It's too damn hot

Who knew that July would arrive in mid June?

I didn't get out in the garden much this week. Even at 6:30 am, it was too hot to do much. But I did make progress, and today is the first cooler day this week, and the first of 4 lovely days forecast for this loooong weekend (I get Monday off work too).

I finally planted stuff that has been sitting in the shade waiting. I watered the flats regularly, and I am pleased to report that they all survived.

At the June sales, I bought a flat of mixed annual Salvia, to give some more punch to the front bed. The mini roses are in full bloom, and beautiful. The mixed salvia will blend beautifully; cream, bright red, coral and deep purple.

I also bought new perennials for the raised bed, to replace things that we lost in the August drought last year. I chose them strictly because of the "drought tolerant" notice on their tags. They are: Gaillardia (Blanket flower), which will be bright yellow with dark red centres, Eidelweiss, and Helianthemum (Rock Roses), a double apricot variety. I put in 5 of these, hoping that they will spread and form a sort of ground cover between the taller clusters.

My new Double Decker Coneflower is starting to bloom. And although we lost a lot of Rudbeckia and Echinacea last year (we planted a variety of them), one of the unidentified plants that we let grow apprears to be a Shasta Daisy.

I also put in the IV drip watering system, and although I will need more tubing and drippers, it looks like it will be perfect for this bed. It's too far away from either rainbarrel or hose to get regular watering easily, I think this will be the solution.

Photos to follow, I finally broke down, and put a sprinkler on the garden today, but this was the first time this year, so the rainbarrels have really paid off in avoiding the use of city water to a large extent.

A low blow, and a test

I went to set up a sprinkler on the front lawn. I'd like to prevent the grass from dying completely, although I am not obsessive about green. We've had a week of hot weather, with another in the forecast, and no rain.

Someone stole half our hose. What a low blow! We had two hoses connected together, now we only have one. It used to reach to the far corner of the property, now it doesn't.

On another related topic. The rainbarrel was empty. We don't have rain forecast for a week. I used the hose to fill it up. It took 20 minutes. That will water the garden for a week, non stop. Using the sprinkler, it used to take 4 hours to water enough to keep it going for a week. Even without rain, the rainbarrel irrigation system is a wonderful water conservation method!