Monday, August 30, 2010

Drought stress

A LOT of trees are turning colour and it's only the third week of August - YIKES! It has been hotter and drier than I can remember for a long, long time. I went away for the last two and a half weeks, and was afraid to look and see how my pots had fared while I was gone. I watered them and placed them in the woodland garden before I left. YAY! Only one casualty... I can live with that. Any other tips for managing plants in dry times?

4 comments:

  1. August sure was special... more like one expects in July! Although the ornamentals were getting pretty droopy, the vegetable garden was well advanced and have come through well. For tips I have little original... but swear by mulching. I used to put a good few inches of compost everywhere and that really held the moisture well. That was until the earwig invasion of the last few years... now I hesitate: a choice between giving protection to hordes of devourering monsters or face droopy plants... any thoughts on that dilemma?

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  2. Ahh.. life's choices. I always go with mulch - yes the earwigs will hide in it, but the benefits far outweigh the inevitable grossness of earwigs. If you don't live in HRM, you could always get a couple of little Bantam hens to pick out the earwigs and eat them.... That's what they do at the Waynes' Daylily Nursery!

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  3. My neighbour keeps little quail in his greenhouse. They have cleared up a lot of pest problems and don't do any damage at all to his plants.

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  4. I have the opposite problem in the spring. At the back of my yard, the runoff from the farm nextdoor seeps into the ground and often makes a pool on top of the grass. Are cedars the best solution to soak up the extra water? If not, what types of bushes would be useful. I want something that I can keep under 4 feet tall.

    D A Hansen in Embrun

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