You Can Take my Drought and ...

Cindy, of From My Corner of Katy, handed out these cute little tags at Buffa10; each one had a little saying and I grabbed the one that most applied to my situation. Little did I know at the time that the rain situation would get worse in my area (although thankfully, last weekend we had a good rain). Here's what the situation looks like by the folks who monitor droughts in the U.S.:

I live in the middle of that red - and it's labeled "extreme" drought. The only other state in the U.S. that is experiencing that level of drought right now is Hawaii. So maybe indeed, that has something to do with the next photo. Warning, it's not a pretty picture.

Dead Madame Alfred Carriere climbing rose

This has really been a complete surprise to me. All during our dry spring and summer I've made sure this bed gets a good soaking, at least once a week. As you can see, other plants in the bed have survived, including my clematis, which is climbing up the trunk of the rose. I'm so sad about it. It was such a steady bloomer, being the first to bloom in the spring and continuing to bloom intermittently through summer and fall. This type of rose was the first one that Vita Sackville-West planted in her famous garden in Sissinghurst. The plant you see here is smaller than it normally was because I cut back so many dying branches just before I left for my Buffalo trip. Now I've got another big clean-up task but I'm hoping when I dig it up, it will reveal any secrets of its death. Do you know how embarrassing it is for a garden coach to have a big ol' dead thing in her front yard? ;-)

'Appalachian Spring' dogwood

This dogwood was planted just this spring. It's a baby and looks a little stressed out, most likely due to high temperatures and lack of rain. I've been hand watering it but it's probably not enough. I will be getting out my books to determine if these blotches are signs of drought stress (or, god forbid, something worse). But enough of my sad tales, there's one bright thing in my garden this July.

The Susans are here!

My black-eyed Susans ('Goldsturm' variety) have made their faithful July appearance, along with some purple coneflowers. The coneflowers are in front of two blobs of green, for now. Those two blobs are pineapple sage, Salvia elegans. Too bad they're not blooming at the same time as the Susans! But they'll be in bloom this fall, so I have something to look forward to. And don't ask me why the grass looks so green when we're in such a drought. I'm sure it's because that part is on a sprinkler system and the grass blades are very long!

'Red Cascade' mini climbing rose, pink muhly grass, Agave filifera,Wavy Leaf cactus, Susans and assorted other blooms

At least I made the right choices when it comes to this area. I'll attribute that to my central Texas roots, where you can't be too frivolous with water. This area only has access to a soaker hose and seems to be doing fine. Whew!

This post was written by Jean McWeeney for my blog Dig, Grow, Compost, Blog. Copyright 2010. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.