Wind, heat aren’t a rosy combination for your flowers

Today’s question: I’ve noticed during hot weather the wind seems to pick up every afternoon. I know this because I have a patio umbrella to shade my roses, but most afternoons it gets knocked over by the wind. My roses are burning up. Is the wind more active with the hot afternoons?

I’m sorry about your roses. It’s hard enough to grow them as it is, but the heat just seems to suck the life out of everything.

As a rule, it is almost always a bit windier — or at least breezier — in the afternoon than in the morning. Last week’s extreme heat just made it seem more so.

You have to bear in mind that the sun’s rays don’t heat the air. They heat the earth’s surface and the roof of your car and the deck around your pool. And those surfaces give off the heat that heats the air.

This means the atmosphere gets heated from the bottom up, more so as the day wears on.

So in the morning the lower level of the atmosphere is a bit cooler than the air above it — an inversion. And that keeps the winds that are blowing aloft aloft.

As the air heats up and rises that barrier of denser, cooler air breaks down and the upper atmosphere gets a little — or a lot — unsettled and those winds aloft get pulled down to your patio, knocking over the umbrella and letting the sun burn your roses.

In Arizona, hardly anybody signals turns or lane changes, including squad cars. I know Arizona is anti-everything but why turn signals?

I don’t know.