I live in the country and have a well, no water restrictions unless the fracking, that sounds like it will become a reality about a mile or so down the road from me in the not too distant future, messes with all our wells. Rant over.

I've been hauling water to plants that look stressed, overall most are doing fair. However, this year I'm confused about how much to water my three containers. The soil appears dry when I stick my fingers down in, but then after watering the next day I see yellow leaves - lack of water? too much water?

Clouds darkened this afternoon and we got a scant rainfall and then it moved on. Thunderstorm predicted for tomorrow, we shall see.

schoolhouse, sorry to here that might happen so close to you. It is happening here in Wisconsin too. I believe there are something like 16 frac-sand mines already in Wisconsin.

Could the soil be compacted in your pots? I have had soil get hard and then the water just runs down the inside sides of the pot and out the bottom. The center never even gets wet. Check the soil shortly after you water to see if that might be happening.

What makes it doubly hard this week is that a friend is on vacation and I am watering her garden/flowers as well as my own. I just got back from turning the water off at her house. Mine is still going.

I live in southeastern WI. No watering bans in my city yet, but a lot of the neighboring communities have enacted watering bans so I'm guessing it's just a matter of time before we see them too. We do have a burn ban going on... makes sense with the severe drought. The community fireworks on the 4th set some trees on fire, ending the show pretty quickly.

I have been focusing my watering efforts on keeping my perennials and young trees alive, so my lawn has turned crispy, crunchy brown. Maybe this drought will finally kill off some of the weeds in my lawn;)

Almost all of AL is in severe drought. This began about 5 yrs ago when I first decided to get into gardening...sigh. At present we have had enough small showers to keep things going. Over the past 2 yrs I switched to almost all drought resistant perennials.

We are not on a watering ban at present. I see huge storms moving across northern AL on the radar so I know that we are getting rain.

As to the fracking. North AL is being proposed as a location for this. I have already signed petitions to try and stop it. I saw a LOT of this in Canada. CalFrac is a huge sponsor of many activities there. It has provided jobs which is all anyone seems to care about. It is rampant there. The oil presence in Alberta and Saskatchewan is HUGE. I lament every hole they dig and the disruption they are causing in the name of greed. The Colorado River will never be the same in the US if this continues.

rant over...I guess....c

Schoolhouse,

We've always had water restrictions where I live in Ontario inspite of there being good amount of rainfall and snowfall in our area. Its good to conserve anyway. We do things 'green' here. For instance we recycle our garbage.

My plants have fared well because I plant them close to each other (and prepared deep garden beds) so water does not get evaporated as quickly. I'm also forced to water at the roots (another way to minimize mildew and black spots).

Trailrunner, Alberta is indeed the oil and gas capital of Canada but we also supply a great portion of the oil & gas to the US. But don't fault the producers alone. Unfortunately it's a vicious cycle. The users are equally to be faulted. unless we begin to deprive ourselves of the comforts of life derived from the use of oil, we can never really stop mining for oil and gas. Sorry, it frustrates me too.

I feel for you in this drought; not fun to go through watching your plants drying up. It makes gardening very frustrating and disappointing.

Strangely, in Texas, where we suffered so badly last summer with 71 days straight of over 100, we have had quite a bit of rain which filled our lakes up pretty much, and the rains in July also helped. However, we have water restriction of twice a week and I suspect this will become our way of life. We're lucky, some cities have only one day of watering a week.

ianna...that is who I was referring to when I said " greed"...the consumers as well as the suppliers. It is indeed a vicious circle.

I had dinner with Richard Leakey a few years ago. He said that the world will never stop consuming at a ridiculous rate until they reach for the light switch and nothing happens. I fear he is correct.

I sit here with my antique Westinghouse fan and the windows open...Central AL ..daytime temps...90's. I am reveling in the sweat dripping off my chin as it indicates I am alive. c

Well, for now we have averted letting the plants/roses die. DH set up timers so that I can water during the night and still get some sleep. I will just have to reposition them each evening so that I am able to water most of the beds over the course of 3-4 days.

However, if we don't get rain very soon, I feel very bad for the farmers as many crops will be lost. There were pop up showers all around us today, but none here. Our best/only chance for rain for the next 8 days is tomorrow. Hope we fare better than we did today.

I'm in central Illinois and we have had just two .4" showers since the beginning of May and it has been so hot. I have been in a state of significant depression honestly it just breaks my heart after all the hard work to see things just burning. We have so much here and I simply can't water it all.

I have kept watering the vegetables and the containers, have put enough moisture in the most important borders that they are there certainly look dismal.

The day lilies have been especially awful. Here is what they look like in one of the borders where I can't water at all. Interesting right next to it are self sown cosmos and some direct sow zinnias that look pretty good somehow.

I don't ever remember in my 25 years of gardening her it being this bad.

Some of you probably already do this, and others have too much garden for it to be of much use, but...
In extremely dry summers (we have a well and are always worried about it going dry, especially since we got new neighbors who wash their cars and water their lawn constantly), I put a plastic dishpan in the kitchen sink. All water (and it's the one time I actually want DH to wash his hands in the kitchen-LOL)from that dishpan goes to my most important plants. It's really amazing how much water goes down the drain each day. If you have a large enough laundry room, it's relatively simple to divert the water from the washing machine to a large plastic trash can. Not that you want to be traipsing through the house with a watering can 20x/day, but if the laundry is convenient to the garage or a back door....don't want to put the laundry soap on your plants?--no problem--just divert the drain after the wash cycle has emptied. It means paying attention to the machine, but if you have special plants that are dying...

Ugh...fracking...I'm not going there...but even though we live well above the marcellus I'm NOT a fan.

No watering bans. We're lucky enough to have two of the great lakes and the river nearby.

We do have a burn ban in place.

I've been rotating the soaker hose around, but most of the established stuff has faired ok-I try for a really good deep watering once a week per bed unless there's new plants.

mytime, we've been talking about putting in a gray water system here for my flower-only beds. WAY easier to just divert via a valve than hope the dog doesn't trip you while carrying the water pan in my case lol.

Also looking into rain barrels, not that they would have helped much this summer!

So sorry to read of your Dry Spell,..its a worry to us gardeners,..on this side of the pond we had the dryest spell since records began,..this was for the East Coast of England,..now they have the wettest in history,..not too bad here in Ireland though we had a months rainfall in one day,..so far we have had no hose pipe restrictions and water is free on tap,..however next year there will be charges for the first time,..just now we have 100.000 acres of land flooded in the Midlands,.thankfully i live on top of a hill.

cindy, try cutting your daylilies in half to help it conserve energies and keep it's roots early. At this stage with searing heat and no water, it's going to struggle. Another technique is to bury a large pop bottle with a punctured side. Fill it with water and let the water seep out slowly.

In face drip irrigation would be the key to survival for most of these plants. That and mulching.

In Ontario where I live, water is always conserve despite that we have large lakes, and huge aquifers. It's a wise thing to get people used to handling things this way. It's also for this reason I chose mostly perennials that grow deep roots. I can get away with not watering plants for a week.

Sorry to hear of your rationing. Yes, we have it here each and every summer. We are usually bone dry from June through September. Cracks in the ground can get wide.

I trimmed my boxwood early this morning before it got hot, walked down to dump the trimmings in the compost and looked over at my veggie garden. Pumpkin and cuke plants are all wilted and sad looking. I wasn't sure whether to water in the heat of the day (it was 11:30am by this time)or weight until tonight. Also, it could be SVB or just plain vine wilt. Anyway, 90 degrees right now with a heat advisory in effect.

The trick with the pierced and buried pop bottle is a good one! I might try that.

Yup, 95 here again today. Was supposed to get to 100 but didn't quite make it. Tomorrow supposed to be the same. But....we got 3/4 inch of rain Saturday morning! And it was a nice rain, not a gully washer. Everything just perked up so much. Now if we could just have a couple days like that, but very doubtful. Guess I will just be happy that we got what we did!

schoolhouse, hope your pumpkins and cukes perked up after watering?

Schoolhouse, another trick utilized in desert conditions is to set up a netting which provides some shade conditions to plants that may need it.

I have to say, this combination of searing heat and sudden rains has caused some fungus to grow fast. I've already lost part of Harry Lauder Walking stick due to some unknown fungus. I'm hoping it won't spread to the other parts of the plant. I was heartsick to see that an entire trunk was affected and I've had to cut down that part of the plant.

ianna - I just posted some concerns in my "Boxwood borders" thread on seeing possible sun burn on the top of my boxwoods tonight after trimming yesterday. You mentioned netting, I actually did think awhile ago that I might have used row cover cloth to lay over them, esp. since I knew 90 degree temps were in store for today. Never crossed my mind yesterday. Lesson learned, don't trim during high temps. :(
I'm going to keep watch and see what happens.

Sorry to hear about the Walking Stick, never knew it could affected by fungus; but this growing season is a challenge.

I have 3 85gal rain barrels that I use to water my garden with but with the lack of rain I'm down to a half a barrel, my front yard has gone to pot because of this heat, so I water what needs it the most

Bear

Yup, rain barrels are great....if it rains! I have several. We got another 3/4 inch of rain last evening. But it was a "gully washer" so not sure how much ran off and how much actually sank into the soil. Lots of wind, took me over an hour to pick up all the branches and sticks in the front yard where the trees are. There are leaves all over the yard. However we are lucky. Nearby there are full grown trees that were blown down.

So no watering necessary last night or tonight. Yipee! Hoping others that are in drought also get some rain.

no rain here in Central AL. It passes us by most every day. I see the clouds and the radar shows it and the chances are 70%...but not for us. I finally watered with the soaker on the roses and the special sprinkler that I bought for the back perennials. All seems to be holding its own.

I really hate to have to add to the swimming pool but with the heat and the wind we were having it took one hour to get the water back up to level. I swim 1 1/2 miles every day so this is a necessity but a costly one.

I am glad ML that you got rain . Today is looking somewhat more promising fingers X. c

We got two days of rain. Yesterday morning there was a steady downpour. However, the humidity was and is pretty bad now. The ground looks soaked but I haven't turn the soil over to see just how far down the moisture got. The lower leaves of some perennials are yellowing and so are my cuke plants; but the vines so far look good and continue to grow. Only one pumpkin and it's half the size of a basketball right now, other little immature pumpkins just turn yellow and drop off.

I thought about doing a second sowing of the French Mesclun the first of the week, it would have been a good time to do it since it has rained and then high temps are coming back next week.