{"id":326,"date":"2009-07-17T14:11:43","date_gmt":"2009-07-17T19:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/?p=326"},"modified":"2010-02-11T16:42:27","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T21:42:27","slug":"sizzling-summer-in-austin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/2009\/07\/17\/sizzling-summer-in-austin\/","title":{"rendered":"Sizzling Summer in Austin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every summer for the past ten or so I have said to myself, “surely this summer won’t be as hot and dry as last summer”, but unfortunately that just hasn’t turned out to be the case. According to Jim Spencer at KXAN<\/a>, the summer of 2009 has already been the hottest summer on record so far, with more than 30 days over 100 degrees F. Add to that the fact that we have also had almost no rain for the past six weeks (see the drought map below-we live where the arrow is pointing), we remain in the worst drought that we have seen here for years. All in all, this makes for some terribly challenging growing and gardening conditions.
\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

US Drought Monitor Map, July 14, 2009<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nI have been spending most of my gardening time, between 7 and 9am each day, watering and mulching in an effort to keep our plants alive. Very few plants are thriving or growing at this point, but a few still look pretty good.<\/p>\n

I took some shots of the courtyard so you can see how it is developing. This is the second summer for the plants in the courtyard beds, and the first for the plants in the beds under the trellis. As you can see, the cross vines are up to the trellis level, the grapevine on the last trellis post is atop the trellis, and all of the plants in the trellis beds are doing nicely, considering the terrible heat and lack of rain (we have installed drip irrigation in these beds though). The coreopsis and echinacea are still blooming, and I like the native morning glory spilling out of the bed by the widelia. The plants tucked into the rocks in the grotto area are also starting to fill in, adding to the allure of the space. We have tadpoles in the grotto pond now, and a toad as well.
\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Gulf Fritillary on ‘Full Moon’ Coreopsis<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

‘Full Moon’ Coreopsis, ‘Sunrise’ Echinacea, White Star Morning Glory, Agave<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Courtyard From Balcony<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Courtyard North Bed From Balcony<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Courtyard Trellis and Retaining Wall<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Grotto Area<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Vinca and Penta in Trellis Wagon Wheel Bed<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nWe had been using this trough as a dog bath, but I decided to re-purpose it as a planter adjacent to the deck in a place that gets dappled shade all day. I chose a couple of hostas, ferns, and vincas to grow in it, and so far they are all doing quite well.
\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Trough Planter by Back Deck<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nOn the other side of the trough planter, up on the deck, we created a seating area for relaxing as we cook our dinners on the deck during these hot summer days (my oven went out, which means grill and stovetop are my only cooking options for now).
\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Seating Area on Back Deck<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Seating and Cooking Area on Back Deck<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nThe outlook for next week is for cooler temps and maybe some rain. Boy would that be a welcome change!
\n
\nUpdate: We had a nice little shower late this afternoon, and at dusk, we were visited by a skunk.
\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Skunk in the Back Yard at Dusk<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nNamaste.
\nCarol<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every summer for the past ten or so I have said to myself, surely this summer won’t be as hot and dry as last summer, but unfortunately that just hasn’t turned out to be the case. According to Jim Spencer at KXAN<\/a>, the summer of 2009 has already been the hottest summer on record so far, with more than 30 days over 100 degrees F. Add to that the fact that we have also had almost no rain for the past six weeks (see the drought map below), we remain in the worst drought that we have seen here for years. All in all, this makes for some terribly challenging growing and gardening conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,6,3,7,16,17],"tags":[349,265,196,208,264,229,263],"class_list":["post-326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-butterfly","category-flowers","category-gardening","category-landscaping","category-native-plants","category-nature","tag-butterfly","tag-coreopsis","tag-courtyard","tag-gulf-fritillary","tag-penta","tag-trellis","tag-vinca"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phuiL-5g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326\/revisions\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}