{"id":421,"date":"2012-07-16T06:16:39","date_gmt":"2012-07-16T14:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=421"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:33","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:33","slug":"heat-wave-gardening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/heat-wave-gardening\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat Wave Gardening"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is only one word for my lower back garden these days\u2014depressing.\u00a0 The infernal heat, with or without humidity, has made the hydrangeas, ferns and hostas look as if they are in the last stages of consumption.\u00a0 Even the stalwart hellebores are flat out\u2014literally.\u00a0 Daily watering does little to stave off the desiccating effects of the hot weather.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And then there are the activities of the wild kingdom that exists in the neighborhood.\u00a0 Mr. Antlers\u2014now with an even bigger rack\u2014and his two-deer posse made a pass through the yard several weeks ago and nipped off hosta leaves and lily buds, leaving nothing but bare stalks.\u00a0 The deer haven\u2019t been back, but raccoons dug up and toppled a couple of container arrangements that I positioned in the back garden to add color.\u00a0 I have sprayed everything with foul-smelling repellant to discourage the varmints, but now I need to make the lower back look like something other than a plant graveyard.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gardening in a heat wave is fearsome work.\u00a0 You have to toil early in the morning or late at night and even then, the idea of digging in the dirt is less inspiring than it was back in May.\u00a0 Still, heat wave gardening is what separates the dedicated gardeners from those who hang up their trowels in despair.\u00a0 True plant lovers find ways of coping with nature\u2019s vicissitudes.\u00a0 We always have.\u00a0 Back in ancient Rome, Pliny the Elder may have had indoor plumbing, but he had to get along without the comfort of air conditioning.\u00a0 Gertrude Jekyll, in Edwardian England, did her best work in heavy skirts and boots\u2014even on the occasional torrid day.\u00a0 If they could do it, we can too.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I gave myself that inspiring pep talk as I headed out into the garden last week.\u00a0 The humidity was at wet blanket level, but the ground was parched and in need of about two days of good soaking rain.\u00a0 Continued wet blanket humidity and brain curdling temperatures were in the forecast; soaking rain was not.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To get a handle on the issue, I started by cutting off anything that was dead or expiring.\u00a0 I watered all the thirsty survivors and then assessed the problem.\u00a0 It was obvious that I needed several things: more soaker hoses, more ordinary garden hose, more mulch and more plants to fill in the bare spots.\u00a0 I wrote everything down on a list and gave thanks for summer sales at the various garden and big box emporiums.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nothing rescues a languishing landscape like color, so when I went to the garden center to pick up the mulch, I also bought discounted annuals and perennials\u2014coleus, candy-striped New Guinea impatiens, and a purple heuchera.\u00a0 On the way back from the garden center, I stopped at the grocery store and saw a large-flowered pink and white hydrangea.\u00a0 It was one of the new \u201cFlavors\u201d series from California\u2019s Hanna Bay Nursery.\u00a0 I will put it in a big pot in the lower back garden and see how it goes.\u00a0 I am tempted to rig up a little shade for its huge flower head, but that really violates my rule not to fuss with plants more than necessary.\u00a0 I also want to protect my impulse investment.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The lower back garden is especially problematic because it used to be much darker than it is now.\u00a0 The area is shaded by an enormous maple tree that lost several major limbs in last October\u2019s freak snowstorm.\u00a0 The loss of that shade, combined with high heat has made life tenuous for the young hydrangeas that I hoped would eventually form a colorful mass in that part of the landscape.\u00a0 Within the next few years, the tree may well come down all together, which will make the area even sunnier.\u00a0 In the early fall, when summer\u2019s torrid heat has waned, I will transplant the hydrangeas to a shadier spot and select sun-loving shrubs to put in their place.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the meantime, I will put in my new annuals and perennial heuchera in the shadiest portion of the back and revel in their colors.\u00a0 The heuchera can always be transplanted later.\u00a0 I will plant the increasingly sunny front part of the same plot with the coneflowers that I got as freebies from one of the big wholesale nurseries.\u00a0 I can transplant some daylily divisions there as well.\u00a0 I\u2019ll lay down a soaker hose and mulch the whole thing with a mixture of my own pine straw\u2014actually hemlock needles from the neighbors\u2019 tree\u2014and store-bought cedar mulch.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For years I kept to a strict \u201cno irrigation\u201d policy, in the knowledge that well grown, well mulched plants that are suited to their sites rarely need supplemental moisture.\u00a0 However, this summer conditions are extreme and the sun\/shade situation is in flux in parts of the garden.\u00a0 Not all the plants need irrigation, but some of them, like the water-loving hydrangeas, certainly do.\u00a0 My garden yields all kinds of intangible rewards, but it also represents a substantial investment.\u00a0 A little hydration now will spare me a big plant replacement bill later.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is only one word for my lower back garden these days\u2014depressing.\u00a0 The infernal heat, with or without humidity, has made the hydrangeas, ferns and hostas look as if they are in the last stages of consumption.\u00a0 Even the stalwart hellebores are flat out\u2014literally.\u00a0 Daily watering does little to stave off the desiccating effects of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[55,57,56,59,58,60],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-summer","tag-heat-wave","tag-hot-weather-gardening","tag-irrigation","tag-summer-garden-chores","tag-summer-gardening","tag-watering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}