Drought Conditions Continue

Recently I was told how "dreadfully dry" the rain garden is. Yes, I agree, it is indeed dry. But is it really dreadful? An artificially lush landscape it is not. An amazing demonstration of what can survive without a daily intervention of wasteful irrigation it is. The current drought condition is listed as Severe, and the Wildlife & Rain Garden has had no rain in well over a month, and no use of plumbed irrigation to supplement this deficiency. The only water given to this garden during the past 17 months was from a single use of a hose sprinkler in early September, fewer than a dozen occurrences of hand watering with a can for new installations, and two douses of about 5 - 10 gallons of water by bucket for the bog garden. No irrigation system has been used since the early part of summer 2015. Yet we still have had an incredible array of blooms, insects, birds, small mammals, and reptiles. The die off of vegetation due to drought stress has been almost zero (a few annuals didn't last as long as they should have). The bloom wasn't as grand as it has been in years past, but considering the lack of precipitation and very low soil moisture, the garden is still displaying quite a show of fall flowers and is alive with pollinators. Planting drought tolerant plants has carried this garden through a dreadfully dry season while providing nectar, pollen, butterfly host plants, seed, and inspiration. Come take a look and how dry is working for our garden.

Here's what's in bloom on November 8, 2016






















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Create Your Own Rain Garden

Image
Building a Residential Rain Garden 🍃 So, you want to build your own rain garden. Lucky for you, it isn't a painstaking process and once you've finished it, you'll find your yard to be prettier and more efficient than it was before! Why Should I Build a Residential Rain Garden? Well, not only is a rain garden a way to beautify your yard, but also a way to employ the use of natural processes by... Temporarily holding and soaking in rain water runoff that flows  Removing 90% of Nutrients and Chemicals Removing 80% of Sediments  Draining 12-48 hours to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes  Preserving native vegetation Providing wildlife habitats for birds, butterflies, and insects Okay, I want to Build a Rain Garden. Where Should I put it? Where Should I Not put it?  When you are building a rain garden it is important to keep these points in mind about where and where not to build : They should be located in low lying sloped areas so water ...
Read more

We had a visitor to the Wildlife & Rain Garden yesterday:

Image
A Monarch butterfly!  By the looks of her tattered wings and worn scales, she probably was an  overwintering butterfly from one of the preserves down in Mexico. Meaning  she has flown nearly 1,000 miles in her short 6 – 9 month lifespan.  In the photo below (a bit blurry), you can see her depositing a single egg on the underside of the milkweed leaf. Milkweed, the Monarch’s host plant, is the only plant the adult will lay eggs on, and the only plant the caterpillar will eat. Different types of butterflies have different host plants, but the Monarch gets special attention because it is the species that migrates such great distances, and depends on healthy, native milkweed and nectar plants for survival. The more the landscape is changed for human needs, the fewer milkweed plants are available, threatening the migration. We believe this one made that long journey, bred in mexico, and found our milkweed to lay her eggs on!  Can you...
Read more

This Week: Butterfly Host Garden through the year; What's In Bloom.

Image
A host garden provides the food plants for caterpillars and nectar sources for adult butterflies. Most species of butterflies feed on specific plants when they are caterpillars.  Our Host Garden provides host plants for the Monarch (milkweed), Gulf Frittilary (passion flower), zebra swallowtail (paw paw), pipevine swallowtail (pipevine), black swallowtail (fennel, dill, parsley). Host Garden: if you plant it...
Read more