This past summer, 2022, has been an exceptionally hot and dry summer here in western Washington State. People either water their plants and lawns a LOT … or they’ve stopped watering completely. Everyone has been worried about wildfires again in western USA and Canada, but it seems the wildfires are fewer this year. Maybe people are learning to be more careful? So fewer fires are being started by people?
But still, it has been hot and dry here, not caused by wildfires but by climate. It hasn’t been as bad up here as California’s drought, but bad enough for the Pacific Northwest that’s known for its rain, when we aren’t getting rain! Some folks here, even if they don’t water their lawns, they still make sure the trees around their homes get watered (I do that) … trees need water too.
So, those of us who are used to Pacific Northwest weather and that lovely misty moisty dewy type of rain that we have here a lot in the autumn and winter and spring, and that we have here (or have had here) at least occasionally in the summer … we have been loving the sun, but we have been praying for autumn and the autumn rains.
I was at the store the other day buying drought tolerant plants for the sunny, west side of my house. I drove home, parked in the driveway, got out of my big white truck. Right beside my driveway is a “burning bush” (Euonymus alatus), that I keep trimmed to about three feet tall. Well today, as I got out of my truck, I saw that this lovely bush had ONE bright orange/pink autumn leaf on it, announcing the arrival of fall. I almost danced. 🙂
This one brave leaf is the first one to step out and announce itself and announce the arrival of autumn. You can see many of the leaves around this one are changing as well, getting ready to turn the entire bush into a gorgeous feast of reds and pinks and oranges. Sometimes it takes just one to start the process. That’s true with burning bushes, and maybe with humans too, eh? 🙂
And, indeed, I did purchase three drought tolerant plants. A few days later I planted them in front of my house. Here’s a photo of my Black Knight (Caryopteris) plants.
These plants will grow to about three feet tall and three feet in diameter, and fill in that space nicely without over-powering the space. Bees love these plants!! I water the Black Knight plants daily (to help them just this first year), and when I do that, the bees aren’t happy about being interrupted by the water spray … the bees talk to me about my unauthorized interruption of their work, they aren’t happy about the spray of water bouncing the flowers around. A number of them have even flown up and hovered right in front of my face and looked me in the eye, but I whistle and remind the bees that I’m helping the plants and thereby helping them too. They listen and haven’t harmed me. And I listen too and now I water mostly early in the morning or late in the evening when the bees aren’t there.
And then, to top this off … it rained last night and today. Autumn is here … hooray for autumn! 🙂