It's so dry here that rain doesn't always get down as far as the plant roots here, much less deeper. But we have aquifers, so there's water way way way down somewhere. Today there was precipitation...kind of like a bunch of kids with squirt guns, not enough to measure in the rain gauge. Guess the squirt gun kids got bored and stopped squirting too soon!

Linda ....

I know what you mean about dry. To me, if feels so very strange. Not even weeds are growing well.

I never count on rain to water my plants because the foliage of the plants blocks the rain from reaching the soil in their root zone. Of course, we never get rain up here during the summer months.

When I lived in San Diego, my neighbors laughed at me when they saw me watering my container garden in what they call rain down there. None of the rain got into the containers. All of it, what there was of it, was on the foliage of the plants ...

The good news is that plants will take in moisture through the foliage, too. Not enough to hydrate the plant, but it does help.

Smiles,
Lyn

Hang in there, Lyn! Drought like most weather phenomenons are usually cyclical. I was in college for the Calif. Drought of 1975-77, or at least I think it was over in 1977. I remember I was able to ride my moped without fear of rain for 2 years. We had bricks in our toilets, new shower heads that dribbled out water ounces at a time and then on top of that, odd/even gas days.

Eventually, everything recovered. The answer was to seed the clouds back then. Well, I guess they thought for some reason those clouds would stay put and rain on us. Instead, they moved and rained and flooded someplace else in the worse way!

Cheryl ... I remember that drought. What a mess. Don't forget the buckets in the showers to catch every drop of water and hauling them out to water stressed plants.

Up here in the mountains of northern California, it has never been this bad. I am fortunate that I don't have to worry about water restrictions because I live in a county-of-origin for water, but I didn't understand what was going on deep down in the soil of the slope where my home is located.

Since I've changed the way I am watering, I am able to keep enough moisture in the top levels of the soil for the plants, but it sure dries out quickly even with a different mulch material because the water is being slurped down through the usual passages where the underground streams would be flowing. They have dried up, so I just have to do things differently. As long as my trees have come back I am not near as worried as I was.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Smiles,
Lyn