teosinte may be totemic for me

i was warm, sunny, and breezy ( first photo ) and so after work, Jean and i ( she was on the phone ) went out to the community garden to check on the teosinte i planted in my bed saturday...one was standing up and easy to find ( second ) the other ( third ) was in some distress ( the fourth photo is a better contrast after i watered it )...i watered the larger one too ( fifth )...since i will not be out there daily and since these plants have, at the moment, very shallow root systems i decided to do a temporary rock mulch with stones from the alley that runs behind the garden ( sixth )...i washed the stones off with water ( seventh ) and placed them around the plants to retard evaporation ( eighth and ninth )...i will be redoing the mulch with more uniform stone by the weekend...this will do for now...when i got home i took a look in the back yard at what was up there...the northern tepehuan is greening however the zea mays parvaglumis is leafing ( tenth through thirteenth )...i have replacements ready if there is a failure...but the failure has to be soon or the replacements will have been planted...they won't last in a baggie forever...there will be more...if you're here you can't avoid it.