Cool weather = long spring bloom

Our magnificent 'Donald Wyman' crab apple trees
There is good news and there is bad news. The good news is that the spring flowers, especially the bulbs and flowering trees and shrubs, which are usually over and done with too quickly, are lasting and lasting.

We have a cool period to thank for that, although, to tell the truth, over the past week it was so cold that I huddled in front of the computer most days and could barely coax myself out into the garden, except to mow the lawn, and I had to bundle up to do that.

It's going to warm up a bit now, but temperatures are expected to stay below normal for the next two weeks. What has me concerned is the lack of rain. Already, we have experienced weeks of dryness beginning in mid-April. The first two weeks of May brought welcome rain, but since then we have not had any significant precipitation.

South of the border readers: tempertures are in Celcius
White line shows normal average temperatures
And as you can see, from this 14-day extended forecast from the Weather Network, we might have to wait until June for a decent rain. When there are showers forecast, as they are in the coming week - we tend to get just a few dribbles.

I certainly don't want a rerun of last season. Nothing takes the joy out of gardening like drought. However, I'll have an easier time of it this season, and fewer hoses to drag around. Last fall we added an irrigation system for our shade garden, (the link takes you to a page about my shade garden on my web site), which is under evergreen trees and therefore gets very dry, and the four-square garden.

Let's keep our fingers crossed for rain, and that frost stays away on Wednesday night. And you know what? If it's going to be dry, it will be a blessing if temperatures stay on the cool side.

© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

Lawn and drought: how to keep the grass alive

Here's some great advice about drought and lawns from Kevin Frank, a turf expert at Michigan State University.

Many homeowners choose not to irrigate their lawn and about now the concern becomes whether or not the lawn might be suffering and possibly approaching death. For Kentucky bluegrass lawns (which are the majority of lawns in Michigan), there is usually no danger that the lawn is going to die unless water is lacking for six to eight weeks. However, there are really no hard fast numbers for predicting whether the turf will die as many other factors will come into play such as high temperatures and traffic.

Even if you are not an irrigator, it might be a good idea to give the turf a little water if the turf hasn’t received any water for a month. Apply about a 0.5 to 1.0 inch of water just to make sure the lawn makes it through this cycle of drought. The goal of this irrigation is not to turn it green, but just to prevent the turf from completely desiccating (severe drying out) and possibly death. If we continue in this dry spell, I would continue to give the turf a drink every three to four weeks.

His other tips:

• Avoid mowing during the heat of the afternoon, which can result in tire tracks or foot prints on the lawn that may be visiable a long time.
  
• Mow during cooler times of the day, early morning or evening, and keep the mowing height high.

I've been following this advice, just putting the sprinkler on the lawn areas near the house and my most important garden beds, and it does help the turf quite a bit. Unfortunately, we have a lot more lawn than that, so a lot of our grass has to weather the drought on its own.

You can find Kevin Frank's full article at the Michigan Landscape Alert: look for Drought stresses turf.