Peren.all - well I guess that is good that you aren't along the coast. but as you said being in the middle of a forest during drought is no picnic either.

Funny, all the Hurricane names that we all remember, always those that were the most destructive!

Raymond - I have the same trouble with my dwarf Little Lime Hydrangea. When it rains, the blossoms get so heavy the branches are drooping badly. I have a friend who has a number of them and she provides support for them. I haven’t tried that yet.

I tried pruning them, not pruning them. This year so far they are holding up pretty well, but we’ve hardly had any rain since they bloomed, so I don’t know if they are better or not.

Prairie, still pretty much the same weather, had some rain yesterday but with higher temperaures, you need MORE rainfall to keep up, otherwise very easy to run a deficit. Pretty much around 90 F for the next few, then some cooling, but already showing signs of extended heat in the long range. Latest US Drough Monitor has just introduced more of the yellow or orange color in the East, especially on the Maine coast on south, and when the ground starts to dry out, it's a lot easier to run hotter than normal as the sun's energy not spent on evaporating water, it just heats up the land. P.S., Nice you can grow Hydrangeas..., they struggle locally now between high heat, flash droughts, and freakin' DEER who LOVE THEM!

Raymond, wheres that discussion with GG, Dirr and paniculatas. i have his book on hydrangeas, illustrated by wife Bonnie, and it is well read. It is often available inexpensively on discount book sites.

Marie -

Dr. Dirr and Peegee Hydrangea

Posted by maackia2 days agoShrubsTrees14 CommentsUpdated 22 hours ago

Is it okay to cut down perennials when they become ratty from the heat?

Glad to hear some are finally seeing rain. After a month without rain, my area received ~0.6” 1-2 days ago. Temps have dropped to become more seasonal but no rain in the forecast for the next 10 days. I have not seen such a dry summer in a long time.

Looks like Fall will arrive a couple weeks early here. The trees (even older oaks, tulip trees, etc.) in the wooded fringes of my property are starting to drop leaves. The hummingbirds are fighting at the feeders and fueling up like they getting ready to head south earlier. I am starting to partially cut back perennials that are frizzling despite the irrigation like my astilbes.

DFan - Sorry you're still not getting rain. We're in the same boat this morning. Cooler, more comfortable, no rain. Rain came through last night - Boston and the suburbs to the South...some of them got as much as 2" of rain. We are north and didn't get a drop.

I was just watching coverage for Erin and so far, they're talking about high waves and rip tides and no rain from it. *sigh* So...a watering I will have to go.

In 2022, we had a really dry July and August and I couldn't keep up with the watering. Here are a couple of photos of how dry it was....

This is a bed of Vinca and Epimedium under a Maple.

It's not that bad this year yet, but if I don't do a lot of watering this week, it could be.

Kitase, I don't know the answer to your question, but....personally, I feel like the plant is stressed to the max already and I don't want to add to that, so I leave them.

Sorry to hear some of you are having a dry August, as am I. Here's a useful link to track MTD rainfall, can't remember if I already posted it recently or not...

https://www.prism.oregonstate.edu/mtd/

Since years featuring certain types of weather tend to cluster, I feel like last summer's drought is probably sneaking back up on us. At least we got a repreive for the earlier half of the growing season. And yes I say half, because I usually don't get a hard freeze around here until Thanksgiving. Many BLEs were triggered to produce lammas growth. Now, that growth will die unless I start watering soon. It's going to be a busy weekend for me.

I am at the point now where I am deciding what plants to let go. It's just too darn dry and I'm on a well and just can't keep watering. I've been doing only light watering anyway - watering enough to keep things alive and hopefully not run out my well, hoping for rain in the meantime, and not getting any.

We DID actually get some rain about 4 days ago. I was at work and we watched a torrential downpour for about 10 minutes. It stopped, and about 15 minutes later, it started up again. Absolutely torrential, for a good 30 minutes at least. We were actually discussing concerns of flooding etc. I was relieved though, thinking about my well and my garden.

I got home, and while I only live about 6 miles away, I don't think we got the same amount of rain at my house. While I was watching the downpour at work, my husband had been out in another town, where there was no rain, and when he got home, he texted me to say he was hearing thunder, and maybe it would rain. Maybe it would rain??? You mean it didn't already?? So he went to look more closely in the yard and said, yeah, it must have rained a little but everything is pretty much dry now. Sigh.

So I'm letting half my tomatoes go. They are doing horribly anyway so I am just going to water the ones that aren't half dead and that still have some viable fruit on them. Most annuals out in the garden will be sacrificed - they're not doing so well either. Annuals in pots on the patio will be watered, supplemented with my dehumidifier water, and I bought little trays to go under the pots, so that helps. I have some potted perennials waiting to be planted and those pots are placed in bigger containers (like those under-the-bed sterlite things) so I can keep the water in the container. Daylilies get minimal water - they are tough and will survive. I have an old cutting garden that is mostly reseeders, with some daylilies that were temporarily planted there three years ago, lol, and that won't get much water either.

You work so hard and put so much time and effort and money into trying to make your garden beautiful and then we get this. Of course, none of that matters really, compared to the effect of this climate change on food crops, water shortages, the catastrophic weather events we are seeing, etc. That's the really bad part.

Dee

Dee, not hearing anything in the local news about the dry weather, just all this garbage about how glorious the weather is. I really think that people are more and more outta touch with the world around them, locally, many fewer people are spending time growing vegetables, they get their tomatoes from 100's if not 1000's of miles away. I see a big cool down after tomorrow, but comes with no rain, and then more sunny, chamber of commerce, "perfect" weather. August used to be extremely WET here, now it's become very droughty.

All I can say is to re-iterate vgkgZ-7 Va's comment,I guess. But, people, come on-how can we tolerate this guy who's been declared as the president of the USA(supposed to be one of the most powerful people in the world), who just claps his wee hands, drools and spreads out a red carpet for Vladimir PUTIN??? who would let folks drill up his own butt if it would make money???PLEASE!!!

Careful, Bart bart, you wanna be on the receiving end of unsolicited pizza deliveries to your home? Time to accept reality, we are living during the end of days. Lucky us!

Do what I do, and just order more PLANTS!

"I really think that people are more and more outta touch with the world around them,"

Yeah, amen to that. I've noticed around here that only the old time/old school weathermen who are 60 yrs or so - Tom Tasselmyer and Dan Satterfield, seemed have any common sense about the natural world and that weeks on end of rainless days are a bad thing. The rest of the brain dead bozos are just like "unfortunately, it might rain" even if it hasn't rained for 3 weeks! It's really annoying, and just more evidence that this is the dawning of the age of total idiocracy, but I digress again.*

" You work so hard and put so much time and effort and money into trying to make your garden beautiful and then we get this. "

Totally hear you. It's frustrating when the weather won't cooperate. OTOH I look back on things I've been through - trying to water in 2010 when I had a job where I was taking the commuter train to DC, and losing certain plants because I just didn't have time to get to them. Then, the polar vortex winters that killed a lot of plants and were hugely depressing at the time...now I see it in a different perspective. "So what you lost a 15' Eucalyptus, it was planted too close to your house anyhow...if it had stayed alive another 10 years you'd probably be needing to remove it now!" or "well, you learned that things like Podocarpus macrophyllus really need to be on a south slope". etc. etc. So transforming it, as best I can, into a learning experience.

* it's funny that a friend from college went the route of being a professor. Which I considered but am very glad I didn't. For years he would defend his millennial or gen z students. Finally, he is admitting what lazy idiots they can be. I know there are some exceptions, so, for the handful of people around here who might be that young (Heruga?! just guessing) don't feel offended. In fairness, even older people, with time and a lot of money on their hands, seem to be avoiding anything that might require a more thoughtful, patient, or contemplative approach to life, and gardening certainly is that. Remember this thread? https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/6497792/no-design-on-the-land

I agree with all of you - people are more out of touch with nature. Fewer people garden, more people are staying inside in the AC, driving in their air-conditioned cars, and just not thinking about the effects of climate change - not really thinking much about the weather at all except to complain about the heat, the cold, the rain, the snow. (I only ever hear gardeners complain about the LACK of rain!) And yes, the other day my co-workers were bemoaning the downpour and here I was ready to go dance out in the parking lot in it lol!

And bart bart, at the risk of continuing on the political aspect, which I know we shouldn't really be doing here, I agree with you 100%.

:)

Dee

Thank you with all my heart, diggerdee. I also agree with you 100%. And davidrt ,you too :"The rest of the brain dead bozos are just like "unfortunately, it might rain" even if it hasn't rained for 3 weeks! "- that is SO true, and SO annoying. Like here in Italy when they call summer "La bella stagione". What in tarnation is "beautiful" about going outside and having to gasp for breath , 100degrees in the shade, high humidity but totally arid soil,fires, clouds of insects biting you,sun and heat so ferocious that it's killing people...???

Latest US drought monitor. Does not look too bad in the East but have a feeling it will be growing in the East.

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

@Marie Tulin Boston burbs z 6a

Your post jogged my memory (not much left) – so I searched and I found the Dr Dirr Hydrangeas book (hard cover) tucked in with my other gardening books. I checked amazon and I bought it the same day I bought Dirr’s Hardy in 2006. I had a service appt for the car yesterday so I took the book – read through the acknowledgments, introduction, and moved right to the paniculatas and had a good laugh. A few excerpts:

‘My primary objection to the typical ‘Grandiflora’ is the placement, too often prominent, and the general oafishness, clumsiness, and gaucheness of the flowers.’ Ouch. But then goes on to say, ‘Used in a shrub border or mixed (herbaceous and shrub) border, it can prove elegant.’ He said elegant!

Then, in his evaluation of ‘Pee Wee’ – ‘Not as obtrusive and obnoxious as big sister. This grows next to ‘Grandiflora’, and together they remind me of Dr. Evil and Mini Me.

The illustrations are great. The book cost $19.77 then, now 59.65 – the dimensions (L x W) make the book nice to read.

It must be out of print if it is $60 !

when i was starting my garden i used to read Dirrs hardcover ”Hardy….” the way i read an easy mystery now…..just for fun. Thirty years and About 40 trees and shrubs later i can barely pick up the tome.

i wonder if he‘s involved in plant trials at all. I’d like to hear what he'd say about how they are conducted now, the minaturization of woodies, ”ultimate size” (mis) information , and how ”sterile” new sterile introductions are. Obviously the growing time until maturity is a big challenge to assessing trees.

The kousas are fruiting now. After eating one (some?) he commented he’ d rather ”eat a Milky Way.”

Marie

This discussion has wandered far afield of brutal weather!

Today the temperature in Boston is nearly 30 degrees cooler than when this thread began less than a month ago.

I am not complaining yet, even though as a New Englander, I am entitled to. We who put up with this unpredictable weather, including mud and black fly seasons, should enjoy a good detailed weather complaint a few times each season.

Who has something new to say about the weather?

We FINALLY had a fairly nice rain here yesterday evening. I will however, complain, lol, because it was supposed to start at noon, rain all day, all through the night and into this morning. It didn't start till almost 3pm, misted for awhile, and then finally morphed into a lovely gentle rain, which did indeed last for a few hours, but ended by about 10pm, with a few stoppages in between. So it was nice and fairly long, but not the almost 24 hours that was predicted.

It is, however, freezing lol. I swear if my husband weren't here I would turn on the heat! My house is 62 degrees! It's 53 degrees outside now. I really am not unhappy though. I hate temps over 75 and we've been consistently in the 80's and low 90's here.

So between the cool and the rain I am feeling a bit relieved for the survival of my garden and of my well. lol. The only downside is that it is a bit melancholy, because it reminds me that winter is on it's way. Of course we have autumn to enjoy, and I do love that season, but the cooler temps and shorter days are a harbinger of winter. But then again, it will probably be in the 90's next week! Haha!

:)

Dee

Glad you got rain Dee.

If you select "deviation from 30 year normal" and "precipitation" you will see that most of the eastern US is now headed into drought. Since we are entering a climatologically dry month anyhow, I expect a big update to the drought monitor soon.

https://www.prism.oregonstate.edu/mtd/

Wow...looking at the forecast...7 days of mid 70s during the day/mid 50s every night...sunshine during the day. Ahhhhh!!! lol Is everyone having similar comfortable weather after all that heat? The forecast was for 90% chance of rain today. Now they sound like maybe ...fingers crossed, we need it.

Yes! Temps and humidity in my location are great too. Glad to hear you should receive rain today. Received rain here a week ago but no rain forecasted until next week (a 2-week gap). This is the dryest summer here in many years.

It's been just beautiful here in southern CT. Sunny, slight breeze, temps about 72-75. My kinda weather! We could use a bit more rain - I am back to watering but at least it's every other day instead of every day. The only downside is I'm in work most of the day so I can only enjoy this beautiful weather in small doses - morning stroll through the garden, coffee break at work, evening garden stroll after work before I go babysit...

:)

Dee

Our local weather dude usually picks a "Best day of the week" coming up in our 7 day forecast. This morning he said there will be no best day of the week because all 7 days are excellent. No rain, temps high of 80F, low humidity every day. Perfect weather for the newly planted fall garden.

Light rain forecast on and off for most of the morning.

It's been the driest August since records were kept (over 150 years) in DC.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/08/29/dc-record-dry-august-drought/

One thing the article doesn't mention that alarms me ever so slightly, is the connection to the 62/63 timeframe: previous driest August was in 1962, and previous month to beat rain free record was Oct 1963. People like me who have studied the history of ornamental horticulture know what happened that year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_1962%E2%80%931963_in_the_United_Kingdom

I don't know why that wikipedia article doesn't address the wider world. It was also a cold winter in the US, and Europe - where exotic plants like Kentia palms were known to have perished along the French Riviera, for example. Tampa had its all time record low of 18F. Also the following winter was cold too - just as we're finding out now with the drought, weather anomolies tend to cluster. https://www.alamy.com/dec-12-1963-all-over-france-cold-weather-has-frozen-the-rivers-lcebanks-image69408830.html

Well, so far....no rain. Even though they said 90% chance of everyone in the area getting some around 4p.. We had a brief shower earlier..like blink and you missed it. Supposedly there is still a chance we could get some tonight. Back to hand watering tomorrow otherwise.

Triple digits from tomorrow through next Wednesday, then cooling down to the low 90s.
I have to laugh when I see ads for “end-of-summer” sales. Around here, summer lasts through October 15.
Rain.

No rain, I mean. Not a ghost of a chance.

The roses are coping, especially the established ones (3 years plus). Photos to come. The younger ones,though, need careful watching.

My husband and his brother play guitar weekly on the phone between CA where he lives and Boston where we are.

He called tonight to cancel because it is too hot to even hold his guitar in his apartment that is not air conditioned and it is too hot to open the windows. And he is exhausted from the unrelenting heat.

We on the East Coast had 2 terrible heat waves this summer. Wishing you Californians respite soon

Marie, Time for BIL to get an air conditioner! [g] I bought a new one this summer and we're enjoying it. We got the Consumer Reports highly rated LG a/c and it is working very well and quiet. Not cheap.

I am sincerely fed up with it now. The allotment is a horrible scenario of shrivelled, dying and dead plants while the home pot garden is a jungle of rank, over-foliaged growth (cos the watering has been continuous and relentless, leaching soil fertility (a number of plants have simply refused to flower at all (iochroma, plumbago, penstemons and various salvia). Have never felt so incompetent. Well, no, that bit is a lie as I often feel utterly at sea despite decades of (ahem) 'experience'. Am looking despairingly on as the workload involves a LOT of moving, digging, culling and generally sorting out...but what to do with them all? Made worse as I feel unable to formulate any sort of longer-term plan for anything.

Most worrying (for me) is the horrible threat of allotment sell-offs. Mine is a tiny site in the centre of town and a totally ripe for profitable development (a blight on urban demographics in too many ways to elucidate). Our council has made attempts before but the political landscape was not that favourable (all changed now though). I may have to chain myself to the gates!

Most worrying (for me) is the horrible threat of allotment sell-offs.

I'd like to learn more about this. We don't have allotments like that in the U.S. (not where I live, anyway). Who actually owns them? If the local municipality owns, can they sell off without going through the proper government process? Where I am, that would need council approval and require meetings open to the public. Not that the public always "wins" in terms of the will of the people, but at least there's a process. (sometimes there are wins)

PM you bet its time for an AC and he knows it. Relationship and mental health issues converge and make common sense decisions fraught.

The long range forecast here in Va is cooler than normal temps will continue at least through Sept 10th. It was 54F here this morning, with upper 70's predicted for the next week+. Could use some rain now but not much in sight.

vgkg, similar situation here - cooler than normal temps - some days 77ish, others 72ish, one day last week didn't get out of the 60s! 50-51 in the mornings the last week. I am most definitely not complaining though. Except about the rain. The weather really has been quite beautiful, but in all honestly we still need more rain. Some forecast for Friday but we will see....

:)

Dee

Southern Cali weather continues here (NJ/LI/NYC), upper 70's, sunny skies. not a drop of rain in over 2 weeks, fires starting to pop up. September and October tend toward this kind of "perfect" weather, difference is that there was very limited precip in July and August (usually wet). Even worse in the coastal NE (Ma., RI., Me.) This is a new pattern in recent years, which also sees heavy winter rainfall.

We haven't had rain either and the forecast looks like nothing is changing. We're supposed to get some rain on Friday, but they emphasize that not everyone will get it and it will be less than an inch. *sigh* I've given up on waiting for rain. I do have rainbarrels that are full and I'm going to try to use those in case it rains tomorrow and I could get them refilled. Plus I'm watering by hand, which is allowed. It just takes so long.

Basically no meaningful rain here, and the NHC seems to be saying that Saharan sand storms are killing tropical storm development...so it's looking like there's a possibility my driest August ever will be followed by my driest September ever. One could say "at least you had good rain in June and July", but it actually triggered many BLEs to make lammas growth, which I now have to worry about wilting. Ugh.

Too early to say whether this will be worst than last year...it will depend on how soon we go back into a wet pattern, it previously took until December and it seemed surreal to me I was still having to water plants in November. But it's already looking to be one of my worst dry spells either way. As I've previously posted, 2010, 2011, and 2012 all had hot dry spells early in the summer, but wet spells tied to the now infamous hurricanes that came later like Irene and Sandy. I'm now wondering if we will get any meaningful tropical precip. this year. The NWS and NHC track everything "bad" about tropical storm systems, but I wonder if they track how anomalous their hydrological absence is. If this carries on for another year or two, it will start to seem unprecedented to me. I can't remember a long stretch of years of NOT seeing rain from hurricanes or their remnants. (Yes, I'm not forgetting Helene devastated western NC - I had just vacationed there a few weeks prior. But its rains barely impacted DC, and missed me entirely)

And btw I can remember September and October getting rains just from low pressure systems that formed over the midwest and tracked east - that water tap also seems to have totally extinguished in recent years.

I hadn't heard that about the Sahara sand storms. Wow. Well, that is pretty discouraging. YOu hear about hurricane season developing and then nothing. I rememer we didn't get anything last year either.

I am watering from the town water, but I wonder how long I can keep doing that. I do have two rainbarrels that are full, but, that is exhausting to empty them one watering can at a time. But...I'll have to manage and try to do a little at a time.

We're having rain right now, with thunder and wind. But...barely. It started to look like real rain and then petered out. It's supposed to last until morning but, I'll believe it when I see it. I put a container out there to measure how much rain we get. Sad.

Yay....at least we got an inch of rain. And we may get some showers through this morning. The forecast for the next 7 days though, no rain in sight.

pm so happy you got rain! It rained twice in the last 3 weeks but both times the base of plants were still dry, sigh. I was just relieved to get any to diminish the fire risk.

Thanks Peren.all, It's actually raining again right now. I already took the container in to measure with so I won't know how much I get...but it's more...lol. Very happy about it too. The plants already look bedraggled from the dryness - but at least the roots will get enough to prepare for winter and hopefully come back next spring.

That must stress you out, to have a well and not be able to water when it doesn't rain.

Been raining - downpours last night, tornado sighting a few towns over, here in Massachusetts. Still raining steadily since I got up at 4.30, and it is most welcome. Planted a couple of new shrubs a few weeks ago, and am glad not to have to water them right now. Thank goodness the horrible hot weather has gone (for the time being!).

We had tornado warnings here in CT as well, yesterday afternoon and into the evening. I didn't believe it lol. Didn't believe it would rain either (how many times have I heard THAT lately lol?) but thankfully it did. And thankfully no tornadoes that I have heard of either

It was supposed to rain for at least 18 straight hours, but of course that didn't happen. However, we did get a good amount finally, thank goodness. I don't have an official measure, and I am terrible at estimating, but I do have a rectangular under-the-bed-type sterlite container outside that I use for bottom watering small pots, and there seems to be about 3 inches of water in it, so that's good.

:)

Dee

Dee, I can see a saucer outside that is 2" deep and that seems to be what we ended up with. A nice amount. So much better than fractions of an inch. [g] Glad you finally had 3 inches of rain, that will go a long way, especially in cooler temps.

No tornadoes here either. Cities around us had downed branches but we had just a little wind and that was it.