Eros and Thanatos among the Pawpaws in July

This July, out on the front porch and in the yard, we've got eros (the drive to life) going up against thanatos (the drive to death). It's all condensed into this image: the first flower stalk ever to show up among our hens-and-chicks, trying to out-scream a coyote skull (which W picked up in the San Rafael Swell) that bears its teeth among the adjacent pot full of hens-and-chicks.

Like I say, it's all condensed in the image of the flower and the coyote skull, so if you've found that condensations are sufficient for you, you can stop reading now.

Last July we had some leaf problems on our pawpaw trees, and this July the leaf problem have returned, though not in such force (yet) as last year. Last year the leaf problems didn't seem to do much damage: the Wells (which had the worst case of this mode of thanatos) is following eros in producing a lot more fruit this year, so no real ill effects that I can see from one year to the next. And no ill effects in terms of fruit production, which is the thing (sorry to be so mercenary) that I care most about with the pawpaws.

Look at this big cluster of Shenandoah pawpaws in the foreground (eros): but wait, the one that is at the top of the cluster isn't attached--it's a windfall (thanatos) higher up on the tree. It didn't quite make it to the ground but instead found a temporary home among the still-living. It's a "pawpaw ghost," cousin of the more famous "cherry ghost."  

In the winter I bought some citrus plants (Meyer lemon, Persian lime, Flame grapefruit, and Moro blood orange) and kept them on the window sill in my office. But I wanted them to get some sun over the summer so I brought them home and have kept them on the porch. Rather than them getting sun, the sun got to them: it caused almost all of them to lose up to half or most of their leaves (thanatos). But the Persian lime, in spite of losing half of its leaves, has gone ahead and blossomed (eros). The blossoms don't smell as good on the front porch as they did in my office. There's no mysticism here: it's just a question of dispersion and concentration of the scent, which is divine (wait, I guess there is some mysticism here).

Among the seedlings (seeds harvested in 2015 and germinated in 2016), several are thriving (eros) while the one in the foreground spontaneously dropped all its leaves (thanatos). Who knows why? And who knows how close its peers (or any of us) are to spontaneously following it?

The most advanced of the germinating seeds of this year has risen from the ground with its head stuck in the seed casing. This morning I was concerned that it might need help so I tried taking the casing off the plant to reveal it's waiting leaves. But instead, once I removed the casing, all that was left was some white flaky gunk. I might win some (eros) but I really lost one (thanatos). 

The Shenandoah had a phenomenal setting of fruit this spring (plug in the life-oriented word here), but it's been losing a lot of those fruits (plug in the death-oriented word here): there are 21 windfalls on the porch and 6 others that I threw away before I became dedicated to saving the windfalls. This year I've only been giving extra water (beyond the sprinklers) to the 2nd-years (the Mango and the Susquehanna), and now I wonder what would have happened if the Shenandoah (in its fifth year) had had some extra water...could it have held on to these lost ones?