It's been very dry here. A couple of days ago I saw the stems of the peony flower buds were drooping and the phlox and one tiger lily were wilting. I immediately watered everything within reach of the hose and the next day everything looked good. I've been doing a little spot watering and, depending on how it looks tomorrow, I may water everything again.

It's supposed to cool down for a few days before some possible rain on Tuesday night but no soakers in sight.

I'm so glad the gypsy moths are gone for now because this is the kind of weather that allows them to flourish.

Claire

I was watching the forecast last night and Eric said we are about 4 inches below average at this point. I was really hoping for a downpour last night, but we had very little rain. I heard it about 4:30am, just starting to ping off the a/c unit, and I waited to hear it start to pick up speed, but nope. I went back to sleep. [g]

I was doing well with the rain earlier in spring, it seemed to be in a good rhythm and the plants seemed fine. We had enough to fill up a couple of my rain barrels repeatedly. I spent all week using up all the water in one rain barrel closest to my full sun garden, watering by hand with a watering can, to make room for another round of rain. It feels like it did fill up the front barrel by about 1/5th is about all.

Tuesday I started my sprinkler circuit, realizing the garden was getting dry and I didn't think it was going to make it to Friday. Good thing I didn't depend on it. Just about everything now seems to be doing very well. I watered a lot today again and will finish up tomorrow. For some reason, my back lawn is looking very good. Better than usual. I did put the sprinkler on it this week and we did the first mow with the height higher than usual. Two of my neighbors just mowed and when it was shorter, I could see brown spots along the edges of both lawns.

I don't mind using the sprinklers right now, because I barely used water all spring. I was able to use the rain barrels because we kept having just enough each time it rained to fill them.

So many plants put on a lot of growth in May and June and I think they do it better with a good supply of water. Sometimes, water is just as good as fertilizer. And we had such a dry winter, that quite a few plants came back, but with a smaller footprint than last season. Especially the ferns. So I am deeply watering my shade beds.

So that's my long winded story. lol. I'm off to shut the sprinkler off for the night. :-)

Prairiemoon, your wind can blow as long as needed! I agree with you that water can be as good as fertilizer. I've been watering certain established things, as well. I water some hostas which are supposed to be large in the hopes that one season they'll be as large as they should be. >:-[ Some things planted last fall are also getting water, too, as well as moisture lovers. Your rain barrels sound wonderful! I should investigate that. We generally are good with water, but a few years ago one summer was VERY dry and the well would go dry if we used it too much at once.

If you are able to take a pic, I'd love to see your set-up. At our front door there is a roof valley that just GUSHES water when it rains. it's a problem with our front entry area and is rotting the porch wood. I can't place any plants there because the angle at which the water pours off changes with the volume of water, which means there's a large potential area where the water could fall. it just pulverizes anything under it down to the roots. I'd love to put a rain barrel there in a way that preserves curb appeal! It would solve two problems: rotting wood and water for plants.

I just came back from a trip to the local pharmacy and I was reminded of another problem related to the extreme dry weather. It's the beginning of pine pollen season and my gray car has a yellowish-greenish patina that will be getting thicker and thicker if it doesn't rain soon. I need to deploy the microfiber pollen brush on my windshield before I try to drive again.

Claire

I'm thanking you all for your answers...many times! Houzz seems to be erasing all my "thanks" markings. If you see I haven't thanked you, don't believe it. I've probably done it at least three times, and will keep on until it sticks!

Deanna - I just got busy but I will try to take a photo of our set up later today. If you have a roof valley that gushes, I don't know how that would work. It might if you could position the barrel under where it comes down. I use a diverter in the downspout so that all the water in the gutters comes down the downspout and into the barrel. That's usually how it works.

And I just like a comment that seems the same as thanking someone. Not to worry. :-)

Unfortunately extremely dry here as well. We had our front walkway replaced late last fall. The redo of the surrounding gardens required me to move just about every plant and the expansion of the garden "required" me to add many more new ones. We're also on a well here and I can't run a sprinkler long enough in one area for it to be beneficial. Consequently I've been living on the end of a hose watering individual plants directly to the root ball. Send rain please.

I always prefer hand watering with a hose, but I am always surprised that it takes hours, not minutes. Getting tired of hand watering!

About 100 drops of rain fell today, like a little sadistic tease.

I refill the birdbaths every day with a watering can and usually I just dump the old water nearby. Lately I've been carrying the birdbaths (small pans) over to needy plants and dumping the water there. I figure the old water has fertilizer added to it as well (bird droppings and turkey soil scattering).

I left all of the leaves and plant debris on the beds this spring except for a small amount I took off the peonies and bulbs. I also left the ornamental grass cuttings on the beds. This horrifies tidy gardeners (like my neighbor) but the "mulch" sure helps keep the water in the soil. So far that one big watering was enough but I'm monitoring the peony flower bud stems carefully looking for drooping. Maybe tomorrow.

Claire

Claire, I leave 'leaves' in some areas of my beds. Behind shrubs in the middle of my perennial bed. Unfortunately, our neighbor has an old Sycamore and those leaves are horrible. They are huge and a pile of them can suffocate. And they are an orangey color when dried that sticks out like a sore thumb. So I rake a lot of the leaves onto the lawn and mow them. Then we have a combo of grass cuttings and chopped leaves to dump as mulch anywhere I need it. For the sake of neatness, we add bark mulch to the edges of the bed.

Deanna - Here are a couple of pictures of our rain barrels. The first one is in the front of the house near my full sun bed. It's hidden from the street behind that big holly. You can make out the cement block with a stone paver on top. We added that for the needed height to fit the watering can under the spigot. There is a flagstone piece where the watering can sits, to keep it from getting a muddy mess. Maybe you can see there is a dark green diverter at the base of the downspout? This is in place so the downspout can work as it normally does, when the diverter that goes into the rain barrel is in the 'up' position. In this photo, the diverter is in the 'down' position and the water pours into the barrel from the gutters.

Second photo is the barrel in the backyard. We have two sets of cement blocks to put two barrels connected to each other next to each other, but we only have the one barrel connected so far.

Same arrangement as the front - diverter cut into the downspout above the barrel. On blocks with a stone paver on top of that and a flat stone under where the watering can sits.

Hope that helps. :-)