106 Degrees: Feels Like An Acid Bath. On The Sun. After A Volcanic Eruption.
So many lives snuffed out this past week or so. Michael. Farrah. Billy Mays. And my fuschia plant.
Fuschia? What was I thinking? It was exactly like getting too attached to a young, wide-eyed college co-ed character in a "psycho on the loose" slasher flick entitled, "Die, Co-ed, Die!"
While I'm sure my lack of gardening experience must have factored into the plant's untimely demise, I can't say I didn't try. Plus it might have been a slightly ambitious plant for the novice gardener.
See, since buying the plant, I also acquired the Sunset Western Garden Book. Geographically, according to this tome, we live on the cusp of two different gardening zones. The blurbs for both zones specifically issue dire warnings about the fuschia - out of ALL the plants in existence, both blurbs single it out. By name. And not in a good way. One blurb insists: "A wide variety of plants can flourish here.....except for the fuschia." The other blurb backs it up with: "No, seriously. Only an idiot would try to maintain a fuschia here."
I'm taking liberties with the paraphrasing, but............you get the idea. And so do I, finally.
We hit our second day of triple digit temps today. Even my once-almost-flourishing new hibiscus shrubs (now on life support) were nearly burned to a crisp in a single day. (Yeah, and those are described as hardy plants in my newfound plant bible.) Hell, our patio candelabra got all Dali on me. The heat kicked an inanimate object's ass.
Fine. I'm lowering my expectations. This will be like the horticultural version of Survivor. Every week, you can tune in and see which plant got voted off (or bumped off) the patio. Stay tuned.
P.S. In the interim, I'll also try to stop geeking out on this topic, and remember that there are other things to write about....................
