Topped out today at 19ðC after a 9ðC start at dawn, plenty of rain recently . . . perfect for growing Abies ;-)

Resin

Dave, I must admit, I'm glad I don't live there. Folks here are not acclimated to the heat and even less so to the humidity. We start complaining about 85 how hot it is. We've had two days so far this year above 80, most days 65-75. Amazing the differences(and that most of the plants can tolerate either).

How do you water Dave?

"How do you water Dave"?

By hand and sprinkler.

Now that my landscape plan is complete next year I plan to install a under ground sprinkler system.

Dave

It is like that for months here (our avge. high for june was 98.6F) and Abies firma does fine. It should grow for you too.

I'm finding it very difficult to keep my head in the gardening game right now. After spending the last three years remodeling and re-planting all my gardens we now are locked into the hottest and driest summer since the dust bowl.....5 inches behind on rain for the year so far.....not going below the 90's since the first of May....and now 21days above 100 with three records broken. So so many trees fighting to survive a losing battle. And it's only the first of July. I can't count the casualties anymore. I'm thankful for those a little more north.

Mark

We're going to prove that theory wrong next year Dave *Abies koreana grafted to Abies koreana. If that doesn't do it, it'll be Abies koreana grafted to Abies firma.

My ground has turned to concrete but a 5-minute pouring rain went thru an hour ago and just as I'm typing the winds have picked up and the sky has turned dark and I'm hearing thunder.

Good luck Mark. You'll find that some gardens are wonderful conifer gardens -- even with a single species.

I think it's going to become wild here folks.

Dax

I feel for you Dave. We too have been in a heatwave that is just awful. Heat index to be 102 today and no let up in site. My garden is starting to burn up, have even decided I need to add a deciduous tree where I hadn't planned one just to protect in the future some of my Hostas. Think I have it narrowed down to two if I can find either local in a couple months so I can get a decent size one. Well not too big since I have to plant it but don't want a little stick either. LOL I just plan my day around watering right now.
Cher

I think even if you're not a person that agrees with the global warming theories, anyone that gardens a lot would have to agree the weather patterns this last couple of years are truly alarming and different than they have been. Even the sun patterns have changed slightly....I'll explain.

I've lived in the same house now for almost 15 years. It's only a one story but its one of those with the high pitched roofs. Down one side of my yard it is only 8' wide between the house and the property line and we have an 8' wood fence. This makes that side of the house prety much a tunnel. Our house faces pretty much to the west so until the late afternoon that area used to not get hardly any sun....so little in fact it didn't grow bermuda grass very well so we had decided to put in stepping stones during this remodel and replace the grass with a ground cover between the stones. The sun used to always rise over the southeast corner of my yard and settle over the center to northwest corner of my yard...in other words it's summer pattern was always a little to the south half of my yard. I only watched this in this much detail because over the years I have always tried to work several little micro-climate areas around my yard based upon the shade patterns.

We've also grown a large number of hosta all the way down along the foundation of that north side of the house because it got almost no sun up against that last 3-4' against the house. But what I'm now seeing this last year or two is more and more sun cresting earlier over that roofline side of the house. The hosta is burning worse each year and now the bermuda is invading that area pretty successfully.

I'm trying very hard not to get into a "sky is falling" type mode, but I do hope these extreme weather pattern shifts level out sometime soon. After 18 months of monsoon record rain fall that flooded several creeks and rivers in this area that had no record of ever flooding before followed by the last 18 months of record drought and unbelievable heat, is making it pretty tough on us poor gardeners.

I know.....rock gardening could be cool !! ha ha

mark

"It is like that for months here (our avge. high for june was 98.6F) and Abies firma does fine. It should grow for you too"

Abies firma wouldn't be able to take Dave's zone 5 winters. But some of the other Asian Abies, like A. holophylla, A. recurvata and A. chensiensis, would be worth a try.

Resin

I've been growing Abies firma just fine for 3 winters now. A little burn but nothing of significance. It is micro-climated but near no buildings -- just a deciduous setting of trees approximately 40 feet wide protect it in a low valley from due north winds. It is growing slow at 6" a year, and the fact that I started with a 2.5' seedling (bareroot) I believe is a key-helper.

Dax

So far garden enduring well in spite of temps. Rain this morning helped.

Dave
{{gwi:775189}}

Thats just not right...we're roughly 20 degrees less than you and I feel like its just nasty out there.

First QUICK rainfall early this morning of .5" was the first in 3 weeks.

My Orangeola Japanese maple is quite crispy... I'm just hoping it will come back next spring and am watering in the meantime. All my newly transplanted conifers look fine, but of course they take much longer to show stress and often stay green for a while even after they are quite dead, so who knows. I think the long, wet spring helped my plants settle in and am now hoping the long slog of summer can be endured.

@Texjagman: your post is an interesting one. While it may be possible to debate the causes of global warming, I don't think anyone who knows anything would dare debate whether it's happening; it is. The facts clearly show this. I used to be zone 5, now I'm zone 6. The air is hotter, and hot air holds more moisture, which means more drought (where the water is sucked up into the air) and more rainfall (where it finally comes down). I think we can see that pattern playing out across the country and I do not expect it to stop anytime soon.

Are 100 year floods included in global warming?

@whaas: yes, an increase in both floods and drought. Of course, it is not possible to say whether any one particular weather event is the result of a specific pattern of climate change, but in general, yes, hotter air would lead to both more flood and more drought.

For us in the Pacific Northwest(and I presume much of California as well), the main effect of increased ocean and atmospheric temperature(ie. climate change) is more clouds/drizzle. The oceans play the majority factor in our weather here and if the water is slightly warmer off the coast, we get slightly more precipitation in the clouds and more cloudy days. In Spring I suppose this means even more drizzly, cool days and then in Summer our mediterranean-like climate(warm and dry) will have more clouds.

As far as temperatures, if anything, it's possible our averages here will go DOWN because of the lack of sunshine. Many plants that bloom in May the Midwest still aren't in bloom in my garden today(middle of July).

We've had daily highs between 60 and 80 for the last two weeks and the highest in ten months has been 83.

I suspect many plants will appreciate the cooler weather though, particularly conifers, though they may have less color then plants in areas with more full-sun days.

What we'd all better hope is that climate change happens slowly and doesn't accelerate our else we're all looking at serious trouble in the upcoming ten to twenty years.

A friend of mine does some gardening shows for Oklahoma's public TV and she called me yesterday by coincidence to ask a favor. She needed a fill episode and wanted to come shoot a show in my gardens about year round color and the part conifers play.

I simply said "ARE YOU CRAZY" ? I'm in total survival mode. I have shade cloth hanging everywhere. Thx but come see me in the spring and we'll see what's left. lol

mark

Tex, 'Year round color' does include brown. Lame I know but she could record the reality. Your anguish is apparent and understandable. I remember after 6 weeks of dry here I was driving my rig along the motorway (freeway) and looking at a dark cloud ahead screaming for the first few fat drops. Mile after mile the windshield was still dry and bug crusted. It did eventually rain off and on in the days after but I knew I would have started losing a screw if it hadn't. Your garden in any state at all will be one of the best on here knowing what you had to do to get stuff through.

Wow, that *is* hot!

We seem to be missing the heatwave here in CO.

I don't know about climate change but weather is always different every year in Texas. Sure, Texas has seen its driest 9 months since 1910s or whatever. 1950s drought is still worse as far as longevity goes. Some years, it's great. Some years, it's terrible. This past year, it has much more to do with a strong La Nina that changed the climate pattern for Texas as it has done in 2005 and 2008 but not that widespread drought all over Texas this past year. Fortunately, 2005 and 2008 exceptional droughts were ended by a lot of rainfall the following years (El Nino). There are signs that El Nino may come this fall. Nothing definitive yet but last thing I want is another La Nina during the winter which often produced much less rainfall for parts of Texas if not whole Texas.