wow. MY answer to beating the heat was going to be - stay inside??? LOL

Can you come rig up a sprinkler system for me?

thanks for inadvertently telling me why my impatients looks terrible too.
we have been getting a ton of rain up until 2 days ago but they are in terracotta pots this year- so they probably arent retaining much. OY.

Keesha- I would love to see your gardne pics- can you post them on the gallery side> not sure i ever saw pics of yours!

I CAN say that i did do extra preparing in the psinrg for my veggie garden.. I put newspaper down around the plants- wet it with a hose and then dumped grass clippings on top for mulch. what a HUGE difference it has been making. it hasnt rained in two days and it has been very hot.. I went out to check on them and they are strong as ever! Looking fine in the heat

I will try your peat moss trick too. I do need mulch for an area of the garden and dont have the money- and I do have a huge bag of peat in the garage! :)

friend..the system at myers is super simple...nothing to bury...lawn stakes hold it in place..the sprinklers are designed to pierce the tubing when screwed in place..and it hooks to a garden hose...can't be simplier..I was pleasantly surprised!

From my own experience..I found impatience don't do well in terracotta..can't keep them wet enough...that is just my experience tho..you might have better luck.

I was just about to ask the same question..lol. Anything approaching 80 is waaaaaaay to hot for me. Are you warm zoned gardeners acclimatized do you think?...... I guess plants can't. I mulch in my dahlia bed with grass clippings. Once I had a plant (can't remember what) that looked like it was wilting. I thought is was lack of water so I checked the soil. No, that's OK. So I looked for disease or pests. Couldn't see any. Then I realized it was wilting....IN THE HEAT!
Libby ...sending cooler thoughts your way.
Whew,..........getting hot just TYPING this. :)

I prep all year for summer-heavy heavy mulch and I do deep watering so the roots grow down deep. My potted babies get watered 2x daily. It takes a toll on all of them but they survive...today it was only 94.

Gigi

Upper 90's with heat index in the low 100's last week and today here in Missouri. I can work outside til about noon, then I shower and am in for the day (or wherever the air is). Went out to give a little extra water at 8pm tonite, and it was so humid and buggy!

Even watering well in the morning, by afternoon things wilt and wither a bit, especially the petunias. In the evening, I'll water my containers on the deck a 2nd time for the day, and by the next morning, everything looks fresh again, and I begin the process AGAIN ..... what a sucker I am for my gardens. But I am finding this year that feeding them weekly (MG Liquafeed), is keeping them lush looking in the evening, once the hot sun is gone.

Forecast is for a high of 81 this Friday - I'm afraid to get my hopes up! -Dianne

i mulch with shredded leaves. i have seen plants die because peat moss burned them--it is really hard to wet peat moss once it has dried out. wet on top is not an indicator of wetness throughout. water crystals are up for debate. i have heard some fine plants people say that it holds the water to the crystals too tightly--the roots cannot pull water out of those crystals. i do like the self watering planters. and plastic does a better job of holding in moisture than things like clay. the best change i have made is a drip water system and a $40 timer which waters at 4:30 in the morning. it has been so hot that the ground is not damp any more at 9 a.m., but you can see the difference in the plants.

You know what kind of day it's going to be when you are putting on your make up at 6:30 am, and the temperature is 86 degrees!

The high today was 105 degrees, which is a typical summer temperature for us. In addition to the heat, we are under watering restrictions, so just keeping a garden alive is what we aim for.

I hand water my pots and flower beds once a day, in the early evening as the sun is going down in order to avoid as much evaporation as I can. Honestly, my flowers look like deflated balloons when I get home from work. The temperatures do not cool off too much in the evening, but at least the sun is down and that helps conserve moisture.

Mulching is really important, too. That and planting natives and heat/drought resistant plants, as much as possible.

Dianne - If it makes you feel better, I won't be seeing a high of 81 until maybe October. :-)

Marilyn

We are wilting here in upstate NY as well, tho not dried out, as this has been a very wet season :-)

If you wash your dishes in a plastic dishpan then you can use that water for your plants.

Carol

Ditto on what Marilyn said. Even though I'm half a world away from her, her words ring true to me - exactly same situation here. Summer is brutal on plants in my climate. Experience over the past few years has taught me to water in the evenings, keep potted plants to a minimum at this time of the year and recycle all the water I can. It's unbelievable the amount of water that can be reused in the garden if you just keep a plastic container in the kitchen sink and a bucket in the shower. This has really helped my garden a lot during the awful Summer heat. Like Marilyn, I feel good if my garden just *survives* Summer... I have also been shifting the direction the garden is going and have been adding more drought tolerant plants, a tendency I plan to continue in the future, as the weather situation does not tend to improve.

Eduarda

I can't take the heat. I don't care how long I live in the Midwest, I will never be able to deal with 105+ temperatures (which it has been for the last few days).

Before the heat got here I mulched with lots of wood chips. Now that the heat is here, I water in the evenings and weed in the early morning. Today I was only able to stay outside until 9am. By then it was 95 degrees with 43% humidity. Yuck.

One portion of my garden is looking a bit junglish because I have not been able to get to all the weeds. One baby Spiraea looks about dead because of getting too much sun - even with a shade screen to help it out!

I'm for the idea of adding more drought tolerant flowers in my garden - possibly herbs that can take Kansas heat but that give off a pleasant scent too.

I am SOOOOOO longing for cooler weather!

I'm right there with ya, Marilyn and Eduarda. At least we know how to prepare and handle the heat. I have friends up in Michigan who hate any heat over 90 degrees. For me, 90 degrees is a pleasant summer day. lol Our low last night was somewhere in the low eighties.

It does take temps over a hundred to drive me indoors. You can get acclimated to heat if you stay out in it. (Healthy people anyway.) I have an older friend who remembers when air conditioning was an open window only. :) Down the street from me are construction crews working all day in the heat.

I'm lucky enough to have my own well, so I'm bound by common sense restrictions. Soaker hoses are rampant in my beds. They do work best with strubs and trees. Mulch is essential!

Since I'm outside of town a bit, on an acre, I try to keep some of the grass green as a buffer against a grass fire. At least, it might slow a fire down for few minutes.

If you must be outside, slow down and drink more water than you think you need. Wear a hat and loose fitting cotton clothes.

As a homeschool mom, last year I was wondering why we have kiddoes learn who invented the steam engine and cotton gin but not who invented central air. Bless him, whoever he was.

Passing everyone a large insulated tumbler of ice cold lemonade. Let's all think cool thoughts and pray for rain!

Happy

I think the worst part of the heat in the midwest is the humidity that arrives with it...not exactly just the heat....it stifles the breath right out of you when it reaches 90's. I spent two weeks in Vegas last year and the temps with 105 or more each day. That heat felt much more comfortable the the heat at home in the 90's. As long as we drank..we felt fine. My sister in law who lives in Vegas came to visit Indiana in July last year..when she left Vegas it was 103...she thought hot...but when she got here..it was 92..cooler she thought as she got her stuff ready to deboard the plane. By the time we made our way across the parking lot to the car, she was winded...and said she would take vegas 103 heat ANY day compared to this. A week later she couldn't wait to get back home to her hot dry heat where at least her chest didn't feel like someone was standing on it all day...

We also have to remember that the plants in each zone are acclimated for that particular heat and so are the heat and water needs...when it reaches 90's and humid in the midwest..nothing can breathe...not plants, or people. Mid 90's is the top of its range... So it takes extra care to assure things survive..Every zone of the country has diff heat and cold highs and lows..and life, both people and plants are used to that level...and has certain needs at that level. That is why certain things grow in one place and not another.. The plants that we struggle in the midwest to keep alive in the 90's do not even survive in texas or florida heat.... the plants that need the heat from Texas or Florida can not survive here with our cool nights in the fall and spring, or our winters,....its all what is the regions normal and what kind of things we are dealing with. It is really all about what is hot in your region...and what plants and people are use to there. Not about "how" hot it is.... Just my thoughts.

Hi everyone,
I am enjoying this thread...Over the years I ended up planting more and more varieties that are suited for the Midwest heat and humidity. The book, "Month by Month Gardening in Indiana" is very helpful. Planting densely helps to shade roots and also gives the abundant cottage look. I don't plant many annuals at all, but do put in some begonias and some impatiens. These are planted in front of Cranesbill geraniums or hostas, so they stay shaded and are pretty much on their own. Other than that, my beds are perennials. I am working hard to build a continual succession of blooms from spring until frost to avoid the need for annuals. The only watering I do on a daily basis is on my window boxes (2 gal. a day), two hanging ferns (1 gal a day) and two concrete containers (1 gal a day).

As others here from Indiana have mentioned, we are in the midst of a horrible heat wave. The heat index today is 105 degrees. The worst of it is the humidity and our air quality is terrible. We have had ozone alerts for several days now, and there is a blue haze in the air. Sounds attractive, doesn't it! :( We are even being told to avoid going outside between the hours of 3-6PM, when the air will be even worse than the rest of the day. I guess the one good thing about the excess humidity is that my plant cuttings are rooting up quickly! :)

Katrina

I just bought that book this spring also Katrina...lots of good info in it. I am glad someone else likes it also.

Try lining coco fiber pots with Hefty plastic trashbags (poke holes in the bags for drainage). Overhead mister sprinkler systems are nice to have on the patio or deck.
-Becky