Each Little World

A crazy gardening year

Mark recently ran into a gardening friend of mine who asked him if I thought it had been a crazy gardening year. "Oh, Linda thinks every year is a crazy gardening year," was his reply. When he told me this I got rather annoyed until I realized he might be right. It seems like every gardener I know in person — or in the blogging world — is fixated on weather and climate more and more. How can we not be when the weather we were used to and designed our gardens for is fluctuating in ways we've rarely experienced in the past. 

This year we lost a lot of trees, shrubs and perennials that were anywhere from a year to 15 years old from a cold winter with no snow until too late to help. Then the cold lingered and we had our biggest snowstorm of the season on April 18th!

Then there was the rain. The official count is a good 10 inches of precipitation above  normal for the year — and they measure it at a location that did not get the 10+ inches that our side of town received in August. So who knows how much my garden actually got? And now we are having days where the high temperatures is anywhere from 10 to 20 degrees below normal. 

In 2017 I was complaining about above average rainfall and rain events until it suddenly stopped at the end of the summer and we had a dry and extremely hot autumn. 2016 was a year to remember for all the right reasons. Mark and I both tried to enjoy beautiful days with just the right amount of heat, sun and rain — knowing it might be a long time before we would again experience such a year. Just how long is anyone's guess.

Look up, look down: Final fall color

Hamamelis virginiana, aka fall-blooming witch hazel, is putting on its annual show right now. But if you grow witch hazels then you know about their annoying habit of often flowering before they've dropped their leaves. Yellow flowers among large yellowing leaves are hard to enjoy when you can barely see them. I discovered these wispy blooms by accident when I glanced overhead to see if the big maples in the front garden still had any leaves left on them. Their show is over for the year; not so in the back garden.

Our paperbark maple (Acer griseum x nikoense) was aglow on at the end of last week. It is typically the last deciduous tree to color up in the fall.  

But it lost most of its leaves with an overnight cold spell. 

I have to admit I was rather shocked to come out in the morning to this scene.

Turns out the Moosewood maple did the same thing.

Moosewood, Acer pennsylvanicum, is known for it large leaves and butter yellow fall color. That's Carex socialis 'Coahoma' in the foreground. 

The yellow leaves at the rear are from one of our stripe bark maples, A. tegmentosum 'White Tigress'. These leaves are so large that I will try to rake them up as they will mat down in a way that can harm emerging plants in the spring. 

It rained on the weekend and this was the scene out the library window on Sunday morning. These sugar maple leaves all came from the tree in our neighbor's garden. Looking at this view I guess we do still have more leaves that need to come down; namely the curly willow and the old apple tree. 

But the weather is definitely changing and it looks like the last fall cleanup is going to be done during much colder weather. Ugh. 

Toad lilies: The very latest bloomers

In honor of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: October, 2018:

Toad lilies have always been the last flowers to bloom in my garden. This autumn''s frequent rain, cool temperatures and gray skies have pushed their bloom time back even later. Look at this gorgeous clump of big fat buds ready to burst open. But this week's overnight lows are liable to end this display before it's had a chance to begin. 

Another clump has one lone flower open. 

This is a different variety of Trycirtis hirta called 'Miyazaki'. The stems are more arching which makes them perfect for this location. I don't know if it's the variety or the sheltered spot under an evergreen tree that makes this clump always bloom before the others. 

Whatever the reason, this clump is always beautiful and is the one I can count on to flower before frost cuts it down. 

T. 'Lightening Strike' and T. 'Lemon Twist' are shorter varieties that also bloom early enough that frost is not an issue. 

How quickly we forget . . .

There are certain weather-related events that I won't ever forget:

• The drought of 1988 when I had just started to garden and to give the the weather my full attention. 
• Or Madison's 100 inches of snow the winter of 2007/08 (below)

• Or the year the big Austrian pine twisted in a winter storm and came down on Mark's beautiful fence without damaging it all. 

• This will be the year when we got 10+ inches of rain in one day and 14 inches in a month. 

While these numbers are memorable I'd already forgotten that it rained to a greater or lesser degree on 23 out of 29 days in May of 2017.

These stats seem to suggest that when it rains it's heavier and more frequent. Whether these numbers are just fluke occurrences or the harbingers of climate change, only time will tell — a very long time. But these numbers also suggest that I need to pay more attention to what's happening in my own back yard and to keep better records of these weather events than just random blog entries. 

October's rainfall total as of Monday, Oct. 8th, 2018: 4.46 inches (11.32 cm.) — or a month's typical amount in a matter of days. At the moment, this seems to be our new normal. I'm worried that the new plants I put in the garden this fall may rot before they've had a chance to root.  

Climate change and gardeners

If you read my blog then you know Wisconsin has been on the receiving end of record rainfall. Pam Penick of Digging notes that Austin has just had its third hottest summer in its history. Loree Bohl of Danger Garden says that in Portland, where she lives, June/July/August will go down as the 2nd hottest summer on record there. The period of May through August 2018 is the driest they've ever experienced in Portland as well.

Three gardeners in three very different and widely separated areas of the country all experiencing the same thing: A change from what was once considered "normal" weather in our areas. All of us are having weather that is generally unpleasant both for us and our gardens. 

One of the members of the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society posted this article about gardening and climate change from Fine Gardening magazine. The piece was written by Bert Cregg, PhD, who is an associate professor in the horticulture department of Michigan State University. I have a feeling many of us will discover we're all becoming familiar with what Cregg describes. Many of us may also discover we're already doing the things he suggests as ways to mitigate some of these issues. A disturbing article about a disturbing situation, no matter how you look at it. 

Still wet . . .

but not actually raining at the moment. It did rain 0.32" (0.81 cm.)overnight but the forecast for the next week does not show any rain or storms. I realize that can change in an instant but I am enjoying the moment. Still way too wet to work in the garden and the mosquitoes are rampaging from this continuous moisture. Just got an email that my first bulb order is about to ship. I'm ready but the ground definitely is not. 

Weather stats

I don't know any gardeners who aren't fanatical about the weather. We're always going on about something. But now and then the weather is perfect: Numerous times during 2015 Mark and I stopped to say how wonderful the weather was. From start to finish it was a memorable year for all the best reasons. It looks like 2018 will be memorable for all the wrong reasons. 

Given our record-breaking "rain bomb" on August 20th, I decided to look in my garden journal to see just what kind of rain we've had this summer. I put our rain gauge out at the beginning of April so that's when my count begins. Typically the garden is best if it gets one inch (2.54 cm.) of rain per week. These are our monthly totals with some commentary.

April: 7.2"  That amount fell on one day.

May: 9.09" with 3.21" falling in one week

June: 9.54" Three big rain storms in June with 2.10" falling on a Sunday followed by 4.15" at the end of the week with hail and high winds. 

July: 3.37" but 2.07" of this was in the first few days of the month, making the rest of the July dry enough I had to water.

August: 14.39" but 10" inches of that occurred in 24 hours or slightly less. 

Rainfall is measured officially at the airport on the other side of town from our house. Their August total is 10.40" compared to a normal August amount of 4.27". 

So far this year Madison has officially had 36.03" of rain compared to a norm of 24.82". 

The total at our house is 42.16". So we got 6+ inches more than the official total so far this year, or 17" more than is typical by this time of year. Got all that?!

Though the westside of Madison where we live got the big August 20th rain, it is the east side of our city that is having flood problems due to lake levels. Some of the problem can be linked to the fact that folks who live on the lakes want artificially high water for their docks and boating, according to a recent article from the UW's Limnology Lab.  

Statewide, the bigger issue is that our governor has gutted the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources of both its power and its scientists and environmentalists. That has given the Republican-controlled state legislature the ability to remove wetland protection from 100,000 acres as well as the Foxconn construction site by Lake Michigan, according to Jim Rowan's blog, The Political Environment. 

A few post-storm shots

We've had about another 1 and 1/2 inches of rain since the big gusher last week, giving us an August total of 14.39 inches (36.55 cm.). 

Trees and shrubs seem fine with all the rain as usually August is the start of much drier weather. Lots of perennials, however, are flopped on the ground or just about melting away from all the moisture. I have a couple of areas where I am hoping to get a lot of work done this fall. In fact, there are plants on order for early September shipment so I am hoping we start to dry out soon. A few things made it through the big rain with flying colors: 

Kirengeshoma palmata koreana group, Paeonia japonica and a bright pink plastic bucket of lily bulbs waiting to be replanted. 

Paeonia japonica seeds are interesting from the moment they begin to form. But they make a pretty dramatic and colorful statement once they split open. Blue or black seeds are fertile and the red are infertile. 

The flowers on Kirengeshoma palmata koreana group are more outward facing than those on the straight Kirengeshoma palmata which tend to face down.

Thalictrum 'Splendide' from Digging Dog Nursery is only two years old and is easily 6 feet (1.82 meters) high, covered in flowers and still standing tall. 

Thalictrum rochebrunianum 'Lavender Mist' is a long bloomer that needs little or no staking. One stem is only now starting to lean down a little. 

The plant that has been brought down by the rain and soaked soil is my Tiger Eye Sumac. I may start removing some of the lower big leaf stems to try to lighten it up in hopes it will pop up again. 

All in all the house, garden and the two of us came through the worst rain we've ever experienced with few serious problems and little damage. We can't complain given the ongoing weather-related problems all around us. 

 

Good news and bad news

The good news is that today marks ten years since I first began my blog, Each Little World. Since that seems to me like something worth celebrating, I'm taking the day off! 

The bad news is that more rain is forecast for today with potential thunderstorms Sunday and Monday. Even if we don't get any record amounts of rain, much of the city of Madison and western Dane County can ill afford even another inch of water. My side of the city took the brunt of Monday's storm but the opposite side of Madison is now taking the brunt of the aftermath. The lakes on both sides of the isthmus are rising, water is being released from the Yahara River via the Tenney Locks into Lake Monona to keep the dam from giving way. City officials said that they have no historic reference points for a rain event like the one we just had that dumped up to 10 inches of rain on the city’s West Side. They are preparing for the worst.

I posted this picture not long ago as it is one of the illustrations the Wisconsin State Journal used in their recent series on the Yahara chain of lakes. You can easily see why everyone is worried about more rain. And you can read about how this is part of long-term climate change in this blog post from the UW-Madison Limnology Lab. They study inland water systems and have the records to show what is happening on our lakes and in the Midwest in general. It is not an encouraging story but one well worth reading. The city is providing free sand and sandbags for folks on East side (photo below) but we will need more than sandbags to deal with what appears to be our new normal.

 

BOTH PHOTOS FROM THE WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL NEWSPAPER

Thanks . . .

for all the concerned comments and emails that I received checking on us in light of Madison's record rainfall and flooding. 

We were very, very lucky compared to what happened around us, including 15 inches of rain further west and major flooding and damage. I leaned a lot from this, but mostly how dangerous your own street and neighborhood can quickly become. 

The big take-away: Do not drive into a flooded street. You cannot tell how deep the water is or what may be trapped or swirling around in there. As the police kept saying: "Turn around; don't drown."

The only storm-related death appears to be the drowning that happened just blocks from our house on a street that I use as a shortcut all the time. The car got swept into a culvert. Good samaritans tried to get the three people in the car out safely, but the one gentleman was swept away. He was exactly my age, so this is a very sobering event and one I will not take lightly. If this kind of weather — my engineer brother-in-law called it a "rain bomb" — is what we will see more of in the future in the Midwest, all I can say is let's be careful out there.