously done it this way since the planting went in and they're still okay.

You can have a very educated opinion on how to do something 'the right way' and then you have that situation and just have to keep your mouth shut. Like trying to tell someone how to raise your pets, everyone is different and usually they all turn out okay.

There are few hard and fast rules for anything in the world the ones that matter are for a good reason but gardening.. whatever works for you.