Temperature And Rain

The hot weather and drought has finally broken here.  The last few days, the temperature has dropped and I have gotten almost 2" of rain.  The lawn, tomatoes, and flowers sure appreciate it!  Even the native wildflowers were struggling...

One good thing about the rain was that it fell in spurts over 3 days, so it all had a chance to soak in.  It can be depressing to get 2" of rain all at once and watching the storm drains carrying most of it away!

The temperature wasn't as bad as some places.  Ten days ago, it was this, though, and that was at 11:30 am.  It probably got worse in the afternoon.

 Temperature is a funny thing though.  I read a science article in the newspaper that said even accounting for the "heat index", a lower temperature in one region can be harsher than a higher temperature in another.  

I don't recall all the details, but it involved accumulated soil temperature, sunlight reflectivity, etc.  They gave specific examples, but basically sometimes 100 is worse than 105.  Old joke "It was so hot, I saw a starving coyote chasing a terrified rabbit.  And they were both walking!"

And as far as "plain old temperature" goes, I was in Ft Worth TX on Govt business once, and walking to lunch with a few local employees.  We passed a bank temperature/time display and I laughed, saying they should get their display fixed.  It said 110 and I was comfortable enough.  One of the local guys glanced at it and said it looked right.  Huh???

It was the low humidity (about 10-20% he said).  Wow, I am used to 60-80% humidity in July.  That sure makes a difference.

Three decades ago here, we would get several days each Summer over 100 and a lot of high 90s.  The lawn would get so hot and dry that the soil would crack open.  The grass was routinely brown July and August.  It hasn't been that bad for many years.  

It may be that my lawn soil and grass is much better than when I first moved here (to an undeveloped property).  The builder probably seeded it with really cheap grass and used cheap "fill dirt" to raise and level the lawn (and then drove heavy equipment all over it building the house).

One good organic lawn practice is to leave your grass clippings on the lawn.  Grass is the perfect fertilizer for grass.  By definition, grass clippings have exactly what grass needs.  And, no, it doesn't cause "thatch".  Thatch is a layer of dead and living surface grass roots, and from runners from grasses that spread outwards (bluegrass, bermuda, and bent).  I have been overseeing with fescue for 3 decades.

I don't want to get too far "into the weeds" here and bore you to death.  But causes of thatch include over-fertilization, frequent shallow watering (it brings roots to the surface), and poor and/or compacted soil.   

And let some clover grow in your lawn.  First, the bees will love you for it!  But maybe more importantly, clover roots grow deeper than grass roots.  They bring nutrients back up from deeper soil.  Those nutrients are stored in the clover leaves.  Then,  those nutrients are returned to the surface of the lawn, where the grass roots can get at them when you mow the lawn.    

Over the years, the cycle of nutrient replenishment and left-in-place organic matter improves even bad soil.  I can tell.  I planted a shrub and a tree sapling in the front yard last Fall.  When I looked at the holes, I could see that the top 3" were darker and richer than the soil below.  It used to be clay from the surface down...

Meanwhile, I am enjoying the cooler and rainier days this past week.  Usually, this week or two are the hottest and driest part of the year.  But the forecasts show a decent chance of rain most days for the next 2 weeks.  I sure hope they are accurate! 

Overseeding The Lawn

The guidelines for "overseeding the lawn say to cut the exiting grass down to 1".  I tried that.   The mower shimmied and shook!  It was actually a bit scary (seemed like the mower blade was coming loose or something).

I finally realized the blade area was just too filled with grass.  Apparrently, you can't cut grass that low in "mulching mode".   There was no where for all the cut grass to go!   So I raised it to 1.5".  Same thing.  2" was OK...

So now at least I have the grass cut low enough to cut it again (hopefully down to 1").  Why am I cutting it to 1" (you ask)?  Because newly-growing grass can actually be sucked up by a mower!  Weird but true!

But why am I doing this at all?  Grass spreads, right?  Not most.  The best grass for my part of the country is "turf-type tall fescue".  It clumps...   And insects and diseases kill some of them.  Which means new seeds every few years.  And I haven't done that for several years.

The good points about "turf-type tall fescue" are that it pretty tough grass and does well enough in full sun and partial shade (which pretty much defines my lawn), doesn't need much fertilizer, and is basically evergreen.

I mentioned "doesn't need much fertilizer".  Why not?  Well, what does a leafy plant need?  What it already has in itself, of course!  Grass has exactly what it wants most;  what it is already made up of.  Just leaving grass clippings on the lawn feeds the grass about 1/4 of what it needs to thrive.

It cracks me up to see neighbors carefully raking (or mower-bagging) thgeir grass-clippings.  And then putting them away in trash (or "yard-waste") bags.  And applying new (expensive and synthetic) fertilizer 3 times a year.  

And, BTW, they cut their grass too short.  Grass is sort of an equally "up and down" plant.  The taller the aboveground leaves, the deeper the roots.  So they are throwing away free "fertilizer", watering too often (and too shallowly all Summer), and buying "bad" fertilizer.

My lawn looks better and I hardly pay any attention to it.  The secret to some parts of the yard is knowing what you don't have to do...

Catching Up With The Yard, Part 1

I got some stuff done in the yard in June and July (which got undone as weeds regrew in August) but at least it isn't as bad as before.  Young new weeds are better that old tough ones. 

August was odd.  Too much rain.  I never thought I would complain about THAT!  My 1st 25 years here, the soil would get so dry that it would crack open like a lesser version of parched mudflats.

When some rain DID fall, it would immediately be sucked into the depths.  OK, unlike the above picture, I DID have lawn grass, but dry and brown.  Things have changed.  Partly, by my own efforts to leave grass clippings on the lawn which gradually improved the soil.  And NO, grass-clippings do not cause "thatch". Frequent but only surface watering causes the grass roots to spread on the top inch or so (where the water is), and THAT causes thatch.  And that leaves the grass roots subject to drying and death.

I have a healthy lawn almost year-round these days, and I seldom water it.  But when I do, it is a long deep watering.  Healthy grass can send roots down a foot or more if that is where the water is, and deeper water doesn't evaporate away as fast as surface water.

And I'll mention the clover is good for your lawn.  Clover sends roots down several feet and brings nutrients back up to the surface as the leaves die.  But bees like clover, and I sure don't mind helping the bees.  

As far as the lawn goes my rule is pretty much "If it is green, it is OK".  I don't even mind a few dandelions.  I don't have many because the grass is healthy and I cut it at 3" which is enough to smother/shadeout most weeds.  

I have neighbors who cut their grass to 1" and are constantly fighting with weak grass and happy weeds.  I'm pretty sure all the dandelions I DO have come from them.  Well, you know, most people don't exactly study about lawns.  They just do their best in their busy days.  I've always been interested in growing things though, and a lawn is like a garden.  

In fact, it is time to spread corn gluten meal on the lawn.  It inhibits seeds from developing and Fall is when the dandelion and most lawn weeds germinate.  And since it is also mostly nitrogen, the grass loves it.  Turf grasses in temperate zones grow roots best in Fall/Winter (which admittedly does seem odd for most plants) and good roots make healthy lawns.  But Spring bulbs are like that too, so they aren't unique.

But the corn gluten that prevents weed seeds from developing also affects grass seed.  So I generally cycle the  Fall treatments.  Two Septembers, the corn gluten, and the 3rd, new grass seed.  My preferred lawn grass is tall fescue and they are not spreaders.  So new seed has to be spread "sometimes".  

Every few years, I get a trailerful of free compost from the County and spread it around on the lawn.  It's really kind of a cool system.  You have yard debris like fallen branches and even Christmas trees and bring it to the Mulching Center.  

They pile it up into huge mounds for a couple years while it heats up and breaks down.  Then they move it to a 2nd spot for a final "churn" where it heats up again.  The result is something between mulch and compost.  It's not like finely-sifted compost of course, but it is ready for lawn and garden use.  

I like it for several reasons.  It's free to dump the raw stuff at the start and free to pick the finished product.  And if you go on Saturdays 8am-Noon, they use a bucket-loader to fill the trailer for free.  I LOVE "free".

The commercial nursery near the County mulch center probably hates that.  They get $40 per bucketload (my trailer holds 3).  But they offer sifted compost and a 50/50 blend of topsoil at the same price and sometimes I buy some of that.  And I only know of them because I have stooped there on my way to the County mulch center, so they get some business from me for that and sometimes I buy plants.

But back to the lawn.  I spread the compost over the lawn thinly most Springs.  Every little amount helps.  An 1/8" of compost helps the grass quite a lot (they are good at living on very little help (consider that most grasses worldwide live without human assistance)...

But all that is about the lawn.  I have problems with TOO much grass in other places.  More about that tomorrow... 

Dead Trees

Last year was hard on trees here.  Very dry.  And I only say that about MY local conditions.  It has been horribly drier in other places.  But I'm here and not there.  So I have my only experience "here".

Many years ago, I planted Golden Rain trees on either side of the driveway near the street.  I like "specimen" trees, small and interesting.  Golden Rain produces ping-pong-ball-sized seed packets in July that turn deep yellow as they mature.  The seeds never seem to grow, so I assume they are sterile hybrids.  And that is good; I don't want invasive plants.  But they ARE interesting in the middle of Summer (I have some other trees and shrubs for Spring and Fall color).

But, as I said, last year was harsh.  One is completely dead (it sent up one shoot from the trunk, but it didn't last long). 

 The other is half dead.  IT looks fine from the house, but dead from the street.  I'm not an arborist, but I have "enough" understanding of pruning small trees to remove the deadwood properly (undercut, then downward cut, then allow 1/2" "branch collar cut" for healing.

The surviving tree will look unbalanced for a few years, but the tree will send out new branches and I know how to direct them slightly if necessary.  

I also lost a beech tree.  I was slightly fooled at first, because there were vines growing on it and the vine leaves made it look like the tree was recovering.  When I pruned the vines at ground level, and THEY died, the sad truth was obvious.  

The tree was here when I moved in 35 years ago.  If you look closely, you will see that the top was literally "trunkated" but new branches arose to create a new canopy.  The tree can't very well have died of last year's drought; it is just a few feet from a drainage easement and there is "some" water flowing from the neighborhood above year-round.  That itself is actually amazing.  No matter how dry it gets, water flows...  I have no idea how old the beech tree was.  Maybe it just lived its full life.  But it sure had access to water!

Ground conditions can be strange.  When I first moved here, the lawn would get so dry that the soil would crack open.  I used to water the lawn, not realizing that it was natural for the grasses in my area to go dormant and grown in the hot days of July and August.  I've stopped doing that (waste of water and fertilizer to force the lawn to grow).

Instead, I started leaving the grass-clippings on the lawn and laid down corn gluten just twice a year (both a natural fertilizer and a weed suppressant).  I also bought a soil aerator I could drag behind the riding mower.  It brought up plugs of soil to the surface, allowed air and decaying grass in, and over the years, the soil greatly improved.  It hasn't cracked in a decade.  And the tall fescue grass stays green most Summers.  

A lawn-care company rep came by a few weeks ago.  I don't ever engage the services of "door-knockers", but I had time and was curious.  So we sat on the front step while he pointed out that I had a few weeds and a lot of clover in my lawn and his company could fix that.  I mentioned that I was an organic yardkeeper.  He said "we can improve your lawn".

My immediate thought was "welcome to my web, said the spider to the fly"...

So I asked him why my clover was so bad.  He said "it's not grass".  I pointed out that clover has deep roots and brings nutrients back up to the grassroot level, that it was pleasantly green, that it didn't need fertilizing, and that bees like clover blossoms.  

He got an annoyed look and decided he should move on to talk to other neighbors.  I LOVE doing stuff like that...

 

Rain

What an awful gardening year!  I would say there was NOTHING good about it, but the local reservoirs are probably filled to capacity and there have been years when they got dangerously low to the point of home watering restrictions.  And I will admit that my pole beans and cucumbers did pretty well in the raised beds (better drainage).

But the tomatoes died of fungal diseases, the carrots and leeks and broccoli crops never grew.  The spinach wouldn't even germinate.  And when you cant get radishes to grow, things are serious.

It was a cold wet Spring. July-October, we got over 2' of rain and November hasn't been much different.  It didn't rain for 5 days last week, but the ground is so saturated it didn't make any difference.  It isn't like we got the rain in large batches all at once; its just so CONSTANT!  And I got 3" of rain yesterday and today.

I cut down a lot of junk samplings  and undergrowth in late Spring and filled the trailer.  And there it sits.  The County yard debris recycling center (where they pile it all up in huge heaps that steam and decompose into a mulch/compost mix for homeowners to take for free and will use a bucket-loader to fill your trailer on Saturday mornings for free) is located in a slight depression.  

When it rains, the bulldozer that keeps turning over the piles for even decomposition churns it into a sea of mud.  I've been waiting for things to dry out enough to bring my debris there.  SINCE MAY!  And I have enough debris for 2 more loads.

Possibly the most consequential result is that my lawn is dying.  The soil is so wet for so long that there are large dead areas in the front.  The soil just "squishes" underfoot.  The last time I mowed it. it left muddy ruts.  Even just walking across it not only leaves footprints, the dead grass slides around underfoot.  If next year is relatively normal, I will have to do a lot of renewal.

The soil is good.  I'm organic and I use a mulching blade on the mower that turns grass into shreds in place.  There is no better fertilizer for grass than grass.  Well, grass has exactly what grass needs, right?  And I mow all the tree leaves too.  They get shredded into leaf dust after a few times around the lawn each Fall.   

I know the soil is good.  Each year I dig a hole randomly and look at the sides.  What used to be mostly clay is now darker and loamier after 3 decades.  And when I first moved here, the soil would crack open in Summer.  It doesn't do that anymore.

A couple years ago, a yard-maintenance agent came by to try to sell me on his services.  I invited him to look at the lawn.  He found some weeds of course.  He poked at the soil with a screwdriver and it went in nicely.  He actually complimented me on it.  And I don't do much.  The mulched grass clippings, the leaves.  An application of corn-gluten meal in Spring.  And overseeding every few years.  Cutting the grass 3" high.  I don't even water the lawn (except lightly when I overseed).

I may lose some decorative trees due to root-rot and drowning.  Last year was so dry I was forced to even water the decorative trees.  And this year they are soaked and drowning.  Yes, trees can drown; they actually need air.

Last year,  my 2 Golden Rain Trees lost most of their leaves by late Summer in spite of long drip watering.  This Spring, some branches were dead but there were new shoots from the trunk and a few living branches.  So I figured I would wait a year and seriously prune both of the deadwood next year.  

Well, half of one just broke off in a windstorm and I bet I could just break off more if I pulled on them.  But hope springs eternal.  I'll hope for their survival and gradual recovery.  I more worried about the Saucer Magnolia in the front lawn.   I would very much hate to lose that.  It is a joy to see blooming in the Spring.

If this precipitation pattern lasts another month or 2 I am going to see serious snowfall.  I better make sure the snowblower is working and move it into the garage.