Another Manzanita

Another Manzanita.
One California native Wild Strawberry.
Two plump juicy Hummingbird Sages,
The flowers so pink the hummers twerrred over
Within moments of me placing the pots in the garden.

All dead.
I leave their corpses.
The first Sage was in too sunny a place and I watered so much that mushrooms grew out of the heart of the plant.
The other Sage declined to death for undisclosed reasons.
I gave the Manzanita its preferred summer dryness and it withered and browned.
Did water sneak over from the Buckwheat, my own failure to plane the ground?
The Strawberry simply incinerated in the blazing backyard sun.
I gave it a shade.
It didn't matter.

It's always too easy to focus on what has died.
The Toyonberry bush, the one that will draw the special brown bird, is doing fine.
The Milkweed went crazy this year, but no Monarchs came,
No eggs hatched into yellow and white and black-striped caterpillars.
Why?
The feast of leaves sits uneaten.
But back to my successes.

An insect gobbled up the Yerba Mansa!
Is he a desirable fellow?
I don't know.
At least I fed somebody, and the plant is hanging on.
Both Sticky Monkeys are looking good.
The Ceanothus lived because I ignored the garden lady's die warning, and let it drink in moderation.
The Fragrant Pitcher Sage is exploding with life outside my office window.

The Datura has a crinkly leaf problem which is caused by both too much water and not enough.
The Datura in the alley twenty feet beyond the garden is lush and perfect, and it hasn't rained all year.
These plants are perverse.
Sometimes I think I should listen to them, and other times I think that's silly;
They can't tell me they need a soil amendment.