Re: Drought!! ( was Caesalpinia sepiararia)

Tim Longville wrote:
> 
> Tim on the Solway Firth in the UK, where we're sweltering in unnatural
> heat and already starting to worry about drought (3 weeks and no rain:
> unheard of!).

Hi Tim
S'funny. Here we have just experienced a summer which must have been a
"Solway Firth lookalike" and you seem to be heading for one of our
"normal" summers. Lucky you. We are feeling quite depressed after seeing
so little sun. At least it is clear and blue this morning following our
first near-frost of autumn (1 degree C) last night.

You maybe need an instant lesson in heavy mulching and economical
watering. Re the latter we long ago learnt to irrigate at ground level
and not waste water by spraying it into the air. Many people here put in
permanent buried plastic pipes with trickle or other outlets at
intervals and we have a system of this kind in our veg beds (which in
conjunction with heavy mulching needs to be run about once a week when
there is no rain), but for the rest of the garden we use a soaker hose
which is designed to slowly weep water throughout its length. Snaking
through a shrubbery or flower border, it does a very effective job in a
surprisingly short time and with minimal wastage. We just have the one
quite long length which attaches to the end of a normal garden hose and
we move this from bed to bed so each gets visited approximately weekly. 

As to mulching, we put on just anything we can lay hands on such as
grass clippings, autumn leaves and shredded prunings and also  (mainly
for the fruit trees and raspberries) buy in pea straw. We prefer this to
cereal straw as it tangles nicely and rarely gets carried off by the
wind. We try to keep a layer 2-4" thick in all areas, but this means a
good bit of vigilance. Citrus trees are particularly demanding of
moisture and our lemon and grapefruit are specially protected over their
entire root zone by a mulch of large beach pebbles and other flat
stones. This catches a good deal of dew and reduces the need for extra
moisture considerably as you can imagine. 

I suppose the other thing your garden might just need is protection from
sunburn!!
I don't think they have yet invented a sunscreen cream for plants have
they??

Enjoy your sun while you can anyway, and don't forget the sunscreen for
your own epidermis anyway <G>

Cheers

Moira
-- 
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, New Zealand. (on the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
Lat. 41:16S Long. 174:58E. Climate: Mediterranean/Temperate
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