We are experiencing record heat and drought. As a result, many established trees, shrubs and lawns are suffering. Plants may look chlorotic or even losing leaves. Especially new plantings (1-2 years old), or less adapted plants such as Japanese maples or Dogwoods. If you think you can't lose a large established shade tree in this weather, think again. Not to mention, the stress of this drought will effect the tree's health for years to come and has a compounding effect.

Frequent,shallow watering contributes significantly to plant stress this time of year. Watering your established turf and landscape for 5-10 minutes a day is the absolute WRONG way to water. Established plantings need 1" worth of water weekly. A deep watering 1-2 times per week is much more effective than a short, daily watering, which will damage root systems and waste water to evaporation.

Realize, of course, that smaller herbaceous plants and annuals will require supplemental hand watering in addition to your sprinkler system, because they have much smaller and shallower root systems.

New plantings will require supplemental watering in addition to your sprinkler system. Water should saturate at least 6" deep. Gator bags are a great way to keep newly planting trees watered.

Some people promote that you should stop watering all together during a drought like this. Problem is, allowing shade trees and shrubs to die will only result in massive increases in energy usage to cool your home. Allowing turf to die will result in soil erosion. Replacing the plant material, which is ineveitable, will cost more in $ and resources to get the new plants established. Watering properly will cut down on waste and preserve the landscape we have.

Remember, DFW is not a desert climate. It is grassland prairie and Eastern hardwood forest. Planting "desert" plants won't solve your problem. The 20" of rain we can get in the spring, or the 10" we get in fall, will rot those plants quickly. Not watering will not help in the advancing desertification process that we are starting to experience in Texas, it will only make it worse. Cities feel the heat worse due to the high concentration of contrete and metal which can raise our temps a good 10-15 degrees. Shade trees and shrub/turf plantings are key to holding down temperatures, reducing cooling costs and reducing pollution.

Mind your watering restrictions where you live. Even if you are only allowed to water once per week, one solid deep watering per week is enough to keep your established landscape healthy. 10 mintues won't do the job.

Addendum: So how long to water your landscape?

It really depends on your individual landscape, irrigation system, hand watering etc. The easiest way to "audit" how much you need to water in order to get the equivalent of 1" worth of rainfall per week, is to get several tuna cans and place them in different areas of your sprinkler zone - or where you put out sprinklers. Run the irrigation until you get 1" of water in the can. That's how long you'll need to run it. HOWEVER, in very dry or clay compacted soils, sometimes your landscape can't take in that much water at once without run off. So you may have to split the time into 2 cycles. For example, if you see run off after 20 min, but you've only got 1/2" of water in the can, then what you'll want to do is irrigate for 20 min, then let it rest, then wait about 1 hour and do the remaining 20 min (so an A and B cycle on your system) or split up your hand watering.

When it comes to using soaker hoses or drip irrigation, you have to run those systems much, much longer. That's a big mistake people make with soaker hoses - they run them for the same time they would a sprinkler, which will result in even less saturation. Soaker/drip systems put out a much lower volume of water, but over a longer period of time, which can really reduce waste and help plants absorb all the water they need. But if you run your sprinkler for an hour, you may need to run the soakers for about 6 hours. You'll just need to see how long it takes to saturate at least the top 6" of soil.

The New Chicks Venture Outdoors for the First Time

I took the new baby girls outside for the firs time...They got a little rowdy, so we didn't stay out there long (it's kinda hard to catch these little munchkins once they decide to run, lol). There are two Polish hens and one Cochin. Looks like the black white-crested Polish is actually turning into a speckled, but the Blue looks like she's going to be a lovely color - even her legs are turnig silver. I was hoping for a Blue Cochin, but she's turing out to be a black (you only end up with 25% actual "blues" with any breed, so you end up with the rest being black or speckled, which are both still pretty). Too cute!

Blue Polish chick

Black (or speckled) white crested Polish chick

Black Cochin chick

So, this morning we extracted honey from one of our backyard hives. We didn't even take the whole super's worth of frames, we left a few behind and only extracted from about 6 frames. Here are some photos of the process...

Here is me using the the bump and brush method, after a little smoking, to remove the bees from the honey super.

They are not happy about getting brushed off their honey frames...after we collected all the frames we wanted to harvest, we put them into another waiting empty super and slipped it inside a plastic bag for transport to the honey house.

Here I am at the honey house using the hot knife to remove the beeswax capping from the honey comb. You basically slice off the capping and collect it in a tray below (you'll save this wax and honey for later...it's yummy!)

A close up of the wax capping coming off the honey comb...

Then, you use a metal comb to break open any remaining cell not opened by the hot knife...

The frames are then carefully placed inside an extractor, which is basically like a large centrifuge that spins out all the honey at high speed.

The honey drains out of the extractor into a food-grade plastic collecting bucket, filtered by two metal sieves and a straining cloth. So pretty!

Excess honey is squeezed out of the straining cloth...

And here is our beautiful honey! We didn't end up with a great quantity, but from only 6 frames we got about a gallon and a half of beautiful golden honey. It is very thick with a wonderful floral flavor. We tested the moisture content and it measured 17%. A good quality honey shouldn't have more than 18% and preferably a little less. Too much moisture in the honey means your honey can ferment later on, plus it makes it thin. With the drought this year, it's no surprise we came in at 17%. While the drought keeps us from getting as much honey, the honey we get is of higher quality. The bees will usually tell you themselves when your honey is at the right moisture content for harvesting, because they will cap it off between 17%-18%.

And don't forget that bonus honey and comb...I jarred it up...it's like candy!

I'll be jarring up some of our "Sweet Beez Backard Honey" for family and a few friends over the next week. Looking forward to a big harvest next year!

I'll be harvesting honey from one of our backyard hives this morning. As mentioned in an earlier post I'll only be harvesting from one of the 4 hives I'm maintaining. The weather this spring and summer has just been brutal on new growing hives. But for the first harvest it looks like we are going to get plenty off of just this one happy hive. I'll post some photos of the process. Can't wait to taste!

Stunning Blooms That Shine in the Heat of Summer

Here are some of the lovely Cone Flowers, Echinacea spp., blooming in my garden right now. While many plants are literally melting away in the heat, these tough perennials are coming into their own. They show best when it's nice and hot outside...

Interestingly, many of these new varieties of cone flower have the most wonderful fragrance, which you don't get in the species or older cultivars. It's always a unexpected surprise to walk by them and get a waft of their sweet scent.

UPDATE: After several years of testing, many of these large flowered hybrids didn't stand the test of time as long-term perennials in the harsh heat of Texas, especially when growing next to a lot of heat reflecting concrete. BUT, getting a good three years out of them and the beauty they added to the garden was well worth it!

Echinacea 'Mama Mia'
PC: Leslie F. Halleck

Echinacea 'Summer Sky'
PC: Leslie F. Halleck

Echinacea 'Summer Sun'
PC: Leslie F. Halleck

Echinacea 'Tangerine Dream'
PC: Leslie F. Halleck

I'll be posting a series of photos of plants that are beating the heat in my summer garden. With the hottest June on record just past and no end in sight for the 103+ temps it's good to know which plants can take the heat and still look beautiful in the garden.

Here is a lovely Pride of Barbados, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, I keep in a large container on the front porch. It gets scalding hot Western sun in the afternoon. But it's beautiful!

My Cute New Baby Chicks Have Arrived!

Ok..are these babies cute are what??? Here they are about a week old...

Little Cochin...hopefully a Blue, but probably a Black

Little Polish...White Crested Black, or may end up Speckled

Little Polish #2...Looks like she will be a Silver/Blue! (yay)

Soooo...I got a call from the post office this morning that I had baby chicks waiting for me. WHAT??? This was a back order from 6 months ago that I'd cancelled a while back. For whatever reason, they shipped the chicks anyway. Yikes!! Well, what do you do...you can't ship them back...So, I ran back at lunch to pick them up and then set up a new brooder for them right quick.

I'll be raising these three little babies for a while. Two are Polish hens and I'm not sure what the other one is just yet (Just figured out it's probably a Cochin, either blue or black...which I MUST have! lol). I really only have room for one more chicken...two more would be pushing it. But, it's going to be really hard not to get attached to these little munchkins. So, I may have a couple of specialty breeds that will need a new home in a bit...I'll keep you posted!