Got to the oasis early this morning. Perfect weather and everything damp and lovely. Over the last couple days it got a total of nearly half an inch of rain. Need more, but it's a start. Rainy season is half over -- at it's peak now. Here's another picture of the water drip I repaired last time I was here. Not crazy about it, but we'll see. I wish the middle basin held more water. I'll put some putty around it one of these days so it will. It had some on it, but fell off.
The weather was really great this morning, so I got some work out of myself, even though I didn't feel the urge to water things.... yet.
Got nice photos of a California Spreadwing female and Rambur's Forktail. Otherwise, not much activity. Maybe because everywhere is an oasis now and things disperse.
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I'm so remorseful that I had my son cut down the dying madrone tree. The poor thing is coming back from the roots. I had no idea. Hard lesson learned.
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7 comments:
Maybe the madrone will be better off for it. I waited two years for a pomegrante to come back after the first horrid zero degrees bout, and it had almost another winter that bad, but looked deader than a doornail. So everything showing was cut off. This year, it put out from the roots in May and is about 3 feet tall now.Of course, it's a bush, not a tree. But maybe you shouldn't despair. It apparently is not!!
I sure hope so. It was never a tree, only about 5-6' tall. We had an apricot tree break in two at the trunk and it's good now, and I've had mulberry trees make lovely trees after being cut off at the ground, but madrones depend on soil microorganisms so I don't know. We'll see. I'll be happy with a healthy bush, but it'll take years. I don't understand how it could look so dead and now sprout healthy looking growth. For sure I'm going to water it and not prune it. LOL
So is it a Texas Madrone or Arizona Madrone ??? My favourite article comes from several years back on germination and care for Texas Madrone from the University of Texas at Austin written several years ago
University of Texas at Austine - Texas Madrone
After reading the first page, click on all the other links below, for examle the Ashe Juniper in Texas is one of the best texas Madrone nurse plants.
I know it's probably to late in the game after all this time and I do not know how much actual land you own out there, but have you ever considered ways of slowing down the water that enters your oasis and keep the washes flowing longer, even weeks after rains with clear clean water ??? I found this example of a couple who spent years creating 1000s of simple small check dams made of nothng but rocks.
Can rock dams reverse climate change?
Texas Madrone
Yes, I've done that all over my property. I have a large dam where the arroyo leaves my property also. There's more I could do. If I was younger, I would do it.
Now, two years later, cutting the madrone down was the right thing to do. Dying trees often put on a last gasp of leaves before dying, but they're too far gone to recover if they're not real well adapted to the area.
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