Ingrid,

I look around my yard, some plants just look overgrown. RMV is showing its ugly pattern on three of my climbers. I am losing patience as the rose bed I want to re-do; due to my being in convalescence mode, and triple digit temperatures, will get a reprieve for 3 additional weeks. I see iron deficiencies galore. The spider mites are attacking 4 of my bands potted up to 1 gallon. I have been hosing them off almost daily and really do not know how much of a difference it is making. I contemplate using safer insecticidal soap; it is still hot, they are newbies, so it is a no. Everything in my garden at the moment, with the exception of Don Juan, is showing signs of an attack either from the heat, nutrient deprivation or spider mites. I do find optimism in that this weekend the plants will be receiving its pre- Fall dose of nutrients as per the soil testing results I should have any day now:). I will also cut back modern roses by one third. Most of my bands are healthy, and I hope and look forward to seeing their roots at the bottom of the container, and planting them in mid- October. My garden is a mess; but the light at the end of the tunnel will be my Fall blooms:) Hopefully, they are better than ever! Think about your Fall blooms:)

Lynn

This post was edited by desertgarden561 on Tue, Aug 20, 13 at 9:04

Yeah, Ingrid, everything here is pretty bad. My Louis Phillipe hedge that got pruned by my "helper"', then hit by TS Debbie, then a freeze, then powdery mildew, then gall of some sort is snaggletoothed, missing three huge plants that just keeled over and died. Not that I blamed them after all that trauma. And they are what you see first when you come down my half-mile long driveway. Thank heavens I still have several healthy ones to take cuttings from.

My Crepuscules look terrible. I have an entire fence line of roses that the all-day, Florida sun is too much for. I'm contemplating what i can plant that will give some relief from the sun, but the last time i did that, the trees got entirely too big, and now those roses are in too much shade. Note to self: Chickasaw plum trees in the wild are small, lacy canopied trees. In an irrigated, fertilized garden, not so much. I'm still killing lubber grasshoppers every single day. The stables where I get my manure (and now is when I usually put it down) has temporarily closed down because one of their barns burned and they lost most of their boarders. I feel like I have a little black cloud hanging over my head.

I, too, am trying to hang in there until Fall and trying to figure out how to strike a happy medium between too much sun and not enough. I am in a pocket here where my temps are colder in the winter and hotter in the summer.

In other words, don't feel lonesome. We're all in it together. Just stay inside as much as possible and don't look too closely at anything when you are out.

This is the third summer in a row that we have had mild temperatures. That means continued blooms and new growth. My watering chores here are really beyond belief but I can stand it with some reward. There have been many years when I felt like chucking it all in August and worse in September. I am waiting for the first rains of October to end my slavery. Then it all ends for six months. I am beginning to worry about our water supply. The springs always get low by now and the pond is getting low. One year when it was like this I had to stop watering except for pots and young things. Fortunately the rains came two weeks later.

Sigh, I could go on forever about my hot summer blues. We have hardly had any monsoon rains this summer and my roses are showing the strain of heat and dryness. Poor Mrs Dudley Cross is in a spot where she gets all day sun and she has lost most leaves and is almost a skeleton.

Mrs. BR Cant is putting out some sad, small blooms. I have an arbor with climbing roses and they are pretty much burned out by now. Buff Beauty is brown; burnt by the sun.

It is this time of the year I wonder why I bother to garden at all in this blast furnace climate. I usually come around again in winter when things look good, but this time of year is very much a trial for me.

Oh Ingrid, I have just come in from the garden especially to respond to your post and yep, feeling similarly despondent. True, nothing is scorched.....just green, lots and lots of it with barely a shred of colour to alleviate dull leafage. Funny how in spring, that leafy greenness is so welcome and lush whereas in the summer dog-days it is just tired and dusty. The dahlias failed over winter, as did a few precious species gladioli while gerniums such as Rozanne are just acres of not terribly lush leaves with a few small shrinkled looking blooms (a few of mine are over a decade old and may actually be at the end of their productive flower lives - callirhoe, for example, usually a bright and generous scrambler, looks weary and miserly while geums are finished, along with welsh poppies and campanulas. The roses - well, where to start. They have all done their stuff and are now just looking mildewy and wretched - I simply cannot imagine any of them producing much in autumn. My allotment looks a bit wretched but at least has the virtue of size whereas in a tiny urban yard, everything must pay its way. I suspect a session of raging secateurs is on the cards and I might even splash out on a quick fix with a few osteospermums and pelargoniums to get me through the rest of August and September - mid August is altogether too early to be throwing in the towel.

Well, it looks as though I'm in good company. I find that when I venture out at dusk and stay out several hours those are the most rewarding times since it's gotten cooler and I can see more of the whole outlines of the garden and surrounding scenery and less of the detail. Because of the dryness the trees are shedding their leaves, which is not good for them, but it does give me useful mulch for the garden to hold in the moisture.

Ingrid

I look around my garden and do see a bit of pruning that needs to be done, but because I pruned the spring flush so late it is not too bad. I find that a mid-summer touch-up pruning is a very good thing, and have done it other years as well to equally happy effect. As for roses, 'Marie Pavie' and 'Leander' are both in full bloom, as is 'Westside Road Cream Tea'. The hedge of 'Perle d'Or' is recovering from a major re-shaping and starting to bloom again as well. Several of the baby teas are blooming nicely, too, 'Le Vesuve', 'Rosette Delizy' and Jill Perry's seedling of 'Bon Silene' which she named 'Edith Perry'. And I have non-roses blooming: hardy geraniums, late-blooming salvias, rosy buckwheats, abutilon, white cleome (self-seeded annual), veronica 'Sunny Blue Border', penstemons, sedum 'Autumn Joy' and my absolute favorite sedum 'Vera Jameson'. No, it is certainly not the blazing celebration of the spring flush, but it really is quite an enjoyable, if quieter, display. I've worked very hard to make it so, since my automatic favorite plants tend to be the spring glory ones. Now I am coming to appreciate more of the late summer bloomers as well.

Rosefolly

This post was edited by rosefolly on Tue, Aug 20, 13 at 17:23

Yes, everything does look messy as it usually does in August. A lot of things have been blooming non-stop since May and are tired looking. I've cut a lot of the annuals back and tried to clean up a lot of the dried leaves around but it's going into fall here already so it's normal for things to start winding down. I have to say I'm getting a little tired too so I don't mind that there's less to take care of. I still have plenty of perennials that are blooming and require little care so there is still bloom to enjoy out there. I'm happy with that. The roses will perk back up soon for a good fall flush and I'm looking forward to that!

Messy, but not bad here. The new Crepe myrtle trees are thriving--we're enjoying them so much!

The real problem is not being able to garden outside all day--too hot. Stuck in the house a lot waiting for shade. The house hasn't been this clean for a long time.

My potted warm climate lilacs from the Huntington plant sale were getting mildewed and are now getting burnt. I keep looking for the right spot to put them. I have only seen one near me growing nicely in a semi shaded yard on the outskirts of Villa Park and it gave me courage but sometimes I wonder why I keep trying to grow things that are so tricky. It's all the trips to Descanso. And I keep thinking of the Huntington's Tree Peonys in the gully between the Japanese section and the new Chinese garden....I will never learn.

I was down after the hot wind ruined my spring flush and then I had to get ready for the Gettysburg 150th so I didn't spend much time in the garden. After I got back, it was overgrown and dried out. All the annuals had died leaving little mummies everywhere. I started watering and putting down mulch. Then a few weeks ago we had some nice weather and I was enjoying gardening. I am just going to try and keep them hydrated as I get ready for the heat that will surely come along.

I bought so many plants from Vintage and as they mature, I have to look at what I have and decide if I want to replace it with a new 2 gallon size rose. It's hard to let go of something I've had for a long time but when space is limited, a so-so rose needs to be replaced with something better. I keep changing my mind as to what I want to plant where. By December-January, I have to have it all figured out.

hoovb, those are happy crape myrtles! I'm not able to imagine your garden as ever being less than beautiful.

Kitty, I'm also having to think of where to place six new roses, two of them roses from France that were in quarantine for more than two years at Vintage. Fortunately only one established rose will have to go, Souvenir d'un Ami, one of the most frustrating tea roses ever. It will have a flush in spring and then is positively stingy for the remainder of the year, and the blooms are nothing to write home about. It hasn't bloomed at all since April and I'm done with it after about 5 years of dashed hopes.

Ingrid

First an apology to Ingrid. We have figured out what has happened to your rainfall. It's here. I wish you would come take some of it back! On my farm we had almost 10" of rain in July, and so far in August we are at a spec over 5" and we still have ten days in the month to go with forecasts of rain. Normally we have 4-5" a month and it is not uncommon to have some dry spells of several weeks in the summer.

The beds are out of hand and the grass is out of control. I spent 7 hours Sunday on the tractor bush hogging the pastures with more to do, and I know I'll have to turn around in 10 days or so and do it again. My hay woman is still looking for 4 dry days to cut, cure, bale and store our winter hay. The finish mowing is a nightmare, and the number of biting little bugs are off the charts. But please don't think I'm complaining! We'll have great pasture all winter and that's worth it's weight in gold...

As far as roses goes, some of my bands in 3 gallon pots have become choleric from being water logged. (Kim explained to me that excess water can inhibit nitrogen uptake. I love these forums!) But everything is the ground is happy unless it's fighting off the weed invasion. I've lost the battle in some places but there are still active battle zones around the roses! They are all too young to really know if they are doing there thing or if the moisture is effecting them negatively.

I do have a question. For those of you whose bushes are struggling in the heat is there any advantage to disbudding what is going to be a measly flower anyway? I've become the queen of disbudding--not only the dozen or so bands I've got, but my struggling Celine Forrestier and my Barrone Prevost and Marchesa Boccella that are happy enough plants but are giving me puny blooms in the heat. I'm wondering if I going overboard though?

subk3, it seems to be that the weather of the future is going to be either too much or too little. What a bummer for both of us. I'm glad yours at least will have some future advantages.

I'm doing the same thing as you, pinching off the buds on some of the roses where I've seen that the blooms look awful. Young Lycidas is one of them. Others, however, like La France, Le Vesuve, Mrs. Dudley Cross, Mrs. B.R. Cant and SdlM really haven't changed their size much. I have so many younger roses that sometimes I catch myself thoughtlessly pinching roses that don't need it just because I'm so programmed to get rid of buds!

Ingrid

No complaints about the weather here, other than the lack of rain but that is to be expected.

I missed a very happy and obviously busy, Lady Ann Kidwell who was enjoying the shade of a Sho-Fly and giant sunflower to grow and set half a dozen buds!

The roses and yard look good to me, but the veggies are tired and so are we so some will get pulled out. I think our pumpkins suffered with the cool summer, those will be few and small this year.

I am enjoying the trees that seem to think it is fall and are starting to change color

Two days ago we got half an inch of rain. I think summer's back is broken, and it's never going to be as hot and dry as it's been since June.
Before the rain I had two months of looking at burned shriveled wretched plants, so can sympathize. Life with an unwatered garden helps explain my enthusiasm for pergolas, trees, and evergreen foliage. I know many of you have mixed, or simply negative, feelings about wisteria, but it is a fabulous grower here unwatered (apart from its being fragrant and beautiful in all seasons). I've been holding off on pruning mine just because I wanted all that green growth to shade the front of our house and cool the air.
The rain was soaked up at once, of course, and now the ground is as dry as before. But tough plants like the roses, lilacs and tree peonies brightened up immediately. I'm hoping for more rain soon, as the high pressure system that's been sitting on us all summer is clearly breaking up.
The garden isn't the only thing that has benefited from the change in weather. My energy level has risen precipitously after a summer spent sprawled on the sofa reading and drinking iced beverages. Aside from the work I've been doing clearing the shade garden, I've been on a number of long walks in our local hills, leaving before sunrise and wandering through valleys and along crests. There is no better place in the world to go walking, it's one of the things I love about living here.
Melissa

As is the usual case, its extremely dry here. So far it rained once this summer. The temps have been between 75 and 80 degrees with no humidity. So that is a major plus. I can garden in the morning.
Fortunately my water bill is a flat fee not based on usage. With the soil so dry and porous watering is a necessity. I still don't water as much as the garden would like.
The rose blooms are smaller than normal but that is to be expected this time of year.
This will be the year of the bean and potato. We have eaten our fill of both and have canned plenty of beans. The potatoes are stored under the barn. We've been able to take boxes of them to the Saint's Pantry for distribution to the hungry.
Today I'll be back at mid-summer pruning of roses, daisy's, dahlia's..just neatening up some.
We just finished cramming 150 bales of hay into the barn...50 more to go. Cant figure where they will all fit but they usually do. Some for us and some for horse rescue. Hay is cheap this time of year. It gets pricey is the early spring.
Something kind of fulfilling about storing away hay and canning veggies. Soon enough it will be cold and chilly and I'll be longing for the warm summer days.
Jeannie

There just isn't any ground water to be had here in much of SoCal. Roses which have easily been able to hold their own for the past fifteen-plus years, are scorching and teetering on the brink. I know they're being watered. I've heard the horror stories of the enormous water bills, and the weed evidence, but the roses just are not responding. Many are burnished, scorched and though there is a fair amount of color, none of it is really all that pretty. Scorched and fried petals evidence the problems beneath the soil. The only plants really doing well are things like hardy geraniums growing in the damp soil beneath larger plants, enjoying the partial shade they afford.

I know what MY water bill is and it just isn't enough. It seems the only way I'm going to enjoy roses which appear nearly normal is going to be by building a shade structure, potting everything and putting them on automatic irrigation. That is, of course, after I cull what's there even further than I already have. That doesn't answer the question of what to do with the remaining space requiring SOMETHING to cover it which won't require heavy water use when there are no longer ANY soil moisture to draw from. Kim

It is a bit horrible, having your choices taken away. I have always struggled with roses a bit here in arid East Anglia. They hate the alkaline soil, they hate the sandy gravelly soil.....and, to add insult to injury, the wood is situated on chalk, with almost pure Norfolk Crag (shelly sand) so I am reluctantly beginning to concede that roses are not going to have a huge role in any future gardening, even with continual pumping from the river Yare - not even the wildlings will stand for chalk without massive amendments. So, faced with reducing to a mere handful, I am getting the biggest I can manage.

Kim

Thinking of shade structures over roses, do you have any you really like?

I would love to plant a couple of trees, any thoughts on native sycamores? They get tall, but loose leaves for the winter.

I plan on putting in a pair of semi dwarf cherry trees. Fruit trees are easy to plant and remove should I want too. The city of SB (which we are not in but could be swallowed up by at any time) has very very strict rules about trees and removal, except for fruit trees. So a shade tree has to be very carefully planned and located.

How about fig trees, Kim? They seem able to tolerate some drought, once-established, and they're pretty trees. Good fruit, too.

Even here, near the coast, it's getting tougher. I hate it.

Jeri

We have several Indian casinos in our county, some with large hotels, and they have taken all the ground water, and rural neighbors have seen all their wells go dry because of these mega consumers, and in one case their well brought up sewage. I dislike gambling anyway but the huge amount of garbage these casinos generate, the unholy water usage and greatly increased traffic have only increased my dislike of these artificial palaces in the middle of nowhere, of which our county has the largest number in the U.S.

Ingrid

I am having very good results with potted roses in the early sunny hours and then shade the rest of the time. I was also thinking of a structure with a wide spaced lath covering to try and get the same results. For less water, the roses look so much better and it's nice to see a good looking bloom from a plump bud instead of a fried one. The catch is that during the rest of the year, it would have to come off so the plants could get more sun when the temps are lower.

I am also trying to cover the area with flagstone and river rock in addition to the mulch to try and hold moisture in.

Right now I am putting up umbrellas over plants as the buds get ready to open so the flowers will look decent. Then I cut them and bring them in right away or the heat makes them blast open flat and fall apart. I have a few frames from umbrellas where the fabric gave out and I was thinking of making open weave covers that let more sun through. The many petaled flowers like Memorial Day seem to hold on, but ones like Honor go from bud to flat open very fast. The bees think that's a good thing.

Fortunately, the bulk of casinos in Las Vegas are on the strip; but there are local casinos scattered about in our communities. While neither I or my husband gamble, they can be a great place for different levels of dining, have movie theaters that even host children's' "birthday and a movie" parties. There are bowling alleys, currently popular to great blast from the past musical and comedic performers can be seen at casinos too. The romantic views during dining from some of the casino/hotel restaurants are spectacular. The shopping can be fabulous. It is not all about gambling. These resorts have brought a lot of construction jobs and many other jobs to our economy. I wish we had other industries; but the people here even blocked the Cleveland Clinic from establishing facilities in our city.

A former classmate of my daughter's dad has a high level engineering job at one of the major casinos. That job has afforded him the ability to put two sons through the most prestigious private school in the city, one of these young men attended college and medical school in Illinois, and has recently returned to practice medicine here. That money returns; whether it be from gambling, bowling, stores, restaurants, spa services, movie theaters, etc.

On the other hand, being the largest employer in the city, the casino owners have an unduly influence upon politics at the state and local level; casinos and the AARP. There's a reason why our state ranks 49th in public education; but I would be going on a tangent that is not for this forum. One thing that I can add regarding water, when restrictions etc. are mandated in terms of water or use of any kind of utility, somehow the casinos are often exempt.

Lynn

I'm scared of figs. They have as awful a root system as any ficus or privet. Sycamores are ginormous very quickly with water seeking root systems. I'd shy away from them, too.If the city won't ding you for fruit trees, go that route. At least you know you can get rid of it if you want without issue. If you're where it's hot and dry enough, crepe myrtles are great, but they WILL mold (mildew) badly with any cool damp. Would the city consider a Krauter's Vesuvius flowering plum a 'fruit tree"?

An old exhibitor friend used to use the Ez-up shade structures used at swap meets to shade her roses before rose shows. I've not tried anything like that for a variety of reasons...cost and ever present wind being the two main ones. Kim

I am with you on the figs Kim!

In fact I have a few fig root systems you are welcome to come and try to dig out for me......lol

I thought about the sycamore for that way down part of the garden I want to put the antique big girl roses. Thinking about 8 feet off the property line, pretty sure we would have to leave that zone alone if we were to ever do any developing (which is not planned but worth keeping as an option) The neighbors can water it with their lawn.

The crepe myrtles are so pretty, I sure have been tempted, but good to know they mildew (guess that is why I see so few growing locally)

Bet I could find an almond tree for down there and just forget to buy the pollenizer for it :)

One of the things whick killed Euro Desert was competition from casinos on labor. Cliff had to pay $20 an hour to get someone to water. Good for the workers and the city, etc., but it drives out other types of businesses which require a bit less costly labor. Kim

Most of my roses are still recovering from the Japanese beetles, and I still have those around, so I've been dis-budding till about now. But I have all kinds of things in bloom, mainly shrubs and trees.

The problem is that it's a jungle out there! With all the rain, it's a humid, mucky jungle complete with insects gone insane. It's getting a bit much. The weeds get taller than me, seriously. The grasshoppers are enormous.

My poor lavender is most all mush. I try to fool myself that the landscape here can look like France --and some years it can-- but right now I have a better chance of growing rice than Mediterranean favorites ;)

Kim -- Have you ever seen what happens to EZ-Up structures in a Santa Ana windstorm?

I have witnessed on multiple occasions the "morning after" a night of high wind at dog shows, where hundreds of EZ-Ups had been left overnight. The effect is as if a giant had happened on the scene, and tied all of them into awkward knots.

I had never realized that the casinos hog groundwater. Good grief! You'd THINK they'd mandate the use of graywater for that landscaping. They do a lot of that here, but then, we are still basically an agricultural economy, here.

Kim, too bad about figs. I've always liked them. But then, we HAVE ficus trees here already. AND we planted a pair of pepper trees between us and the neighbors. Don't regret it, either. We needed that barrier, and the trees are lovely to look at (and remind me of my childhood).

I'd suggest citrus trees, and hope you don't end up with Asian Citrus Psyllid. They're at least tame, and they provide fruit. Be sure to include a Mexican Bar Lime, and a really sour Eureka lemon!

:-)

Jeri

The strawberry farmers here are allowed to suck surrounding wells dry whenever we have a freeze. It's shocking to me that it's still allowed, considering our droughts and also sinkhole dangers caused by pumping too much water. Recently, we had a man literally swallowed by a sinkhole while he slept in his bed.

I've just been reading about the quantity of water that's wasted in oil fracking, not to mention there's the danger of underground blow ups and piercing of underground aquifers, which poisons the water for human consumption (this has actually already happened).

There's going to come a point in the not too distant future where water will be far more valuable than oil, particularly in certain areas, and here the powers that be are allowing it to be squandered like there's no tomorrow. This is one of the things along with global warming that keeps me awake at night. When the time comes, everyone, including politicians, will be wringing their hands and wondering how in the world this happened. One day, man will pay for his arrogance. I just hope I'm not around to see it.

Yes, and they are fracking in Earthquake-prone, drought-ridden Southern California, too.

It's insane.

And yes, water is probably already more precious than oil.

Jeri

I should say that I don't mind water for farming.

I'd go short myself, to support farms here -- this IS an agricultural community, and farms = jobs here. This area became a community because there was ample groundwater for farming, and mild winters, when we had rain.

But water wasted on FRACKING? That's disgusting.

Jeri
(Praying For A Rainy Winter To Come)

Jeri, when we had a water shortage here, citrus and avocado growers were forced to cut down many of their trees because they weren't allowed to have enough water to keep them alive. Meanwhile people in nearby cities were using water like there was no tomorrow. It really made me angry. Few people seem to look far enough ahead. I wonder what will happen to the state of Nevada when Las Vegas has drained every drop from the already dangerously low aquifers - and still they keep building housing developments. I often think man is the stupidest animal around, and the smarter species bear the brunt of our ignorance.

Ingrid

I'm with you Ingrid. I love roses and gardens, but "Food Grows Where Water Flows."

There are too many humans being selfish on this poor Earth.

Jeri

Reality check on water use in California: agriculture uses approximately 80 - 85% of the fresh water available in the state while municipal use is about 10% (rounding up) and "other" is another 5 - 10%. Personally, I refuse to seriously curtail my relatively minor use of water (though I am careful never to waste it) when ag, by cutting its water use back by just 10%, could almost double the amount of municipal water available. Some of the crops grown commercially in CA are ridiculously water-intensive, considering the climate (cotton, rice) and really should not be grown here. The ways irrigation waters are conveyed and applied are also more wasteful than they need to be. Many soils in CA are inappropriate for irrigated crops, though they have been used for them, such that many have been damaged beyond repair and are currently being removed from production.

From a "principal components analysis" point of view, the place where the big savings in water use can occur in CA is in agriculture.

I will withhold my comments on places like Las Vegas, the proliferation of casinos, and the practice of fracking as the venom would probably be overwhelming.

Las Vegas is building houses for people because many cannot afford to live in California; like so many in this country. We would love to live near our family members in CA, but working till 90 to do it is not an option. It is a different world where so many people rely upon two incomes; not a lot of excess, but survival and some creature comforts.

Then there's the taxation and political climate in California that makes some folks look to other places; businesses too. So many judge Las Vegas, and have never truly ventured five miles beyond the strip; in any direction. I have a very good point of reference for California; I am a native, and lived in South Orange County, the San Fernando Valley, the L.A. Westside, and South Bay. My in laws reside in Ventura County and I have family in Northern CA , not too far from San Franisco and Palo Alto.

A lot of residential water goes toward keeping grass green, something that became illegal to have in the front yards here a decade ago. And most people water using drip line, timed and measured watering; not hoses or methods relying on a human factor to turn things on and off. Our watering, is much more efficient and less wasteful ; and you will not find grass in the front yards of these newer homes ; unlike the vast majority of the millions of CA residents. Since folks shouldn't be building homes and moving to Las Vegas I guess all CA residents should pack up and move to a place that receives ample rainfall year round; because I can guarantee that more water is being used for those lawns year round than a person in Seattle for example, and very likely more than what is required for the average entire garden in Las Vegas.

This post was edited by desertgarden561 on Fri, Aug 23, 13 at 1:19

You're preaching to the choir, Lynn. I have railed against the "little piece of Connecticut in the desert" mentality for years. HOAs REQUIRE acres of lush, green turf. Some municipalities are getting wise. Visit the Antelope Valley to see some of their new "Arizona-like" public landscaping. But, most won't accept not having the half acre of grass to hire someone to cut for them weekly.

Me? There is absolutely NO turf of any kind on this hill. That decision was made many years ago. In 1975, the area now containing the in-ground roses I grow, was a dichondra lawn. Even then, that cost too much to support so it was permitted to die out and not irrigated artificially again until I planted roses there. Less than a quarter of the three-quarters of an acre comprising this hill is irrigated at all. Unfortunately, I'm surrounded by nine other properties, all of which are the "little piece of Connecticut in the savannah". Kim

Cats, do you know of suggestions for small ag producers to both use less water and not fill the landfills? (curiosity questions here, totally NOT trying to start a watering wars debate)

I pay attention to how water is supplied for farming, Dad used to always have to see who is growing what as we drove through the state. Seems like much of the central valley does a lot of flooding to water (like the rice or cotton) The hay all seems to be the big metal rolling systems. The local avo growers seem to use a lot of drip. But I see a lot of the smaller guys using what looks like miles and miles of cheap drip that gets wadded up in a big pile of trash at the end of the season.

What are some of the ways you would suggest? I am always torn between what is best for saving water vs creating trash. Something about organic strawberries and a dumpster full of plastic tubing seems wrong and there is a better balance out there.

Lynn,
We do not use a timer for our drip system, we like to check the soil to see if it really does need water. The neighbors have a rain sensor on their timers, but that only adjusts for rain not cool damp days vs hot & dry. Of course in your area, hot and dry is more common than cool and damp..lol.

Just seems like there is a better way to spread out that water usage that would get us all more with less

Catspa, I was about to bring up the same points you made on Cal farms and the growing of cotton and rice in places of water shortage and dry climate. Those are huge corporate farms, not small family farms, too. Diane

While I agree that farmers have more right to water than I do to water my lawn, I don't think they have the right to use so much water they deprive the neighbors of their water. Strawberry farmers still use huge overhead systems, while citrus growers have switched to micro jets, which waste far less water. They can also use row covers, but they've deemed that "too expensive". So they will keep on sucking up water until it is more expensive than oil, then they will HAVE to switch to row covers. Our last hard winter, strawberry farmers alone lowered the Floridan aquifer ten feet, I think the figure was. That's scary. I hope this year's extremely wet summer will help repair some of the damage, but we are already at war with Atlanta because they are using so much water, there is not enough flow of fresh river water into Appalachicola Bay to sustain the oyster beds there.

And don't let me get started on golf courses, especially golf courses in the desert, but really any golf course. The runoff from their excessive use of fertilizers was and is destroying our lakes and streams, including the little creek that runs through my property. The county has decided to allow a nearby golf course to use I've forgotten how many millions of gallons of gray water free, while everyone else has to pay for it, The reasoning behind this was because they were exceeding their fresh water pumping permit by 30% every year. HUH? Why not simply shut them down when they exceed their permit? But that would make too much sense. Only one commissioner objected and said if they get it free then everyone else should.

As Kim says, I'm preaching to the choir, but it does feel good to vent.

I have a great dislike of agribusiness, but most of the citrus and avocado growers here are small family operations and when they were forced to cut down 40% of their trees while the rest of us had no water restrictions that did seem wrong to me, since that was their livelihood.

The very first thing we did was get rid of the five strips of lawn on our desert hill and plant them with roses and many other plants, and the increase in small wildlife was amazing. This area, which is watered, is still only a very small part of the property, which is left wild and unirrigated.

As for living in California versus Nevada, the overwhelming problem, which of course is worldwide, is overpopulation. That is at the root of most of our major problems and yet so little attention is paid to it, for various reasons I won't go into. Nothing can be solved when the tide of humanity overpowers all the natural resources that nature can provide, and the end result is only too predictable.

Ingrid

You're exactly right on that point, Ingrid, and there will come a tipping point. I became a proponent of zero population growth when I was in high school, and we won't discuss how many years ago that was. I had my one allotted child, but I also had stepchildren.

I have followed this discussion with interest as I live in what used to be a relatively small oasis in the desert. In the past 20 years, Phoenix has grown mindlessly, much to my dismay. I don't know what the answer is as far as agricultural vs residential use is concerned, and of course it is a hot topic in this area, as well. Personally I think agribusiness practices stink, as do many many other corporate practices and attitudes.

However, I think Ingrid has hit the nail on the head: overpopulation. There used to be an organization called Zero Population Growth that I avidly supported. Whatever happened to that? What about the people that choose to have numerous children? What about their use of water?

I don't want to start a hot, unpleasant discourse on this post, but I do think this a topic that is rarely discussed.

The ugly leaves are the scariest part of what's happening now. I'm seeing heavily burnished, small, terribly stressed foliage all over my clients' gardens as well as my own. I KNOW they're all getting a ton of water. Many are receiving daily water via automatic sprinklers and I flood them weekly on my visits, but it just isn't enough. There isn't any water in the ground, except for the engineered soils where the lawns are being grown hydroponically and remain squishy between waterings. The only roses continuing to look decent are those which don't receive much direct sun. The north sides of walls and houses where there are very high levels of reflected light with little overhead sun, appearing to be the best situations. I honestly don't know how much more of this many of them are going to endure before they start dropping like flies. Current growth is aging and burning very quickly and no new growth is coming along to replace it. One garden nearly lost the well established Rosarium Uetersen. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. No string trimmer damage; no lawn fertilizers applied nor any herbicides used. The entire plant turned burnished bronze seemingly over night. The well established Lordly Oberon and Dortmund down the wall from it have also lost much of their foliage and are shedding canes right and left. Weekly, heavily dousing by hose, washing the plants out well and flooding their root areas has helped. All are showing swelling growth buds and pushing new foliage, but that just isn't sustainable. How far should anyone be willing to push the water bill to maintain a garden? Kim

I don't know, Kim -- but I do know that water CONSTANTLY runs down our little Lane, from people further up the hill who saturate lawns early in the morning. I'm pretty sure that water is loaded with whatever they're spreading, to achieve those perfect lawns.

Nevertheless, birds and rabbits are drinking it.

I think we're insane not to outlaw lawns -- as Las Vegas has done. I suspect that, eventually, that will happen.

I know where MY water comes from (not Northern CA, btw). Our acquifer originates up in the Transverse ranges, and that area got little snow last winter. :-( But they keep building homes and apartment buildings here, and I'm not sure what those folks are going to use for water.

Jeri

Human population is the ultimate problem which no one is allowed to talk about (a stipulation or convention that came out of the U.N.'s Cairo Conference of 1994, by the way) -- it doubled in the 35 years between 1960 and 1995. Since neither the amount of land or amount of water doubled at the same time, we are feeling the pinch, even more so now with continued, though more modest pop. increase since 1995.

Even more galling, Diane, is that both rice and cotton are classified as surplus commodities,i.e., there's already an over-supply of them, yet we spend a huge amount of CA water growing them (to the point that the ground around Corcoran in the San Joaquin Valley has subsided more than 50 feet due to groundwater overdraft).

Kippy, the most conserving irrigations are controlled application types like drip. The alfalfa sprinklers aren't so bad. Perennial crops ("permaculture" seems to be a very trendy word lately) with fixed infrastructure will be all-around more conserving. I don't know why strawberry fields have to be totally re-done every year -- you could re-plant fixed stations if the plant varieties were reasonably sturdy, disease-resistant, it seems. Probably arises from the traditional ag mentality/way of doing things with annual crops, where the thinking is that a field has to be totally stripped and plowed each and every year. Much wasted time, energy, and wrecked soil structure as a result.

The largely Polish farmers of Hadley, MA did things the old-country way when I lived in that area and always cleared off their tobacco, grain, and truck-vegetable fields slick-as-a-whistle every fall, which meant they lost tons of topsoil every winter after the ground froze and howling winds would blow the top dirt layers for miles. Sometimes the highway would have to close due to blowing dust.

The most conserving crops are always those best suited to the climatic conditions where they are grown. Pomegranates and figs, for example, do very well here with not much care and modest amounts of water.

Ingrid, even if all of us stopped using water completely, ag would only get back 30% of the 40% they lost. Some of the problems with water allocations to SoCal ag have to do with over-promising of water by the water resource authorities for many decades and over-pumping because of over-promising. Extreme over-pumping from the Delta, beginning about 1999, quickly led to the collapse of endangered Delta smelt and salmon populations and federal injunctions that cut ag water allocations to SoCal drastically. Sadly, farmers who started operations based on irresponsible Water Board promises really got hurt.

Colorado River allocations were also cut when up-river states with newly growing populations started demanding that CA stop grabbing more than its legal share of that resource, something CA had been doing for decades previous without much protest.

This post was edited by catspa on Fri, Aug...

I agree with the over population issue whole heartedly. Some folks do not realize that our resources are not infinite. In today's age I have respect for many who choose to and adopt kids who already are present on this earth, versus having their own natural baseball team of kids who will likely contribute to an exponential increase in population.

I support folks being able to live where they want, their climate should be taken into consideration. What should be obvious adjustments are not always ocurring, especially those who are being "forced" to maintain sprawling lawns when they reside in hot dry climates.

In the past decade as Las Vegas has taken the population from many places including CA. Xeriscape, watering smart, even how and when we can water has been regulated for almost a decade. There are so many transplants here that people are often shocked when they meet a Las Vegas native. Two of the twelve folks I work with closely are natives; and that is closer to the norm.

This post was edited by desertgarden561 on Fri, Aug 23, 13 at 19:20