The Times They Are A Changing

The garden is reeling from an endless stream of 90 degree days. And not to be a total bummer here but the August issue of Organic Gardening magazine reports that this is only the beginning of hell on earth. Allergies will worsen, due to plants blooming earlier and producing more pollen. Mosquitoes, and other garden bugs will flourish. The plant damaging storms we have had this summer will be the norm. Winters will be wetter, summers drier. Ay ya yay.



But there are still and hopefully always will be sweet garden moments. Platter sized red hibiscus blooms, moonflowers on the chain link fence, firecracker and thunbergia vines twisting around the porch railings are but a few I found today.



And there are more late summer/early fall flowers to come, fall blooming anemones, pineapple sage, the callicarpa bush is covered in lilac berries, soon to turn a deep purple.

To continue to experience such lovely moments I will follow the advice in OG magazine. I'll use a rain barrel to collect and store water, I'll continue to mulch, I'll drop to my knees and weed whenever possible and I'll remove some heavy drinkers from my beds and replace them with more abstinent plants. And now I have another reason for creating the potager in my backyard: to spare my plants from heavy storms water-logging the ground. Small silver lining?