Here in Connecticut, our gardens have barely had an opportunity to dry out this season! Many of my perennials seem to have completely given up on maintaining an upright posture, but lettuce, kale, and other cooler weather vegetable garden plants have had a great extended season. What are you finding to be the pluses and minuses of this rainy year we’ve had? Has anyone been dealing with flooding in the garden?
Gardening Answers
Gardening Questions
Member Exclusives
Fine Gardening Magazine
Fine Gardening – Issue 218
Replies
In Vermont, the only plus I can think of is not having to spend an hour dragging the hose around for daily watering. The beds with even the smallest slope have had the mulch wash out into the grass and walkways. Mophead hydrangea blooms have been weighed down so heavily (multiple times) that the branches have either broken or are completely bent in half. Ditto the cosmos and phlox.
I'm wondering about fertilizing the containers. Normally, I use a water soluble fertilizer once a week, but with the amount of rain we've been getting it seems like it just would just get flushed out. Any suggestions?
I prefer it to drought, but we've had enough! I've resorted to slow release fertilizer this year. Usually, I do a fish or balanced liquid fertilizer for potted plants, but with the very regular rain, I haven't had much opportunity to water!
One of the benefits is that the grass in every lawn I see is lush and full and bright green! Usually by this time of August it's all gone brown and crispy. The downside is that I've had to bring all my potted cacti and succulents back inside--Usually they are fine being outdoors for the summer but they have gotten so much rain that they haven't dried out for almost a month and I'm worried about them rotting!
I was just working on getting mine in yesterday. Maybe too late. I lost a Haworthia and an aloe already.