Cold Comfort

It looks like this weekend, Saturday particularly, is our greatest chance for some rain. It's been over three weeks since my garden has seen any rain and that was maybe a 1/2-inch downpour. That kind of rain is not the best, unless it is particularly long lasting. Short bursts of heavy rain tend to run off my exceptionally dry soil -straight to the sidewalk and street.

This has been an exceptional June, early July -I believe the record heat of the last few days convinced us of that. In exceptional times, I must do exceptional things -like water the part of the garden that does not dwell in pots (these of course, always require it). Given how hot it has been, I feel the garden has done well -only the phlox, sidewalk's edge eupatorium, and late-transplanted cosmos have shown up with wilty leaves. But there are other signs of heat stress -the spider mites, the yellow blotchy leaves of anything aster, or the browning of the hydrangea and hosta leaves. So I water, water, water with my watering can (more of a pitcher than a can). And because these are exceptional circumstances, I still get to say that I hardly ever water my garden not in pots.

The upshot to all this heat and drought, however, is that the Asian Tiger mosquitoes have been very diminished since their first significant appearance in early June. In fact, while watering this evening I should have been swarmed by them, but I was not, at all, I didn't even think about mosquitoes. So it may be hot as hell, but at least the buggers are not buggering.