Let's play a little game, okay? I'll show you a photo, and you just have to tell me if it's 1) a water feature or 2) a problem caused by a week of rain.
I have a problem with drooping, floppy plants right now. Everything was fine until the rains started last weekend -- three weeks or more of dry weather makes you forget what "fun" midwest storms can be for a gardener. Everybody growing upright, a bit dry but otherwise happy. Until the rain.
So much of the country is having a bad time with extreme weather, it seems wrong to complain about our own weather here in St. Louis. No blizzards, tornadoes, or anything else violent, but we have been getting more than our fair share of rain.
Summer was fairly dry in St. Louis, as my water bills will indicate -- there was much hose dragging around a few months ago. Now though, things have changed. Since September 1 we are something like 8" above our normal rainfall amount.
Yesterday was a weird weather day for much of the middle of the country. Here in St. Louis it was unexpectedly warm, the temperature of 72ºF (22ºC) at least 10ºF higher than forecast, and wow, was it windy!
Well, it seems all of my worry about the bamboo leaves all dying or even having the culms die was completely unfounded.
You know you're in for an interesting day when you open the front door at 7:00 AM and outside is warmer than in, and almost hot, humid air rushes into the house. It was 70ºF (21ºC) at that time, and I knew two things: first that I was going to take advantage of the warmth to get more garden tasks finished, and second that it was probably going to storm.
I didn't think the rain was ever going to stop! The prospect of a weekend in the garden after a few days of rain turned into a Saturday watching TV and a Sunday working in the wetness.
April has always been the pivotal Spring month where I've lived, warming up and seeing everything start to waken. The saying "April showers bring May flowers" is always in my head when it rains.
The remnants of hurricane Isaac hit the Midwest this weekend, and here in St. Louis we've had a couple of days of on again, off again showers -- often heavy. For the first time since probably the start of June I have a seriously wet garden.
We finally some relief from the drought. I think this is the first morning this summer that I had to cancel garden plans because of rain!
After at least six weeks of no significant rainfall in my yard -- possibly much longer but I'm afraid to research -- we finally got rain! It started early in the morning with thunderstorms, then it rained steadily pretty much the entire day.
The last two nights we've had some good, hard rains in St. Louis. By my measurements it's been about 2 1/2 inches total, which is a very nice soaking for two days. The nice thing about storms that pass through in the night is that the garden gets watered, but the day can still be nice and sunny and dry.
After only a day and a half of sunshine, the clouds returned yesterday afternoon, and the rain started up again as soon as it got dark. So today there's nothing to do but watch the garden through rain-spotted windows.
Another grey, wet morning, as the rain defeats my weekend gardening plans again. Over the past week it's rained on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and now Sunday. Looks like more rain forecast for tomorrow too.
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