Our weird weather continues. Seems like it’s either too hot, too cold, too rainy or too dry and we keep getting into the top 10 for something. In that vein, this June we are having the 5th wettest June ever and we still have a few days to go. At my house we’ve had 6 inches of rain so far, with some in the rain gauge to be read tomorrow morning.
(Have I said how much I love my Rain Log app for my iPhone and my rain gauge?)
So how is the yard faring? The swale between the yards is working as it should to let water run down the block. This is also the “no-man’s land” of the yard. It serves it’s purpose of shedding water and is well hidden by a row of blue spruce (raised up to keep their water-unfriendly roots dry). I’m amazed my fence is still standing after all these years of rain.
It’s also days like this that I’m glad I have my tall slogger rain boots to check everything out in.
We have channels of water that run around the beds. They seem to drain as they should and keep the water from puddling on the plants and trees.
We’ve had a new problem the last few years with the neighbor’s water washing right over our side beds instead of towards the back. This was causing some terrible erosion, so we added some timbers last summer to redirect the water to the back swale where it should be. Seems to be working perfectly!
We also had trouble with our shed which is situated in the low spot of the yard. We had it raised up and now it’s as dry as can be and the door will stop rotting away. I’ll write about that soon. It was quite a job, but a necessary one. Looks like we need to do some repair work to pretty it up a bit.
Then there was the pile of clematis flower that got knocked off. The early blooming clematis “Sugar Candy” was in full bloom, but this is what it looked like after a particularly bad rain storm.
I was just in Yosemite National Park in California and the difference between our lush, if not water saturated, greenery and their parched, drought stricken landscape was dramatic. I would gladly share!
Looks like you are handling the excess water beautifully. It seems like things never dried out in June. Will July be the same? I hope not. Better than a drought, I guess.
I think neither extreme is good. Who knows what July will bring????
Glad you have not had damage…been raining here with big storms that have rained down 16 inches so far in June….been a weird year with weather here too.
Wow, that’s a lot of rain! South of me has had closer to that this month. Lots of flooding. Hope your gardens are surviving and hopefully July will just be normal.
Stephi, I hadn’t realized you were having such wet weather. My area in NC has been just the opposite. Extremes are difficult to deal with, but sounds like you’ve managed some creative solutions. Here’s hoping you get a reprieve. Susie
Susie, I also hadn’t realized you’ve been having a dry summer so far. Extremes are hard. Let’s all hope for some average temperatures and precipitation this July!