Record Broken

Staff Reports The Hartford Courant

4:40 p.m. EDT, July 22, 2011

HARTFORD ——

The temperature reached 103 degrees at Bradley International Airport on Friday, the highest temperature ever recorded there, as searing heat roasted the state for the second straight day.

The previous record at Bradley for July 22 was 101 degrees, most recently recorded in 1926.

The 102-degree mark was hit on a number of dates in the past, most recently on July 6 last year.

I watered.  And watered.  In 103 degree heat and sun.  It's been 14 days since we had less than half an inch of rain.

The plants in containers are pffft.  One of the new trees planted in the meadow this spring is now brown.   The annuals were dry and keeled over.  I got all of the back of Meadow's Edge well soaked, and the Birch Garden.

Still need to get the new trees in the meadow, and plants along the east side.

103 ---  yikes.

Jim and I tried to go to the Manchester band shell for an outdoor concert tonight (Little Big Band) but it was canceled due to heat.

100 degrees

Hot and windy, no rain in sight.  Wilted plants, hard packed earth.  101 degrees on my thermometer in the sun today, but the official high at Bradley Field was in the high 90s.

Nothing But Sun

Hot and humid today, sunny all day.

I watered and watered and watered.  Jim helped, which made it go so much faster but it still took all day and barely made a dent.  The birches are wilted and dropping yellow leaves.  One of the new trees I planted this spring in the meadow is brown and crispy and losing leaves.

No rain for 10 days now, and little before that.

Forecast for the next 5 days is sun, temps in the high 90s, no rain.

Same as Last Year

The same thing as last summer: radar shows a big line of wet stormy weather rolling directly toward Hartford on the map, with a 70% to 90% chance that it will rain heavily . . . and we a get just a few one hundredths of an inch of sprinkles out of it all.

The forecast as of noon on the 18th:

Hi: 90°

Widespread thunderstorms and numerous showers early...then scattered showers with a chance of thunderstorms. Some thunderstorms may produce gusty winds and heavy rainfall. Hot with highs in the lower 90s. Southwest winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90 percent.

Lo: 69°

Mostly cloudy. Showers and thunderstorms likely... Mainly in the evening. Some thunderstorms may produce gusty winds...small hail and heavy rainfall in the evening. Humid with lows in the upper 60s. Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph. Gusts up to 20 mph in the evening. Chance of rain 70 percent.

The reality at the end of the day on the 18th: 

Nothing.  No rain. A very brief burst of rain for about a minute, registering 4 one hundredths of an inch.

I will need to water the birches, the hydrangeas, the newest plants . . . everything.  

So Dry

No rain for over a week and high temperatures.  It's been 9 days since we got four tenths of an inch, and before that only traces.  The aquifers are full from all the rain in May and June, so we are not in any kind of drought.  But the lack of rain for so long now has made everything crispy in the garden.

The birch trees, as always, are the first trees to show the stress.  They are droopy and dropping yellow leaves.  The climbing hydrangea looked brown and wilted in the hot dry afternoon sun.  Bad location for it next to the driveway in afternoon sun.

Annuals and some newly planted perennials look awful.  I water as much as I can, but it's never enough.

This is getting to be just like last summer's horrid dry spell.  It's hard to enjoy the garden when it looks so bad, is stressed, and takes so much work.  And the trees on the back hill get nothing.

Designs of Mann

Another beautiful day, sunny and dry.

Sharon and David Mann came today for a consult on all the projects I want to do:

1. remove the sod in the Secret Garden and put down pea stone with random accent rocks.  Widen the borders and let plants spill into the gravel area.
2. extend and expand several of the new gardens.  I have too many small skinny borders, unconnected
3. add bluestone steps off the patio out into the yard.
4. extend the little area off the steps at the east side of the deck. It needs to be much much larger.

At first they didn't get the idea of the Secret Garden and were talking about pavers, a circle, a formal structured patio area set inside the grass, but we eventually got to the idea I want, which is something like this but with fewer accent rocks:

Or like this using large irregular stones:

I think this is all going to be very expensive.  We'll see what they come up with.

It was enjoyable to walk around with them and talk plants.  They are very knowledgeable and they really admired what I've done here!

Less is More

A beautiful day yesterday.  Sunny, breezy, dry and cool.  Little humidity.

The sourwood is blooming and the bees love it.

I finally started to rework the edges of the dry creek bed to make it more naturalistic.  It turns out that less is more . . . I needed to remove rocks, not keep adding more.  I took out about a quarter of them, trying to create breaks in the edge that look more random.  I need some pea gravel to fill in the spaces.

I think I am getting there.  I like it better already.

Daylily Redemption

Hot and humid, in the high 80s. 

After all my complaining in late June about the beheaded daylilies never blooming and getting ravaged by the deer, I have been spraying much more, and now they have redeemed themselves.

Even in Meadow's Edge they are blooming, although the effect is still more messy foliage than color.

Redemption.  They can stay, although I do need to dig them up in the fall and divide all of them, and I can give Gail what I divide.

The flowering tobacco is in bloom, but I don't notice any fragrance even at night.

And the candy lilies, only the orange ever comes up, not the multi colors I had planted!

I staked the floppy gaura along the front walk, and I like it much better.  It's still too loose and unstructured, but sits up a little higher so you can see the wands of flowers.  Hard to tell in the photo.

What's Blooming in July

Half an inch of rain last night.  Sunny and breezy today.

The knockout roses that were so profuse in mid June have stopped blooming completely.  There will be a second flush, but I don't remember them taking several weeks off, with no roses at all.  The day lilies are coming in, and the spraying is working, so I am getting some blooms.

Flowering now - thimbleweed and geraniums and Shasta daisies and Petite Delight magenta bee balm and the cute drumstick alliums.

The tiarella is still blooming under the deep shade of the baptisia foliage and the astilbe is blooming behind it all.  Sedum and gaura complement each other in pink in front of the garage.

'Miss Manners' white obedient plant has created a very dense stand this year.  It looked so much better with the pink coneflowers mixed in last year.  This year there is no real conrast for the white flowers other than a lone peach colored daylily.

I love the way the bright orange butterfly weed looks with the deep puprle foliage of the 'Forest Pansy' redbud in the foregraound.  I can see the 'Karl Foerster' grass peeking through.

Potted nasturtiums in the strawberry jars add to the bright colors in Meadow's Edge.

 

Yarrow is blooming.

Mid Summer

Hot and humid for several days now, in the high 80s.  Too hot to be out there. 

The rabbits and deer are all over the yard.  I'm spraying pretty aggressively to try to keep some of the daylily blossoms from being nipped before they bloom.  The rabbits are eating the marigold blooms right off.