Here We Go Again

Well, here we go again. At our house in Ridgeland we have not had a rain in 5 weeks including this week. I know that rain amounts vary throughout the area but as far as our house and Garden Works July 25th was our last spit. In the beginning of the summer it seemed as if we were going to squeak through with at least enough rain. Now it’s beginning to look a lot like last summer. We had received less than 1/2 inch before it just stopped, normal to this month is around three and a half inches. Some people might remember 2008 when we got close to 12 inches in August, we had begun building our ark. We are still way up for the year, around 50 inches, 39 inches is normal. That doesn’t really help much, the ground is dry and I’m starting to feel bad for the Magnolias that survived last summer. I still see magnolias around town that have yet to be removed from last summer. If we don’t start watering pretty soon there will be devastation.

Mimi and I pledged not to let that happen again if we could help it. Our solution is to have more coverage from our irrigation system by adding zones. It wouldn’t take many more summers like this to pay for the extra we spent on getting more of our yard wet. It is very expensive to replace all the plants we lost not to mention all the trees that had to be taken down professionally that we couldn’t handle. The Pine Beetle thing is directly connected to the drought so if rains don’t wind up in our forecast pretty soon we will have more bad news. Having all those pine trees removed all over the state was devastating to homeowners and pine tree farms. The tree guys that I know were about ready to cry “Uncle”! Business was good, and still is, but they were worked to death. Some people got their trees removed right away and some people are still getting theirs done so it hasn’t slowed down much. When the ground gets dry down deep where pine tree roots go the tree doesn’t have that upward pressure that water creates in the tree. Without that outward pressure the menacing beetles can more easily bore into the layers of wood, feeding their way through until it kills the tree. Part of the reason we have to get around to removing the dead trees is that the dead wood harbors the larvae which, given an opportunity, will continue the cycle.

The other good reason to have the dead trees removed is that when pine trees die they begin to crumble and fall, possibly on you or something even more important. I think it’s time for us to go into “get er done” mode. It was about this late in the drought last summer that I came out of denial that it just wasn’t going to rain. It was too late for some of my plants that were just too inconvenient for me to keep watered for months, it felt futile. After the money it cost us to replace the plants we cared enough about we have decided that none of plants will be labeled as too inconvenient this year. I will rely on our great, composted soil and some of the slow release fertilizers that were applied back in the spring to keep the plants fed but they will be counting on us for some H2O. It’s times like this that we breath a sigh of relief that we are sticklers about our soil being the biggest part of our gardening budget. I preach soil every chance I get, you can’t spend enough time and energy making your soil healthy. Once your soil has reached a deep stage of healthiness many of our anxieties about weather related events become less. With soil that is alive and well comes healthy roots, with healthy roots come plants that can take what’s going on above ground. I believe that the search for the plants that will go into your project shouldn’t happen until the search for the right components of your soil is in place. To get serious about improving your soil, or at least starting the long process, you will likely need some bulk soil mix delivered to your place either by you or from the local garden center. Bulk choices have gotten much better lately.

Most garden centers have soil mix that is ready to go or components to mix in with your existing soil to give our clay soil some porosity and to allow the soil to breath. We now sell a mix that is ready to go. I tested the soil out by planting several types of plants all with different alkalinity needs. All the plants did great meaning the soil is just right with a PH around 6.5. I also had a 40 yard truck load delivered to my house and used it for the base of our new landscape, 4 months into it and the young plants look great. We are proud to offer a great soil in bulk, it’s called Dans Dirt by the Mississippi creators of this soil mix, I think several local garden centers around town offer Dans Dirt, it’s good stuff. Making the soil good is one thing, keeping the soil good is a continuous process. Keeping the soil alive and healthy is to keep adding compost every chance you get and by trying to maintain a consistent level of moisture that is just right.

The plants that are chosen for the project will have the insurance they will need to give it their best. I tend to lean towards the plants that seem to be the strongest survivors of these dry summers and I am always seeking native plants when they are appropriate for the design because I know that they are more conducive to our soils and our climate in Mississippi.

In the meantime it’s time to get those hoses out and set your timers and get those sprinklers moving. If you have an irrigation system make sure your zones are running for an appropriate amount of time. It’s easy to forget about those plants that the system isn’t hitting until they turn  golden brown then they sing to you every day until you remove it. The best way to get through a dry run is to focus on watering long and deep. Spraying a plants mulch on top of the ground or its foliage is not going to do any good. The water has to go deep down to the roots to keep a plant alive. Slowly running water left to soak the ground around the plants roots is the water that gets a plant through this. This dry spell will be over before we know it, I plan to keep everything in my yard alive as best I can. I’m the weirdo still watering after dark sometimes because it takes a lot of time to get the ground soaked. It’s probably better to do these things earlier in the day but that’s not when I have time to do the job properly so I do what I gotta do.

I wish every body good luck as we enter the two notoriously most dry months of the year. Let’s hope those pine beetles find somewhere else to hang out and lets make sure we kept the number of the tree guy that worked for you last time and that we were nice to them at paying time just in case.