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| I water the garden every second day. In spite of that, within the last few weeks a large lantana has died, and my rosemary bushes, ivy geraniums, crape myrtles and butterfly bushes are shriveling up more every day. The roses that are not shaded in the afternoon are in the worst shape I've ever seen them, and I've already taken out quite a few that are too far gone. My garden has become virtually unrecognizable in spite of all the water I've used. What amazes me is that the plants I've named above should be able to withstand dry conditions. My theory is that the drought of the last few years and the intensive radiation that has become significantly worse in the last few years, and the fact that we had our property cleared of brush and some trees removed and the rest limbed up for fire prevention created even more of a hothouse effect on our hilly property. With El Nino, assuming it even occurs, now being predicted as mild to moderate, I'm wondering if there is any hope of the garden recovering, especially with the certainty of hotter and longer summers in the future with even less rain. It's becoming an almost surreal experience to see what is happening from day to day and week to week, and to feel so helpless to change anything. Ingrid |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by Kippy-the-Hippy 10 Sunset 24 (My Page) on Tue, Oct 7, 14 at 0:54
| I know I lost a couple of Rosemary's, but I also did not water them so I suppose that was to be expected. I can water more time since we are on drip, but the total per week is supposed to be 2 hours of use of water outside. Sprinklers are 2x a week before 7am or after 7pm on Saturdays and Wednesdays for a certain amount of time (can't remember off hand because it is longer than I run them anyway) So far other than a couple of trees, things look good here, but we have different conditions. I do see some older trees dying because of the bark beetles and fungi issues that are taking over. On the other hand, the painter is going to clean up when he gets to fill and repaint all the cracks from the clay drying and buildings shifting. And then there are the sidewalks.... |
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- Posted by melissa_thefarm NItaly (My Page) on Tue, Oct 7, 14 at 1:03
| It hasn't happened here even in our dry periods, which have included droughts lasting several months and periods of a couple of years of low average precipitation. But I don't think that in our fourteen years here we've yet had anything like the prolonged very dry weather you're seeing. I suspect that your much lower annual rainfall, which requires you to irrigate, is very different from our pattern of dry summers but wet winters with respectable annual rainfall. And of course our clay is more water retentive than your soil. Gardening is an educational process, even if you may not be happy with what you learn. Rosemary is a Mediterranean plant, adapted to those same wet winters and dry summers I was just talking about. It can take a summer drought, but longer than that, who knows? You're finding out. You have my sympathies, because the situation sounds honestly distressing, and in your shoes (where I may find myself one day) I would be very unhappy. It could be you find yourself at the start of another round of research, of plants that can take your new conditions and of styles of gardening and building that are the most comfortable and liveable possible given the demands of your environment. Melissa
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| If your water is high in minerals, the problem may be that rather than lack of water. You have had no rain water to flush out the minerals. When mineral concentration in the water surrounding root hairs becomes too high, it pulls water out of the plant. The process is called osmosis. You might try a test plant and give it a few gallons of distilled water. This should flush out the excess minerals and allow you to irrigate again for awhile without adverse effects. Cath |
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| I think Cath hit it on the head, Ingrid. What we've had to do to mitigate fire issues made conditions hotter and the water IS made artificially more alkaline to help protect the supply system. The soil salt level is just getting worse and worse and the plants are beginning to really show it. Like a potted house plant beginning to decline, or flat out die because it's just too salty to withstand the heat and intense sun. I am seeing an increase in oak root fungus, too. I wouldn't have guessed it would happen now with the overly dry soil, but the mushrooms are popping up and plants declining. Very depressing. Good luck! Kim |
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- Posted by mendocino_rose z8 N CA. (My Page) on Tue, Oct 7, 14 at 9:53
| I think Kim is right. I'm so sorry Ingrid for these things to happen after all your hard work. |
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| I'd like to have a good look at your soil, Ingrid. |
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| I know very little about what's needed for fire prevention measures, but are there any native trees/large shrubs that you could plant for shade that would not be a fire hazard? I don't know what- if anything- you could do to mitigate the alkaline water, but I'm sure that if there's a work-around, someone here will know about it. Good luck, |
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| With everything being a soggy mess here I feel so bad for you, Ingrid, and everyone else battling this drought. Is there any way to filter the water to take out some of the salts? |
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| I think Cath and Kim are on the right track. Here, our water was always high in mineral salts, and very very alkaline. A crust of ick would build up on the outer margins of leaves, which would disappear as winter rains came in, washing out the excess salts. New leaves would be normal. Now, with basically NO rain for a year, and very little in the previous couple of years, the cr*p isn't being washed away, and plants are more and more miserable. The plants I feel sorriest for are the epiphytic things ... staghorns, epiphyllums and the like. Those basically live on water in the air, and there is less and less of that. Yes. It is discouraging. I'm trying to concentrate on the things that are thriving on dishwater . . . Jeri |
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- Posted by mohavemaria (My Page) on Tue, Oct 7, 14 at 12:36
| This must be very discouraging for you Ingrid. A similar thing has happened here and plants that ten years ago grew happily in our yard either out rite die or languish through our summers. After 15 years of faithfully ordering from High Country gardens I no longer do so because the sages, penstemons and assortment of other plants from them just won't survive here anymore and I don't know why. Eventually replacing the same plants over and over or seeing others really struggle got old and a realization dawned that the desert landscaped backyard looked way better than my once beautiful more Mediterranean front yard. I still faithfully buy roses every year (we all need a vice!) but I have been switching the yard over piece by piece to plants that want to be here and a happy plant is a beautiful plant. Rosemary suffers in my yard too but a similar looking plant that is tough as nails is eriogonum fasciculatum, California buckwheat. Most lavenders don't survive here and I've tried a lot of them but fernleaf lavendula multifida and Goodwin Creek are great in the heat. Crepe myrtles are much better adapted to moist heat but desert willow, chilopsis Linearis loves dry conditions and blooms all summer. Chaste tree has similar flowers to butterfly bush but is much tougher. If you could see the Cordia Boissieri, Texas Olive in our yard right now, it's big furry leaves fresh and green with the sprays of white flowers covering it laughing at the long hot summer it's just come through you would want it. I hope you can have your favorite roses in your choicest spots and explore the tough Southwestern and Australian natives that will actually thrive in your yard and need a lot less watering than every other day for your more exposed areas. |
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- Posted by jacqueline3 9CA (My Page) on Tue, Oct 7, 14 at 12:49
| Wow. I have not spent a lot of time thinking about how the "fire prevention" work would so increase the temps on a property. In our town, they have mandated that sort of work, but only in the "hilly" areas. Luckily for us, we are in the flat area, but only by one block! I went to a public meeting on the subject, and discovered that our Fire Dept was really confused - they used "drought tolerant" and "fire resistant" interchangeably, although most truly drought tolerant plants (other than succulents) contain a large amount of oils & resins (eucalyptus, bamboo, juniper, rosemary, manzenita, etc), and are very very dangerous in wild fires. They eventually got straightened out, and mandated that those living in the "hilly" areas REMOVE all juniper and bamboo. Our street has 100 year old black walnut street trees, along with other large mature tree types. I used to walk the 4 blocks to the bus station, and on really hot days the temp dropped as I got to the shady tree lined part - by at least 10 to 15 degrees. Our property, although only 1/3rd of an acre, has 2 huge mature scarlet oaks, one huge (when I say huge I mean they are all over 5 stories tall) eugenie, and lots & lots of smaller trees and bushes. I have always had to fit the roses in to the spots where they would get at least 3 hours of sun, or had the chance to grow UP to where the sun was. This year, of course, I am very happy to have a mostly shady garden. We are still irrigating. I agree that the plants miss the winter rain - last year we only got 2 months of rain instead of our normal 4-5 months. However, nothing has died or even looks sick. Some of the roses have gone dormant, but others are still blooming. The eugenie, which gets no irrigation whatever, is doing its normal Fall thing of dropping fruit all over, AND blooming (I have never figured that out, but it has done it every year for 25 years, so I assume it is normal). Our soil is clay which has been amended by 110 years of gardening, which I am sure helps. Here's hoping that it RAINS this winter! Jackie |
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| This very much mimics what happened when Los Angeles changed from well water to the Colorado River Project. There were several hundred, small, often mom and pop specialty nurseries all over LA and here in the San Fernando Valley. At one time, you could find an "expert" home grower selling a mind boggling assortment of almost any kind of strange and wonderful plant you desired. Orchid growers abounded. Succulents of any type you could dream of were common. Anything that could take the intensity of our heat or even thrived in it, could be bought. As long as we were on the softer, local water, the plants and nurseries flourished. As quickly as the water changed for the salty, hard river water, many of them closed shop because their plants couldn't take the minerals and salts. It's actually painful to ride around this area with long-time residents who are also "plant nuts", while they point out where each little special nursery USED to be. Of course none of them could possibly exist here today, even if the water permitted. They were a phenomenon of people blessed with high income jobs permitting them time to indulge in their passions, on large pieces of prime real estate, in wonderfully benign climates, affordable due to more realistic land and housing prices those high income jobs permitted. They're all gone now. The softer water wells couldn't support "growth", and here in the Valley, they were poisoned by industry and the increasing use of lawn pesticides and herbicides. Kim |
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| Your responses have been very helpful, and the sympathy is much appreciated. What's been said about the alkalinity of the water makes perfect sense and explains why my watering has had little impact. My soil, decomposed granite, is probably also alkaline, and the water percolates through it very quickly. I've noticed that in areas where the soil has been the most heavily amended (and particularly where there is more shade), the plants are doing much better, and fortunately that's where most of the roses are concentrated, except for Tea Row, which I've done my best to mulch heavily in order to enrich the soil. Planting trees is not an option since I doubt they would survive long enough to do any good, and would take a great deal of (alkaline) water to try to get established. At this point it will have to be a waiting game to see whether it does rain and how much. What happens after that I'll face later because I really don't have the will to go there right now. Kim, since you're facing similar conditions, can you tell me how your roses are faring, and have you found any ways to mitigate the impact of what is happening? Ingrid |
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| Granite soils are not always alkaline the way limestone soils are. The state of New Hampshire is pretty much all granite to the point where it is called the Granite State. The soils there are mostly acid. Rainfall has an influence on pH. Low rainfall areas tend to be alkaline, and high rainfall areas tend to be acid, though other factors also contribute. I agree about the build up of salts in the water and soil. A period of good rainfall would flush it out. Even heavy irrigation could help, though we cannot do that. One thing I have been doing since the drought started is to omit my usual topdressing of composted horse manure. Manures tend to be heavy in salts. This includes mushroom compost, which is often based on aged horse manure. If you have been using any kind of manure-based compost you might want to use one based on decomposed plant material until there has been some decent natural rainfall. Rosefolly |
This post was edited by rosefolly on Tue, Oct 7, 14 at 13:55
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| rosefolly, I've always had the impression that the soil is alkaline, bolstered by the fact that I once tried and failed to grow camellias. I haven't used any animal manure except for wild bunny droppings, but of course there aren't too many of those. I did buy seabird guano and used it on a few plants, but now I'm wondering whether that would also cause a salt buildup. Other than that I've only used leaves and rose clippings as mulch because that's what's available and, in my organic garden, I can be sure that it won't be harmful. Ingrid |
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| Hi Ingrid, the only way for me to mitigate any of it is shade. Canned plants are pushed into any bit of shade I can find, away from walls as much as possible. Those in the ground look like the Wreck of the Hesperus. A number are being permitted to just die. They demand too much water, even in good rainfall years and don't positively respond to increased "salty water". The 1992 Legend is absolutely the worst offender. I think it has finally all turned brown. Good riddance. It hurts watching the large, formerly lush Escalonia hedge across the street facade die by the foot. I water, it turns brown and crisp. It began at the gate end and is creeping north toward the neighbor. I don't seem able to positively affect improvement, so I just sadly watch this five feet tall, nearly five feet deep, sixty feet long mass of browning Ecsalonia increasingly crisp, day by day. I guess, barring a wonderful, torrential rain, the only salvation would be forgetting the cost and restrictions on the water and installing a purifier on the irrigation to remove the minerals and alkalinity. That isn't happening. Kim |
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| Kim, I've also found that the only solution is shade. The only shade I really have is what the house provides and that's where most of my remaining roses are. Fortunately that's also the area that has the best, most amended soil and I hope to still be able to have some roses as long as the water lasts. That's awful about your escallonia hedge. That has to be really painful to watch it slowly die and not have the means to change it. I'm seeing many trees along the roads dead or dying. Yes, a torrential rain is what we need, or maybe lots of them, one after the other. Ingrid |
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| Thank you, Ingrid. Yes ma'am, watching it slowly crisp hurts. The deer left it alone. The gophers left it alone. The bugs left it alone. The heat from the street and the competition from the birches and camphor trees next door as well as the blamed creeping fig on the wall behind them didn't seem to slow them down. Now, they're just giving up the ghost. They kept people away from the wall so no one was ever tempted to climb over and they provided some depth, color and texture to the frontage. I guess "brown" is a color and "crisp" is textural. I stand out back and look at all the browning trees on the facing canyon wall. It's sickening and it's happening all over. I'd settle for a couple of week-long, gentle rains where nothing runs off. Kim |
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- Posted by Kippy-the-Hippy 10 Sunset 24 (My Page) on Wed, Oct 8, 14 at 0:47
| I scored this week on some nice big umbrellas from Costco this week. Next heat wave that I can stick around moms and I have some good shade for some of the plants, but even better I can move the shade triangle I got and place where it can block some of the heat and reflected light from the house on to the roses. I have a few with scorched leaves from the heat wave. Shade cloth might be something that works for you too http://www.amazon.com/Idirectmart-Triangle-Shade-Sail-Inches/dp/B004OQ4SLI/ref=sr_1_2?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1412743328&sr=1-2&keywords=shade+cloth+triangle Also there might be some ideas on a local website that might help. Might be time to "shower with a friend" aka rose bush too |
Here is a link that might be useful: water wise sb
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- Posted by mendocino_rose z8 N CA. (My Page) on Wed, Oct 8, 14 at 8:34
| I think it might be worth looking into a filtering system. I know very little about it but it doesn't cost anything to look. |
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| Yes, I too am noticing changes in the garden--which I have gardened in since the late 1950s (when I was but a wee laddie), and the preceding remarks explain the probable cause(s) well. Primroses used to thrive for me, in the shade; now I'm discarding the last few, because they just can't take it any more. My specimens of several varieties of triphylla-type Fuchsias, having survived the Fuchsia Mites, are beginning to succumb. Even the daylilies, of which I have long had a nice collection, seem to have lost their characteristic vim. --And so on with many plants I've known for many years which are now unable to cope. Most pertinent to this group is what I've observed about my roses: For decades, there would be a mass bloom of the roses at some point in the Spring, usually around Easter. This stopped happening for me in the early or mid-1990s, even though the culture I gave them was no different from what it had been; now--be the rose bush young, be the rose bush old--they unenthusiastically produce a few flowers, with equally unenthusiastic repeat over the course of the year. This is also likely why I seem to have lost my ability to get cuttings to root in the last ten or fifteen years, though my technique is no different than it was when I used to have excellent luck with them. These are discouraging days in Horticulture! Fortunately, Cacti are also one of my long-time interests, and they seem to be taking all this in stride... |
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| odinthor, that's interesting that your mass spring bloom began to decline in the nineties. For me I think it was three years ago that I noticed this unwelcome phenomenon. Not being a cacti enthusiast and even the so-called drought tolerant plants aren't very tolerant any more I suppose I'll have to learn to admire bare dirt.... Ingrid |
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- Posted by sherryocala 9A Florida (My Page) on Fri, Oct 10, 14 at 17:46
| Kim, regarding the "water purifier", my dh who is handy but not a plumber cut into our water line and added a whole house filter (approximately $60 from Lowe's) to rid my organic garden of the chlorinated city water. It only took an afternoon so even if you had a plumber do it, it wouldn't be real expensive. The filters aren't real cheap but they only have to be changed every 90 days. An added bonus was the much improved taste of our water. Since he has been unable to change the filter, we now use bottled water... And the garden has been flushed out with the abundant rain so I guess it isn't effected by the chlorine. Sherry |
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| That could certainly be a possibility, Sherry. Thank you! BTW, it's nice to see you again. I hope everything is straightening out with your husband so you can get back to the "normal, high-pitched crazy"! Kim |
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| I mentioned that the buildup of minerals in foliage was worse this year than I have ever seen it. On the plants most-effected by that, leaves suddenly turned yellow, and began to drop -- almost as if we'd had a sharp little freeze. The canes are healthy. It's just as if the mineral-laden leaves had at last become a liability. Reve d'Or and Lady Ann Kidwell did something like this earlier in the year, and have since grown new foliage, and returned to blooming. Jeri |
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- Posted by melissa_thefarm NItaly (My Page) on Sat, Oct 11, 14 at 2:39
| It's good to see you back, Sherry. Melissa |
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