The seasons come and go, but rather erratically, as indicated by the plants in my little patio container garden. Normally, the winter rains cease around the beginning of April and summer heat arrives here in the Bay area early in June, and then the flowers on my cymbidium orchids (which are winter blooming plants, in flower from January through May) gradually turn brown and drop to the ground, and the plants go into dormancy until December, when new flower shoots begin to appear; and at the same time my big-leaved hydrangea (H. macrophylla) sends up its flower stalks, to bloom in mid-summer.
This year has, on average, been warmer than usual, with occasional one- or two-day bursts of high heat. So, even though it’s not particularly hot at the moment, my plants have switched into summer mode. Quite spectacularly.
The first thing is, they’re afflicted by gigantism. All of the cymbidium flower stalks were taller than usual, and one plant had two stalks that were over two feet tall, with big thick stems. Meanwhile, the hydrangea also sent up flower stalks over two feet high, twice as tall as ever before; and there are about a dozen stalks, twice as many as ever before.
The second thing is, they’ve jumped the gun. The hydrangea flower-heads are about to open up into bright pink flowers, the first of them probably tomorrow (at least a month early). Meanwhile, in the past two days, all of the cymbidium flowers, including two stalks of them that had just opened, turned brown and started dropping off.
So I spent a very long time yesterday cutting those stalks down, chopping them into bits, and distributing the bits in my narrow garden strip as compost. And then cleaning up the mess on the patio — a long and tedious task, because I have to do everything getting around with a walker and without crouching down, getting on my hands and knees, or sitting on the ground (all actions that are beyond my abilities). It was dead-tiring, but I did it. And now my beauties are all gone, in a flash, and the cymbidiums are handsome foliage plants for six months, while they develop their underground parts during the summer heat.
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