RIP

Markers from roses long gone

I have always thought that I was a fairly good gardener:  flowers and shrubs my specialty.  But I was just outside pruning overgrown plants and found way too many corpses of plants past.  

In my defense, I broke my ankle early last fall and then broke my wrist early this spring. No gardening for me. In the previous years, I really did try to keep things going, but we had multiple years of drought and then last summer, I swear that ALL it did was rain.  

Also, we drastically changed the conditions in the backyard when we had six 30-40-foot Leyland Cypress removed a few years ago. We had NO sun in the backyard before we took them down and they were dying from the bottom up so they were no loss in any way.

Man climbs tree.  Man cuts tree.

This morning while I was pruning the lilac bush, which, unlike nearly everything else, has done really well here, I found TWO rose bushes tucked under it.  I won’t move them until the fall, but for now, I spread some fertilizer and systemic insecticide on them, watered them in, and I’ll keep track of them. Getting some sun should help too, now that the lilac is not blocking their sun.

It's Alive!!!  Really, it is.

It's dead.  Really, really dead.

AND, here are the other failures:

• Japanese Iris:  a few spindly leaves, no flowers
• Gardenia:  one and one-half flowers
• Purple Coneflowers:  nothing, not even leaves.  I was once told by a gardening expert (Hi Sue!) that anyone who can’t grow coneflowers will have her trowel confiscated.  I’m waiting for the authorities to show up.
• Hydrangeas:  no flowers
• Daylilies:  a few have returned, but most are missing.  

RIP indeed.

I did think we had one success in the yard, this pretty box turtle in our pond.

He had been in the pond for a couple of weeks and we thought that he liked---no, LOVED---being there. But Alas and Alack!!! We contacted a friend who is a retired UGA professor and nature expert, and also called an animal rehab staff member at the Chattahoochee Nature Center and both said that box turtles live on land, not in water. So either someone put him in there, thinking that’s where he should be, or he got in and couldn’t get out. The rehab worker at the Nature Center said to take him out and put him in some nearby shrubs for cover.  Ideally, he should go to within one-half mile of where he hatched, but since we have no idea where that might be, just out of the pond will have to do.

Bon Voyage, Turtle!  We scarcely knew yeeee. 

The rest of you plants, shape up or else.

Or else what???  

Lawn??? I hope not.  I'm not good at lawn either.

Gardens in a Time of Drought

(with apologies to Gabriel García Márquez )

I live in a suburb outside of Atlanta, Georgia. We have been in a drought for several years, but last year and this have been the worst of it so far. Last summer we weren't allowed to water outside at ALL, except with water saved from the showers indoors---water that runs while we wait for hot water. There was even controversy over that because some people thought that using that water in the yard kept it from going back into the water supply via the sewer system. But that's all the water we had for outside use.

This summer, even though the drought has not eased, we are allowed to water three times a week, for twenty-five minutes each time, using a hand-held, automatic shut-off nozzle attached to a hose. Woo hoo! We can do this until ten in the morning.

If we want to install a pool, we may fill the pool. If we have a pool, we may top it off throughout the summer. If we have landscaping professionally installed, we may water it for a month. This allows pool and landscaping businesses to survive. But if we have---and I do---nearly 20 year-old landscaping---tough. I understand this, I really do. I've been to Lake Lanier and seen how terribly low it is. It is just so frustrating to watch plants wither and die. Last year nothing died, but this year things are on their way out. My azaleas didn't bloom this year and are now wilted. Daylilies, which are tough plants and survive neglected along roadsides, did not bloom. My roses are just hanging in, but not flowering. Very large leyland cypresses that give us complete privacy in the back yard are now diseased and will probably fall over in the next ice storm. I think the drought has stressed them beyond the point where they could have remained healthy longer. Meanwhile, in other parts of the country, there are floods! We watch the news and cringe to see floods ruining homes and destroying crops.

Last summer we learned that Atlanta is the only major city in the country to have only one source of water: Lake Lanier. Other cities have multiple sources and thus, have resources to allow them to deal with droughts. Not here. And our always-unhelpful governor, Sonny Perdue, can only think to hold prayer sessions on the steps of the capitol.

Gotta love the "Bible Belt"!