risk

Yesterday I did something risky but I think I got away with it. The weather has been very hot - many days in the mid 20s, quite a few into the 30s and very little rain. (Northern Hemisphere readers please translate temperatures into your own system).

In the mostly mild summers over the last 28 years I was able to be casual about the seasons. If I wanted to plant, prune hard or transplant I would do it when I got round to it whatever the season. But this year I realize I should really wait to do these things till May when it will be autumn and milder weather - hopefully. When I couldn't resist moving or planting new baby plants they mostly died. Waste of time and money. But the planting in part of the front garden started really getting to me. It didn't look great but that didn't matter. What mattered was that the juxtaposition meant it potentially wasn't going to get better in the future either.

I tried to wait but it was like trying not to scratch an itch. Yesterday was 28 and I transplanted two small plants in the morning, which meant they would suffer the sun and afternoon heat. They were hardy plants - a wormwood from the Canary Islands and an unusual salvia called africana - lutea - but still it was dicey. (You can see the transplanted salvia, another one with flower and the wormwood above).

Luck! Today it rained and was cooler. With nurturing and with giving them the saved water from the kitchen and shower, they are looking OK and I think they will survive.