Re: Hot wind

 

 Damien,

I would guess from your description of the effects of your sustained hot breeze, that you have not really lost anything in your garden, but are instead seeing windburnt foliage.  This may look dead, but if you can wait it out, and ensure that the root zones of the newly planted shrubs are moist, you should get complete recovery.  If you are growing dry, however, and cannot supply additional watering, you may lose some plants.  I don't know when you planted the rosemary, but if they had the benefit of winter rains and a late fall planting, I wouldn't think they should have been much affected, unless you had marginal winter rainfall this past winter.  In my client's gardens where minimal irrigation is practiced, (mostly due to lack of funds for an automatic irrigation system), I never plant anything except in late fall, to maximize the winter rain benefit.  That and mulching heavily and a low, or no fertilizer regime is usually sufficient to get the! d! ! rought adapted plants off to a good start, but weather such as yours may require a helpful hand to compensate in the first summer or two.  I hope your garden recovers!


Julie wrote:
>
> That sounds dreadful. I do like your phrase "the hairdryer effect"--it
> could become a standard. So how hot was it?

It wasn't very hot by our standards. Probably only low 30s (cent). The
term wind is also a slight exageration. More a warm breeze. I think it
was specially harmful because (a) it was *continous* and (b) because our
natives haven't yet gone into Summer shutdown mode. I was particularly
surprised by the effect on a four-year old broom, Cytisus scoparius,
which was well establised and growing lustily. It just frazled it!

And which plants survived
> without ill effect?

There seem to be defined patches which are most affected. We have, for
instance, planted a hundred or so rosemary bushes over the past year.
Only those in certain areas have been affected. Same with young Arbutus! ! unedo. I presume the winds create flow patterns as they navigate through
obstacles such as trees, rocks and bushes. I'm novice gardener myself
but I understand that even in fairly small gardens you can map frost
prone "cold spots". I supose something similar can be done for our "hot
tunnels"!

Damian



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