Jim McHatton

hi :) Welcome to GT !

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

Hello there and WELCOME to GT!!!! :-)

-- "A perfect garden is just a garden to be in-perfection. Mornings to work on it and evenings to pause and look at it." Southeast Michigan, Zone 5a/5b

Hi Jim and welcome to GT

-- Bon,Hastings,Ont.....zone 5a....Always room for one more

Welcome to GT. Zone 7b gardens should be spectacular to see. Any photos from this year?

-- jroot

Thanks for the note, but this year our garden has been restricted from watering, so we lost a
lot of beauty. We are now hoping that we do lose trees, as the drought has been effecting trees the hardest.

Yesterday, we spent a few hours digging up a small part of a garden and then digging it deeper, adding more amendments, and then replacing the flowers in a more orderly manner. It had not been done for 5-6 years.

I know the plants will appreciate the effort.
We had transplanted three shoots from our bottle brush buckeye and they weathered the transplant and are ready to be replanted. This is a fantastic bush for both cover and a splash of unusual flowering.

I had to look that up... interesting bush!

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

Bottle brush buckeye is a neat plant.

I take my hat off to you Jim. I have been wanting to redig one section of the garden for a couple of years, but keep putting it off. .... maybe next year.

-- jroot

From those pics you linked us to MsDeb … I believe we had several of those Bottle Brush Buckeyes growing around our city. They are truly a beautiful bush and quite frankly had wondered what they were called.

-- "A perfect garden is just a garden to be in-perfection. Mornings to work on it and evenings to pause and look at it." Southeast Michigan, Zone 5a/5b

Hi Jim,
Welcome to THE gardening site!
Sounds like you have a lot of work ahead of you!
My hat’s off for all the work already done!

-- Eklectic, Follow my Bliss, South East Ontario 5a

Don’t know what to say about the trees.
That’s a real hard one. They will take 2- 300 gallons a day.

I suppose you have checked out an emitter system for spot irrigation for your more formal plantings?

Bob

-- I want to believe in a lot of things but, in the meantime I have to deal with the truth

Bob:
Thanks for the note and the real concern is we are allowed to water three times a week, and the watering has to be by hand, with a spray nozzle, and not longer than 30 minutes per session.

That does not lend to watering trees, especially when you have 15 large trees. I am saving water from the roof but it’s have to save when it does not rain for 30 days.

We can only hope we have an extreme amount of rain come November through March.

Again, thanks for your concern.

Would it pay you to put in a cistern and collect the gray water and rain, then pump it back as you need it?
I’m toying with this at my place right now.
It means separating the sinks, dishwasher, clothes washer and tubs from the main sewer and burying a tank in the back yard.
The rest is pretty standard irrigation.

Bob

-- I want to believe in a lot of things but, in the meantime I have to deal with the truth

that sounds like a good plan, Bob. Just think of all that water “going down the drain”.

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

I’m wondering if at some point we will all be considering this … this past summer for us has been unusual, with the amount of rain we got and no long periods of drought nor scorching heat. I for one was and am counting myself fortunate this year. Feel awful for other folk, like Jim, that are dealing with drought.

Jim I truly hope your trees do survive and you get that rain you so badly need.

-- "A perfect garden is just a garden to be in-perfection. Mornings to work on it and evenings to pause and look at it." Southeast Michigan, Zone 5a/5b

last year was our hot/dry summer and I planned for the same this year. But our rainbarrels were overflowing all of the time. We didn’t need them at all.

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

Jim, I think this would be a good discussion to continue in a blog or a forum discussion. (and then I can link to the tips in our new newsletter :)

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)