Is this a rain garden post?

Hooker Falls is a sensory overload as the sound of the crashing water, the mist touching your face and the cool water between your toes speaks of the power of water.

Finally got a chance to get away for a few days. This escape was courtesy of North Carolina Touring, a company that plans motorcycle trips for busy people. We spent three days traveling to and through the mountains of North Carolina, stopping to view and photograph beautiful water falls.

The trip started in Durham and after the necessary miles on I85 and I40, we began to travel two-lane black top through small mountain towns. My favorite was when we wound our way through lush river bottom land. As the black top narrowed, the scenery became quainter. We meandered past corn fields, tree farms, bee keepers and tiny cottages whose gardens dwarfed the homes the gardeners lived in.

There is something very special about viewing the land from the back of a motorcycle. The sound of air rushing past your helmet is mesmerizing. The smells are amazing. Fresh cut fields of hay, dips and curves that took you into deep forested places smelling of fern and moss and then the smell of water as you approached a bridge spanning a section of lake.

Three days on a bike and finally, I was grateful to pull into our driveway. The lawn cried out for a haircut neglected on the weekend but thankfully, the rain garden had taken care of itself.

Festival on the Eno - Observations

I spent several hours working the information booth for the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association at Durham's annual Festival on the Eno this 4th of July weekend.

It was gratifying to see the number of groups represented there that are actively involved in keeping our planet healthy.

Two things became very clear. Those that are involved in these organizations are well-informed and passionate about protecting our forests, wetlands, animals and waterways and especially those lands that help keep the balance between people living on and off the land and sustaining that land for future generations. The second thing was that large numbers of our population have only a vague idea of why this is important.

With all the publicity that the Falls Lake water quality issue has generated recently in our area, I would have thought that more people would have an understanding of the relationship between their drinking water and land use. Sadly that is not so.

Everyone of us that uses water lives in a watershed. Do you know which watershed you live in? Do you know how your actions affect your watershed?

Hostas in the June Rain Garden

In a drier part of our rain garden, the Patriot Hosta is flourishing. Although all hosta will not tolerate this lack of moisture, Patriot is quite forgiving and continues to multiply each year.

This Sum & Substance Hosta is planted near the overflow pipe from the rain barrels. Condensation from the AC unit also flows into the rain garden at this location. The fern directly below it's leaves also benefits from the added moisture.

Durham is currently 4 inches below normal in rainfall amounts for the year. Looking at the lush foliage in the rain garden above, it's obvious that this deficit hasn't been felt by any of these plants.
A careful selection of plant materials will assure an interesting and lush garden throughout the spring, summer and fall season.

A 50 Pound Lily

For those that remember my 'She's here' post, here's an update on the 8 1/2 pound pup we brought home last July. Darling Lily is growing up. A brief visit to the vet today and they weighed our now not-so-little girl in at 50 pounds.

Fragile she's not and has been given the nickname 'Cinderblock'.

And of course she rules the household even though we tell ourselves that WE are the leader of the pack.

Right.

Blooming Now In The Rain Garden

The end of April and beginning of May are my favorite time in the rain garden. All the groundcovers have popped back up and covered the bare spots. The grasses are tall, beautiful and sway with the slightest breeze.

And then there is the color. Dainty orchid-like Siberian Iris is in full bloom and the shade of Ceasar's Brother can only be described as deep royal purple. Close by, the wild indigo (Baptisia) blooms in a pure blue and below it, the spiderwort is covered in deep lavender star-shaped blooms jutting from short stems at the base of each leaf. This grouping has great color and texture and fills about 1/5 of the entire perennial space. And the backdrop for the sprinkling of lavenders, purples and blues is an old unidentified azalea with hose-in-hose blooms of a deep rich pink. It's really a wow moment.

I've managed to keep pulled the few weeds that popped up through the spring. The next chore will be to cut the stems of the wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) when they've dried and find a friend to give them to for their gardens.

The 'Sum & Substance' hosta I moved to the garden last fall likes its new spot by the overflow pipe from the rainbarrels. The ribbed leaves have grown to 12 inches across this year and new shoots have emerged. Next year this hosta will be a real eye catcher because of its size and chartreuse color. A Tassel fern is now hidden underneath it's canopy and will have to be moved this fall.

Surprisingly, the above scenario has played out with below normal rainfall over a 4 week period. This speaks to choosing plants with the versatility of taking it wet or tolerating it dry. Plant selection is key to a beautiful rain garden.

More plants survived the winter

It's been exciting to check the rain garden each week to see if any new shoots have emerged. My big concern over the Hibiscus coccineus is now laid to rest. Both clumps have new green shoots emerging around the old stems from last year.

I planted some Maidens grass by the overflow pipe from the rain barrels, just to see if it would survive in soggy soil as an experiment and it too has new green shoots coming up.

The wild columbine went from little bunches of leaves 6 inches high to full bloom with those lovely red bell-shaped blooms dangling from 24 inch stems in just a week. The fact that we had temps in the high 80's had a lot to do with that. The progression from leaves to full bloom usually takes 3 or 4 weeks but this has been an unusual spring with temperatures that matched the record books recorded highs.

The spiderwort is also beginning to bloom with those vivid purple star-shaped flowers atop the stems and the blue indigo that refused to poke its head up has now reached a height of 18 inches in just this last 2 weeks.

We have a new challenge it seems for the rain garden. We have had less that 1/8 inch of rain in the last 2 weeks and none is predicted for at least another week. So many things are popping up and really need that moisture to continue to grow and form healthy plants. I guess we'll now be testing the drought hardiness of some of the more delicate plants.

I'll be posting pictures of the rain garden soon, so check back to see what kind of color and texture is happening now.

Cold Winters & Plant Hardiness

The Herald Sun's recent article about the winter of 2009/2010 confirmed my suspicions. This was one of the coldest winters on record, in fact the 6th coldest winter in the Durham area since records were kept back in the 40's. In addition to the cold we received around 7 inches of snow when our average is slightly over 2 inches. This winter there were days on end when the rain garden was nothing but a water filled bog. This is a large deviation from the years since it's planting when we have had below normal rainfall and water passed through and filtered down in less than 3 hours. All the plants did extremely well under the drier conditions.

My inspection yesterday showed that the grasses are sending up new shoots, as are the Aquilegia, Sedum and Siberian Iris. A few more warm days and I'll check again.