Saturday, February 8, 2014

The Strangest Winter Garden and Drought Fears

This has been a winter of extremes. For many of you it has been the coldest and snowiest in recent memory but for us it has been very warm until a few days ago and sadly the driest.


My flowers however have thrived. Never really dying back or even stopping their bloom cycle.



Things have remained green and with some help from my chickens and the fertilizer they get from my compost tea, I have enjoyed flowers all winter long.








Sadly, though I do not know if I will have much in bloom this summer. We are in a severe drought and I have heard mandatory water rationing may begin here very soon. I already try to conserve so I am not sure what I will be able to keep alive this summer. I am not planting any new pots of flowers this spring like I normally do. I will place priority on keeping my trees and foundation plants alive using grey water. I pray we have more rain this spring. 

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14 comments:

  1. So different from Michigan where I live, and where my flower pots are covered by a foot of snow. I hope you get much needed rain as the year progresses! Meanwhile, enjoy those beautiful flowers! :)

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  2. A friend of mine in Oregon is having the same problem with lack of moisture. She's a big skiing enthusiast and her skiing has really been curtailed this year.

    Here in Chicago we are already at 60" of snow, which is double what we normally get for the entire winter.

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  3. We are looking for a rain barrel so we can store gray water to keep our plants alive. I have a bunch of beach buckets on display on the porch and they filled with water after our rain. I don't need to water right now since everything is saturated, so I want to save the water.

    I do hope we get more rain - the rain on Thursday was so welcome.

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  4. I've seen stories on the news about the California drought, it is awful. In Oklahoma, we are also in a several years long drought even though 2013 was a very wet year. It takes a lot of rain to get caught up.

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  5. Oh my, I can only dream of flowers growing in my garden right now. Nothing here but the white stuff. thank you for the joyous pictures of flowers ;-)

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  6. Let's hope that you will get some needed rain soon. But not too heavy as it would just run off. Just some nice rainy, soaking rains.

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  7. Elaine, we are in a drought area too, and we already conserve so we don't know how we could cut more in water use. It rained last Sunday and when our minister mentioned the rain people clapped and cheered. We love every bit of rain!

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  8. We never got our winter in in the high desert of Arizona. Our temps are running at least 10 degrees higher than average and we haven't had much moisture at all. Hopefully the monsoons this summer will come early and bring us lots of water to fill my rain barrels.

    Your flower are so beautiful!

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  9. Hope you get some rain real soon! Your flowers are just gorgeous.

    Judy

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  10. Really wish that we could send some of this unrelenting precipitation your way! I read on the news this morning that CA finally got some rain in various areas but it in no way is enough ...here is hoping for more to head your way

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  11. I just prayed for rain for your area, Elaine. It really is the year of extremes, weather-wise.

    Mary

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  12. We have been in a drought here in TX for the last three years. Most cities here have mandatory water restrictions all year now. Having a nice lawn of grass is a thing of the past for us in my city. Very different from how I grew up. Hand watering permits pot plants, but that's about it for where I live. Several of the big lakes have turned in to puddles now. We don't have fires like your state though, so I hope you get some relief. My thoughts are with you.

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  13. Parts of Australia are in severe drought too.
    Merle..........

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  14. I've already lost about 3 fruit trees and possibly another tree even though I watered them. I'm with you, I don't know how much more I can conserve. And like you say, I won't be buying flowers for pots either! But will keep some herbs going.

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