Last year, I watched as a beautiful Grinnell’s Penstemon withered and died over a timespan of about two weeks. It had spread to about 3 feet wide since I planted it, starting from 6 inches high and barely five inches wide. It had bloomed during Spring and looked completely healthy and happy.

Until it didn’t.

The leaves all curled and it took on a sickly purplish color. Then it shriveled and dried up. It was dead. Had I watered it too much? Not enough? Was it getting too much shade? Too much sun? Did it get a disease from the soil? I had lots of guesses but no way of knowing what killed my penstemon. So, I contacted a graduate student who was working over at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden Grow Native Nursery and asked him what happened. I sent pictures and described as much as I could. His answer? No idea. He said, “If you can figure out why any plant dies then you have answered the million dollar question.”

I guess it makes me feel a little bit better that even someone with a formal education in gardening/botany can be as mystified as I am. But, it’s also a little bit frustrating. How are we supposed to keep our plants alive if even experts aren’t sure how to do that?

I’ve lost several plants this summer. Heat? Gophers? Disease? Too much water? I just don’t know. The casualties (so far, the summer ain’t over…) as of today: two penstemons, three monkeyflowers, a desert willow, a black sage, a ceonothus (that I moved after it sprouted from a seed dropped from another plant), two other ceonothus that I bought, a Jeffery pine, a couple of dudleyas, and a manzanita.

The weather is supposed to be cooling off. Today the high temperature was supposed to be 95. It’s currently 102 degrees in my yard as I write this. That’s hardly cooling off! Then again, we live in the Inland Empire, a region of heat, wind, blue skies and sunshine. And, I just read on my favorite weather blog, Weather West, this has been the hottest summer ever on record. It shouldn’t surprise me, I guess, that the summer just refuses to go away.