Beating the Heat in a Drought - Islands of Flowers

Double Delight

Some roses have spectacular blooms but are not as vigorous in their growth. I can think of various small plants with large blooms - Veterans Honor, Double Delight, Fragrant Cloud.

Also, when plants are getting started, the watering they get may give the weeds a better start than the plant. I am using the following to create zones where a plant can do well, rise above weeds, and hold more water in the soil.

Pulling grassy weeds will often not work well, because they want to pull the new plant up with them. Gabe Brown has taught me not to fear the weeds but use their root growth to some extent.

1. Anything growing can be used against itself, so I snip grassy visitors and leafy weeds with scissors  - or rose shears - sometimes with small battery operated clippers. The cut greens make a layer of mulch, high nitrogen fertilizer.
2. I place newspaper or cardboard on top of the plant material mulch. Newspaper can be torn to pieces to add to the shading effect, which discourages weed growth. Some small cardboard boxes (crackers, etc) open up perfectly to create an opaque area around the plant, giving it room to grow. This cardboard or newspaper layer blocks sun to hold down weed growth and keep moisture in the soil. Plants do not like hot feet any more than we like walking barefoot on the sidewalk to the mailbox. 
3. Newspaper and cardboard can be weighed down by wood mulch. I use cyprus rather than dyed wood. Wood mulch does not need dye. I am generous with wood mulch because it does not cost much and looks attractive. Wood slowly decomposes into the soil and boosts the hard-working soil fungi.
4. My first choice for extra watering is stored rainwater, the second being stored tapwater. Today I took stored rainwater and boosted nine young Crepe Myrtle bushes. Yes, in the not noonday sun. Why? Because if I felt miserable, they felt just as bad. I used the sprinklers on some areas that seemed burning in the heat and relatively dry.

If a plant is well established and healthy, a cool shower on a hot day is be good for it. Water droplets do not burn - they cool. 

 Whimpy Crepe Myrtle - when we moved to the cul-de-sac.

I am likely to give extra compost and mulch to those established plants, because their growth demands more food. Eventually their soil foundation is rich in organic matter, abounding in fungi and soil creatures, trapping nutrition and moisture for the best and healthiest growth.

 The same CM, a few years later.
Wait til this year's blooms are all out.

As I mentioned before, I took the whimpy Crepe Myrtle and doted on it, knowing the plant would bloom in the dry season without my help. I wanted more than ordinary blooms. I wanted the Fourth of July. Every time I had some extra mushroom compost, grass clippings, or wood mulch, the Crepe Myrtle got it.

Pruning is another way to boost growth, so I pruned it all the time, shaping and improving its look.

The Crepe Myrtle became the centerpiece for the cul-de-sac, an explosion of pink blooms that never seemed to quit, pruned away and blooming again.

Each autumn, I pile all the leaves (especially the wet slimy ones from the street) under the CM. The leaves are slowly decomposed during the winter, speeding up by spring, when I add a thin layer of wood mulch so the Calladiums can come through. Now we have them putting up their bright red and green leaves under the CM, a colorful counterpoint.

These ideas all stem from Creation principles, which are already at work, whether we observe them or not. I start with the foundation, the soil and what makes it fertile. Secondly, I avoid man-made toxins which hinder rather than helping the garden. Finally, I try to do extra tasks for plants, insects, birds, and toads, to get the team working faster, better, and more productively. That is roughly .00001% of the garden. God does the rest.

Mark 4:26 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;

27 And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.

28 For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.

29 But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.