Monsoonal!

I've never heard of the term "Monsoonal" until I moved here! I always assumed that monsoons were tropical with torrential rain and hurricane-like-winds. Apparently I'm wrong; monsoonal seems to mean high humidity, clouds, rain in the mountains (but not on the desert floor) and perhaps thunderstorms. Who knew?

The top photo is of our fast-growing Tipu that is magnificent against the sky! The vine in the bottom photo is a Madagascar vine that has
sweet-smelling white flowers on it. At the foot of the vine are a couple of pots of cacti I brought with me from Pacific Grove including the Barrel Cactus that I've had for 24 years or so. It loves it here!
I haven't done anything creative in 7 days! Call me "cranky." My SO as "he" has decided he'd prefer to be called online, arrived via car last Friday. He flew out of Palm Springs this morning and will be gone until August 6Th. We visited lots of nurseries until I had to put an end to that; heat exhaustion! Way too many plants haven't survived the intense heat, so the search was on for something that would. What did we end up with? A fragile vine and a tree Gardenia! Not my idea of easy-to-grow!

The humidity earlier this week was staggering. I guess that it's true, dry heat is easier to live in.