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S easons change. Because of extreme heat and drought, leaves started dropping too early this year. Of all my flowering plants, only lantana seems to have perked up and bloomed after the scant rain we finally received. My lilac bushes managed three puny blossoms. Even zinnias look dead, and my big honeysuckle vine’s pitiful. Obedient plants have thinned to almost nothing. Four o’clocks, morning glories, cannas, liatris, altheas, and other things are stunted or barely alive. We lost most of our St. Augustine grass, roses, and annuals. Even the black bamboo looks dead. All my exhausting watering wasn’t enough. What the heat and drought didn’t get, the caterpillars, deer, and grasshoppers ate. Then there was the scorching heat of the wildfire behind our house that came into the back yard. Pretty sure it took a mountain laurel and several fruit trees. I hope at least some of these things we tended so carefully for so many years will come back next spring.