From Kuffel Creek: Cripp's Pink Australia, 1979 Cripp's Pink apples that are grown to certain quality standards are marketed under the Pink Lady⢠trademarked name. A cross between Lady Williams and Golden Delicious, it is a favorite in supermarkets because of it's dense, crisp juicy flesh and sweet-tart flavor. It is not bothered in the least by hot weather and even excels in Las Vegas and Phoenix, once considered apple graveyards because of their intense heat. Cripp's Pink apples that have been in storage a while will often have seeds inside that are already sprouted, useful for folks trying to start their own rootstocks from seed. It ripens late (November-December) and is a good companion for Fuji. I've given it short-shrift in the past because the ones in the supermarket are decent, but this year I've really enjoyed ours off the tree, and the ones grown in the mountains have been mind-blowing. Tested good for Southern California. The patent expired in 2010, and so we will now be able to sell it. Cripp's-Two Australia, 1973 Also known as its trademarked name Sundownerâ¢, Cripps-Two is a cross between Lady Williams and Golden Delicious and is a popular commercial variety in Australia and England. It ripens very late in the season, and needs a long hot season to be its best. It is considered low-chill and sets fruit very reliably, even when a tiny tree, and is very sun and heat resistant. The flavor is a pleasing sweet-tart and the texture is firm. It has a red skin on a yellow background. The patent expires November of 2013 and so we'll be shipping in spring of 2014. Here is a link that might be useful: Kuffel Creek

I planted Sunset, Sunrise, Sunset and Harvest Moon. All are beautiful for awhile, then they start to fade back to parental hues, so that's when I deadhead to keep my color scheme. With the orange family, I have crocosmia mixes, asclepias mixes, agastache 'blue fortune', chaste tree, miscanthus 'Cosmopolitan', and bronze fennel. With the Harvest Moon (yellow), I use coreopsis 'Creme Brulee' with B&B Salvia, Adonis Blue buddleia and echinops 'Ritro'. In another bed, I have it interplanted with daylily 'Joan Senior' and 'Happy Returns'. As for clump size, they are doing quite well with lots of blooms. I did use bloom booster around them. Cameron

Scott, You are bad, bad, bad. I've spend most of the last 4 days at fires, going to the store to buy food for the firefighters, cooking for the firefighters, baking for the firefighters, etc. etc. etc. and I was hoping you meant the 80s for a high when I saw the title of your post, even though I didn't really think you did. We were out at an all-night-fire the other night and the temps were in the 90s until 2 or 3 a.m., and of course, at the fireground it was much hotter because of heat radiating from the fire. If anyone remembers the summer of 1980.....I am starting to wonder if this one will be like it. I don't know how bad that one was here in OK, but in Fort Worth that year, we had 69 days over 100 and I think 42 or 43 of them were consecutive. Water companies here are starting to impose water restrictions. Some are asking people to cut back voluntarily. One, which serves a lot of the people north of us in our county, abruptly announced "no outdoor watering" yesterday. I don't know that people will comply with that. When you have very dense clay soil that contracts and expands, you have to keep the soil around the foundation moist or risk having a repair bill of thousands of dollars if your foundation cracks. So far our water company hasn't implemented watering restrictions, but it wouldn't surprise me if it comes to that. I know they're having some problems with a pump near us. We haven't had water restrictions since moving here in 1999, not even in 2003 when we only had a little over 18" of rain for the whole year, but I don't think 2003 was as hot as this year. Soil moisture levels at the Mesonet stations are pitiful and Keetch Byrum Drought Index numbers are shockingly high for this time of year when we normally have good residual soil moisture from the spring's rainy season. I need to go outside and pick purplehull peas and okra before it gets too hot, but the bunnies and deer are out there eating and I'm hoping they hurry up and finish. I don't want to go out and frighten them....or fight my way past them to get to the garden gate. No relief in sight here either....with highs over 100 forecast for the next 7 days. Our morning low on our Min-Max thermometer usually hits 80 or 81 and sometimes 79, but I've noticed that our Mesonet station at a lower elevation drops to 77 or 78 or even 76. Really though, those temps don't drop until shortly before sunrise and they don't stay their long either. Dawn

I use Walmart's Equate brand of baby shampoo. It can be any clear shampoo that you can see through. Before they put bactericidal elements into dish soap, we used to recommend dish soap. Shampoo works great, though. It works by lowering the surface tension of the water for better (deeper) penetration into the soil. Once the soil is moist down several inches the moisture creates a thermal mass that keeps the temperature and moisture relatively constant for several days in a row. That is the ideal environment for the beneficial soil microbes to grow and repopulate the soil. About 3 weeks after using the shampoo you should notice that the soil will become very soft to walk on when it is wet. If it is not, then reapply the shampoo. You cannot over apply - it's been tried and you just cannot use too much. I used it in San Antonio in 2012, and it was still working when we moved away last May. As long as you keep the microbes happy, they will reward you. Again, feed them at least once a year with an organic fertilizer. You should be able to find alfalfa pellets (Rabbit Chow) at your local feed store for under $15 for 50 pounds. The application rate is 15 to 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Again, you cannot over apply. I scatter it by hand and reapply if necessary. You can do that now in PHO if you want to. Do it the same time you shampoo it. Alfalfa pellets will swell up once moist and create green "worms" a couple inches long. Knock those off the grass and down to the soil so the microbes can get going on them. I stopped using chemical fertilizers when I saw how good my lawn became with organics. Here's a picture from mrmumbles experiment with alfalfa several years ago. The grass was zoysia. He applied the alfalfa pellets in mid May and took the picture in Mid June. You can see the improved color, density, and growth. It really works. I developed the watering schedule mentioned in the earlier post after discussing it (heatedly) with a lawn care professional from Phoenix. He insisted that deep and infrequent was mandatory for good lawn care and was more important than mowing height or fertilizing. After about 3 weeks of discussion here on Gardenweb, I believed him. I'm from SoCal and believed I had to water daily. Deep and infrequent really is key to making your lawn care go easy and have the best looking lawn. You'll see people watering daily, but they have to do other stuff to make up for the damage they do. What I gave you is the low hassle approach to lawn care. If you need to spray for weeds, do that in early spring. For most people that is April, but for you it might be early March. Don't use a weed n feed ever. If you need to kill weeds, spot spray with something like Weed b Gon or Weed b Gon Chickweed, Clover, and Oxalis Killer.