Gardening in a Drought

What we consider a drought here in in the greater Houston area is rather similar to a normal year in many parts of my native California.  The difference, of course, is that in California they are used to it.  So how do they deal?

Bougainvilleas look their best in dry conditions.

Drought tolerant plants

Natives are ideal, but introduced drought tolerant plants can be useful as well.   If you can, observe areas near you where plants are growing wild. What is doing well? What isn't?  Choose these to replace plants that are unable to survive the current dry spell.


Smart grouping

Keep plants with similar watering needs together. This allows you to use your water more efficiently



Drip irrigation

This can provide a more constant supply of water to your plants. The slow flow of water allows more moisture to stay where it is needed, rather than running off into the gutters.


Watering Basins

Using the soil, create a basin around plants that require deeper waterings. This minimizes runoff and gives water time to seep down to the roots of the plant. These are especially useful for trees and shrubs that require deeper watering.  My grandfather, an avid plant collector who loves tropicals and has been gardening in California for decades, has these around almost every plant in his Southern California garden. This page at Learn2Grow.com features a picture of a watering basin around a newly planted rose.

Rain barrels

While they can be expensive, these can allow one to make better use of runoff from the roof between rainstorms. This is especially useful if your neighborhood is under water restrictions, as you have an alternative source of water on days when you can't use your hose or sprinklers. 

Mulch

Mulch insulates from cold in the winter, and also aids moisture retention in dry weather.


Minimize Lawn Space

While they are attractive and simple landscape features, lawns require a great deal of water, and can begin to look ugly when they do not get enough. Consider replacing part or all of your lawn with something with less demanding water requirements such as drought-tolerant beds, a low-growing ground cover, gravel, or pavers.

Preparing your landscape for a hurricane

Here is a useful article from the Corpus Christi Caller-Times with some advice that makes sense:

http://www.caller.com/news/2008/jul/19/have-a-landscape-plan-in-case-of-hurricane/

At this point, all of the potted plants that I can pick up and carry, along with several ornamental items have been moved into the garage. Those that cannot be moved easily are under our covered porch or in other sheltered areas.

Here in Fort Bend county, we are starting to see more cloud cover, and more breezes. Nothing major yet. I'm sure time will fix that.

Stay safe, everybody.

When you have a little lawn in your winter weeds...

Someone at the home improvement store recommended a liquid post-emergent broad-leaf herbicide for Southern lawns over a granular one for this time of year.

Randy Lemmon, host of GardenLine, strenuously recommends against those very tempting weed-and-feed treatments, as in the long run they can damage other plants, including trees. Click here to see his lawn care schedule. The herbicide tips are toward the bottom. Or, if you prefer, he has an alternate Organic lawn care schedule. In both the organic and synthetic schedules, he recommends that a pre-emergent herbicide be applied in November, to prevent the rather astonishing weed growth that takes place in December and January if nothing is done. Ooops. I guess we'll do better next year. :)

Invasion of Bermudagrass...

This is what crab grass looks like when it goes to seed.

This is how bermuda grass looks.

This is what the UC Davis Integrated Pest Management Program says about how to tell the two apart:

The flowering stems of crabgrass are similar to those of bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon), but the spikelike branches on the flowering stems of bermudagrass originate at the same point whereas those on crabgrass originate about 1/8- to 1/4-inch apart at the end of the stem.

By the way, unless you live in an area where summer is the dry season (not the case here on the Gulf Coast), their advice for controlling bermuda grass may not be applicable to you.

This is what I have in my lawn:



And it's not going away, despite the fact that we used a lawn weedkiller/fertilizer treatment. I couldn't get any pictures of it going to seed, but when it does, it looks more like Bermuda grass than crab grass.

It's in my lawn and it's invading my flowerbeds. Ugh. I hate this stuff.



Even more interesting, this that I dug up today looks suspiciously like nut grass:



Goody goody. And I hear mulching does not slow it down.

Oh, yes, and after pulling this stuff up from my beds for weeks, I found out today that pulling is a bad idea. Whoops. :)

This is why it pays to look up weeds.

Nutgrass control information.