I gave up gardening!

  September 2002

Somewhere in the middle of August I gave up gardening! This was such a shock to my friends that one of them e-mailed me to find out if I was ill! It was really the drought. We had at least six weeks with no rain and as our water comes from our own well and supplies all our needs watering lavishly was not something I could risk.

  The soil was so hard I could not get a trowel into it and the sun was so hot even in my shaded garden I felt at risk . Above all, the plants were dying which is heartbreaking for the helpless gardener. So it seemed sensible just to stop until there was a change. Eventually the rains came and shortly after I was back in the garden assessing the damage.

We are told that droughts like this may happen more and more frequently as the global warming increases in which case we should be preparing our gardens so that they can survive long periods without rain if necessary.

With this in view I have been studying my plants to see which could handle the dry conditions and where changes should be made.

Perhaps the lawns were the first to show stress, turning brown and drying up though we were repeatedly assured that they were only going dormant and would return to a normal green after a good rainfall. Unfortunately weeds in a lawn are more drought resistant than the grass and were able to grow strongly throughout the dry weather . I think that there will have to be a great deal of weeding to get some of the lawns back in condition. Fortunately, I do not have a grass lawn. All my lawn areas are covered with a low growing thyme which reveled in the heat and drought. I strongly recommend this plant for areas which are sunny and dry. If a low creeping thyme is grown there is no mowing either.

I only grow a few annuals, mostly impatiens and they suffered badly from lack of water. It is difficult to find annuals which will grow in shade but the begonias did well with very little water perhaps because they are all in containers.

The perennial plants are my main concern and I may not know until next year how much damage has been done. Plants which were most stressed were the astilbes and the perennial phlox. Most of the astilbes I had moved to areas which were usually naturally damp, ones that hadn't been moved suffered severely and if they do come back nest year they will be the first to find a new home. The phlox wilted every day and looked terrible, but, now after the rain they are flowering, a little shorter in the stem, but quite profusely. I shall not give the pink varieties such a prominent place in the garden in the future; the white ones have done very well and are a lovely cool accent in the late summer garden . Balloon flowers ( Platycodon ) did not seem to be affected and are flowering steadily.

As my garden is very shaded I rely on foliage to give interest in the summer and to my surprise both the hostas and the maidenhair fern did fairly well without water. The Ostrich fern did not; many of the fronds turned brown and dried up. One of my favorite plants the Japanese silver fern had to be spot watered to save it from drying out and the same with the Harts tongue, both these ferns do need damp conditions and need to be placed near a source of water. All plants which are so happy in their environment that they self seed survived the drought very well. These will vary from garden to garden and it is a good idea to check your own garden for plants which do not show signs of stress. In my case it was aquilegia species, the rusty foxglove and all the ground covers with the exception of one area of ajuga that dried out.

It is probable that all our bulbs will have benefited from the heat as they will have matured and gone dormant and not suffered from lack of moisture. However now is the time to replenish the bulbs in your garden; the catalogues are out with lovely ideas and tempting pictures.

My needs this year are simple: more and more scillas to make a carpet of blue in the spring which will be followed by hostas. Every year I look with envy at Crocuses with their bright showing in local gardens and I always thought that the squirrels would take them. This year I am going to try and hope I can outwit the squirrels. Also, as I am remaking my front bed this fall I am going to add a clump of the lovely double pink tulip 'Angelique'. Now is the time to plan the new bulbs you want to buy. Your bulbs should be planted before the really cold weather starts to ensure a burst of flowers again next spring!

  Rachel McLeod has many years of experience in gardening... particularly with herbs. She occasionally lectures on herbs and plants for natural gardens.
She can be reached at 905-659-1001

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