I'm in Michigan too, the heat's been relentless! I have my flower beds and also my vegetable garden to take care of, and also the many trees and conifers we have planted in the last few years. We have a sprinkler system for the lawn, but I hand water everything else. I just checked the 10-day forecast and there's no relief in sight!! Then when the sun begins to set and it starts to become bearable outside, the mosquitos start biting, so back into the house! Yep, too many years of this!

I live in southern New Mexico so we are used to hot, hot summers. However, this summer has had more days over 100 so far than I can remember and they started much earlier. I just came in from moving some shrubs that were just getting fried this year. I'm hoping they make it. I didn't get the drip irrigation installed this spring as planned but I will sure put it in over the fall or winter. Okay, my rant over also. :)

Cooper yes, and you have planted accordingly to your heat/climate. I sure hope your shrubs make it.

Our zone 5/6 plants....just can’t take it 😫

I am sorry you are having such a hard time. I guess we are blessed in comparison- a few days or rain and cooling, not as many as usual and a bit hotter for this time of the year but nothing too drastic. I do understand what you are going through. My mom gardens in Delhi (India) and over the last couple of decades the weather has turned worse than the Sahara. It is harder with each passing year to keep any of the usual perennials alive in the unrelenting heat than goes on for 6 months or more with at least a couple of months with highs in 105-119s! My mom has abandoned any pretense at gardening for a significant part of the year....

Getgoing thank you.

How sad to hear about your moms experience. I’m thinking I will have to do the same and abandon the summer months and maybe focus on just spring and hopefully(?) fall. Fall will depend on what I can get to survive the summer of course.

Only time will tell, makes me so sad....

It's odd that you are having such hot weather in zone 5. Perhaps you could adapt and grow stuff that you wouldn't otherwise - bougainvillea, oleander, adeniums, ixora, Jasmines. Obviously, the problem is they are not winter hardy and you will need to overwinter indoors. Also, zinnias, portulaca, verbena, and lantana do well in heat.

Also, hibiscus.

I’m so sorry you are experiencing all that. No advice cause there is nothing you can do about the weather but lots and lots of sympathy for you :(

The climate has changed. It's not just the weather

An emphatic YES to this laceyvail.

This will be the fifth year I believe, of hot hot drought. I’m up here in the north...in Michigan

GardenHo I am in Southern Ontario and I know last season for us was much cooler and wetter. I take it you didn't get similarly last year?

Oursteelers thank you so much and Lacy yes, the climate has definitely changed.

Rouge we had a cool wet spring and a hot dry summer. Although I do remember getting a little bit of rain last summer as compared to the previous years...certainly not enough to satisfy a gardener.

I’ve already removed many ‘wimpy’ plants these past few years and looks like I will be removing even more. Pretty soon all I’ll have is salvia left as that seems to be bulletproof.

Oh, GardenHo same weather pattern here. Hot, hot and more hot and no rain to speak of (got a bit 3 days ago but it is like it never happened). It is disheartening but we are tough and we have to get rain and cooler temps at some point??? I am on a well also and have not watered at all.

rouge last year it did not stop raining until the end of June then really hot and drought the rest of the year.

It has been relentless this year, hasn't it? It's not unusual for us to get up into the 90s during high summer -- what is unusual is the length of time, will be 2 weeks when it finally breaks (predicted to be this weekend) and dry as a bone, no summer storms to go along with the high heat, even on the humid days. Last year was overly wet and on the cool side, I distinctly remember the difficulty I had with my vegetable garden because of it (which is nothing compared to the losses the farmers had...)

Normally I say to heck with it come mid July because stuff does tend to get crispy. The only reason I'm keeping up with things this year is I planted some new perennials and did some transplanting a couple weeks ago, and all that needs help getting established, and the plants in one particular bed under a maple still need help, they're not quite established enough to duke it out with the maple roots. Well, that plus I had a 4th July party and wanted to show off my beds LOL! But now that that's over and the new stuff has been in a couple weeks, I'm going to cut back - just keep the deck and porch planters watered and the vegetable garden maybe once a week.

I’ve already removed many ‘wimpy’ plants these past few years and looks like I will be removing even more.

I hear ya. I have been doing that for that past many seasons. It is getting close to ditching the ligularia :(.

rouge last year it did not stop raining until the end of June then really hot and drought the rest of the year.

Right a very wet spring. And now I recall for our area...it was hot and dry but just when it looked like we were to go into drought we would get a nice rain...enough to keep it at bay/

Weather is funny. I grew up in Alabama sweating my everything off, and I never want to sweat again. My dad says this summer in Alabama has been cooler than usual, and we have also been cooler than usual way up here. It is miserable to garden in the heat. When I moved to New England I couldn't believe that people actually went OUTSIDE in August. Just crazy. I asked a friend from AL why our gardens up here were so beautiful when AL is the place with the long growing season. Her answer: "Because who can stand to be outside in Alabama working on a garden!" So true. For those of you in a heatwave, all my sympathies. It is

FREAKING

MISERABLE

ALWAYS.

Peren.. Not really seeing much relief in sight unfortunately. I hope you get some soon!!

Rouge I ditched mine several years ago...long overdue as I tried to fight mother nature for way too long.

Deanna you said it very well!!

Northern Virginia here and we have been bloody hot, too and also without rain. Finally a thunderstorm in the wee hours this morning provided a fair amount of rain, so I was not lugging hoses today. Not sure what the coming days have in store. I still have things to plant (slow here, I am afraid), so I hope the heat subsides. 99 is just too hot.

Good luck to us all!

We had a brief summer storm pass through yesterday evening -- not sure how much rain we got but anything is a welcome relief.

Lucky you...it didn’t make it my way : (

No rain here yesterday - I had my fingers crossed for a thunderstorm - but none here...! That is one of the odd things about the extended period of hot, dry, but humid weather - usually there would be a thunderstorm in late afternoon or evening when conditions are like that.... But it doesn't seem to happen much now...

I pay attention to the jet stream weather map, particularly in the spring because it doesn't warm up here in spring until the jet stream retreats north of Hudson's Bay and stays there! What I have noticed during this heat wave - and other heat waves in the last year or two - is that the jet stream appears to be missing... See this map from this morning. The only bit of jet stream visible on that map is the little bit of red arrow on the upper left, west of Alaska and the arrow is not in its normal west to east orientation! The jet stream plays a key role in pushing weather systems west to east so its absence is a key part of the reason this hot weather has been stuck over pretty much all the continent for so long. The forecast calls for rain by the weekend so it'll be interesting to watch what the jet stream map shows as rain approaches - if it does!

The forecast calls for rain by the weekend so it'll be interesting to watch what the jet stream map shows as rain approaches - if it does!

Yup. Supposedly Sat/Sun is 'do or die' for rain here. I am now seeing more and more reports that Ontario farmers are so needing water from the heavens to be able to keep their crops going.

(You are quite the amateur meteorologist 'woody'!)

LOL Rouge - 35+ years ago I took a meteorology course when I was doing my undergraduate degree in Agriculture - I found it a fascinating subject and have paid attention ever since! (I do understand the farmers' close attention to the weather!)

I took a meteorology course when I was doing my undergraduate degree

So 'woody', looking at the maps and wind patterns right now are you confident that we will get some good rain on the weekend??

Aargh! I did a response, rouge, and it disappeared...! I’ll try again - briefly....

I’m not a meteorologist, just an interested observer :-). The jet stream map is not what I look at to see what is likely going to happen in the next day or two. The satellite map is where I look - click the right-facing run button - to get a feel for how the weather systems are moving. It looks like there is something happening west of the Great Lakes so maybe that is what will bring the rain in the forecast for the weekend but it is too soon for me to tell whether it will actually reach here. But I’ll be checking those images regularly over the next few days. For weather that is going to affect us within a few hours, I look at the King City radar images on the same Environment Canada website. If rain is in the forecast for the day, we check the radar images in the animation mode to see whether we are likely to get rained on while walking Cole! :-)

I await your daily weather update! :)

We've noticed a warming/drying trend here for the past 5 years especially. More heat, for longer periods. This year we had a VERY unusual dry winter. About 2 inches of snow twice all winter and it melted away in a day. But we had a cooler spring and enough rain. Not a lot, but frequently enough to keep everything growing without much irrigation. And summer has been very warm, but, not as bad as usual. Or are we just getting used to it? [g]. It's stayed in the high eighties with a few days in the low 90s. So actually that is not as warm as previous summers. And it's been cooler at night. I've had the house fan on twice in July, which is not usual. The air temp has to be below 70 to make it worth it.

We had a couple of heavy rainfalls in the past couple of weeks. The timing of the rain has kept me from having to water as much as I normally do. We do have a ban, so we can water a vegetable garden whenever we want, and hand water the rest if we want, and use the sprinklers only from 6p to 10p, 2x a week. I hate watering at night.

I guess what I am trying to say is that despite having 5 years of hard to get through summers, this year has been easier, so hopefully those of you suffering the heat, can still think next summer could be better. This may be a 'one off' for me, but it's a welcome reprieve.

Three years ago we installed rain barrels. I'm not clever enough or energetic enough or both, to set up a system with the rain barrels to automatically water, so I am using it to fill watering cans and water that way. And use it when I mix fertilizer. And build up some muscle at the same time. [g] Some of you may have the ability to set up a system with rain barrels. I highly recommend having rain barrels. Once you get them set up, they are a piece of cake to keep them filled. You can buy multiples and it really does help out. We still have room to expand to more barrels and use all our downspouts. If I ever get around to setting something up, I'd definitely add more. You can connect them one to the other.

It's hard to change what you grow though. Sometimes it's a hardiness issue, but also your soil. A lot of the drought tolerant plants prefer sandy soil, not heavy clay. But, I have tried to add drought tolerant plants. Salvias for sure, I think Agastaches are pretty drought tolerant too. Lavender. I'm sure there are tons I have not explored. I do have heavier soil though, so I've been limited in how much salvia etc., I can use. I have tried to get around it by planting on the top of small slopes and elevating a part of the bed to put those that prefer good drainage. That seems to work out pretty well. I grow a lot of epimedium in the shade. They seem to be bulletproof for me.

I also mulch heavily. That makes a big difference.

Air conditioning and finding lots of things to do inside when it's too hot to go out. Gardening early in the day. :-)

(So 'woody' did you get any of that violent rain yesterday...we got nothing)

This message was supposed to post two days ago: Yes, rouge, every time we gardeners talk about drought the farmers are ALWAYS in my mind. Maine has become an organic farming type of Mecca for young organic farmers, and just before our drought broke the news reported how many of them without irrigation ability were losing crops. Since last week we have finally gotten very good rain, but our temps are so low that seedlings still don't want to grow. It's going to be much harder for them than us. Wouldn't mind some heat right now! We've barely registered any days above 80, and most are the 60s to low 70s.

And today: Yes, prairiemoon, we did have a milder winter with less precipitation. I'm sure that contributed to the stress on our well recently. We keep getting rain now, which is so welcome! And, we are supposed to get to the upper 70s, maybe even above 80 today. That will be good! (I can't believe I'm saying that.) Big rain coming Saturday. The though thing about drought tolerant is combining it with clay. Not easy. The standard echinaceas (not fancy hybrids) do well. I'm growing baptisia from seed because its taproot is supposed to work for both clay and drought. Asters, too. It's a thin list, isn't it? What others have you had success with?

Going to investigate rain barrels. We don't have gutters, but hopefully there's something that works.

Going to investigate rain barrels.

We have two rain barrels and I love it when we are able to use them to hand water annuals and perennials. I would bet if we had a third, we would almost never need to use city water for such watering (albeit our yard is not big).

Deanna, I am no expert on rain barrels, far from it. I would call a rain barrel company. They have people there that are knowledgeable and can figure out if you can use them or not.

My garden started out stressed this spring due to the dry winter, but we had enough rain to make up for it apparently.

As for other ideas, I'm probably not had to deal with drought to the degree that others have. I usually will drag the sprinklers all over the yard when I'm allowed to, so I haven't been forced to make a change over to this point.

Baptisia should be really drought tolerant. We put a potted Baptisia in the garage by accident last fall and it was still living this spring and came back really much better than I expected. That is all winter without water. I just try to be committed to where I want to put those because they are not easy to move. And then there is the fact that they bloom for such a short time. So a few goes a long way.

What about succulents that store water in their leaves? I can't remember my sedums ever having a problem, and I have a few different varieties. One dark leaves - 'Black Pearl' that is really pretty that I am enjoying.

I wonder if gardeners in some of the warmer zones would have a better list to share. We have forums for that right?

Living and gardening in northeast Ohio for over 50 years has taught me many things. The climate has changed - winter starts in earnest about a month later than is used to, and leaves a month earlier. The yearly weather has been all over the place in this county - hot dry, cool wet, some summers and winters were even close to perfect. For the last several seasons it has been dry here. Because of the pandemic and living in a rural community (rarely get visitors out this way!) I left my gardens pretty much to their own, the weeds are high, nothing much was planted in the ground and now my gardens look wild and overgrown. It embarrassed me at first, now I revel in it!! This summer I am taking a break from it and can enjoy other's people's gardens! It is very freeing! Once it cools off and starts to rain again I'm sure some things will be addressed but for now I'm taking a break and loving it. There are other things to worry about!! Next year will be better!!

"It is not the strongest or most intelligent that will survive but those that can best manage change" - A quote from Charlie Darwin.

All of our gardening activities evolve through time. I am still growing plants, but more of them are growing in pots these days. I don't think you can ever give up gardening entirely!

Rouge - we didn't get a drop of rain yesterday! Friends up on the Niagara Escarpment got a deluge though. We were checking the radar map every 20 minutes or so, hoping to see rain heading our way - it was all around us but nothing at all here :-(

Re Rain barrels - about 10 years ago the Region here was giving away rain barrels, trying to encourage their use to reduce water system usage in the summer. We got one for the south side of the house. But it became too much of a hassle to take it apart in the fall and set it up again in the spring, so we stopped using it. We rarely water the garden in the ground - mostly just water pots (and we have fewer of those now....) and any newly planted things. We only water the established garden areas if the dry period is prolonged . For instance, DH uses a water can to water the 'Biokovo' perennial geraniums we planted in the south alley in May after removing the shrubs there. Next year they will be on their own to live or die with natural rainfall. We have not watered any of the established garden beds so far this year. If we don't get the rain in the forecast for the weekend, we'll probably need to do some watering in a few places. We have heavy clay soil that has improved itself over the 20 years we've been gardening here - we used to add mycorrhizal fungus supplement to planting holes but haven't done that in years as there should now be enough in the soil; we plant densely to keep the soil shaded to keep down weeds and limit evaporation; we leave a lot of leaf litter and dead plant material on the ground to act as mulch/compost; in some of the shady areas in the backyard there are 'nurse logs' that, among other uses, conserve moisture for the nearby plantings. We do not add mulch to anything other than paths every 3-5 years. A wide variety of plants seem to do well with this 'tough love'/'survival of the fittest' regime.

I agree with laceyvail. Spot on. It's discouraging to think that (for the rest of my life anyway) the already ravaging effects of climate change are just going to continue to worsen. It simply has to affect our growing season - what does well, what doesn't, etc. This year - here in zone 6 of PA - was the nearly unprecedented freeze we had in late March. I had many plants that took a beating from it. Then, as others have said, the usual drought-like conditions and these strong storms that come along. The number of cloudy and overcast days seems to have been increasing as well - at least we sure had an amazing number of them last year all the way into fall.

We started of wet, now into dry and hot days.

After soakers (good rains), I'd go out and put down another layer of leaf mulch thinking to try and keep the soil cool and moist until the next rain. I think it has paid off. My perennials look good, not stressed even in this heat - so far. Plus there's not that much bare soil between plants anymore.

But, I began to downsize some years ago so don't have any more large beds, mainly just border beds in the rock garden. What survives, survives. I won't replace a plant that has died, with the same plant. Over the years I've finally figured that out.