Plants for Hot Weather and Droughts

Isn’t the hot, dry weather excellent for getting around to all those odd jobs outside? 

I have put off painting our white wall for the last six years because there’s generally a risk of rain but could procrastinate no longer and my wall, like many others on our road has had a fresh coat.

I can imagine the paint manufacturers have seen very little or no sun for the last few weeks because they have been too busy mixing the exterior paint to cater for the demand.

I’ve also been making a new perennial bed for the ever growing plants I got earlier this year. Most of them have outgrown their 2 litre pots and were drying out on an hourly basis in the sun. I’ve put the plants quite close together into the bed as I’ll be moving a lot of them to a more permanent spot next year in the front garden. 

When I dug the holes for the plants I filled them up with water before putting the rootball in. This saved a lot of watering afterwards and there will be very little evaporation and hopefully I won’t really need to water them again before the rain comes. I have also put old broken clay pots and small upright bamboo poles in the gaps to hopefully keep the dogs from sitting on the plants which seems to be one of their favourite things to do in the hot weather. I have a clump of montbretia with a hole in the centre where they like to sit, as it must be a bit cooler in there for them in the shade.

Some larger containers of strawberries need quite a lot of attention too. We’re trying to save water so the butts are emptying fast and we are also putting the washing up water into the flower pots too to cut down the demand a little bit, they don’t seem to mind.  

I have a few tomato plants thriving in the tunnel. I also have a chilli pepper (f1 Apache) doing really well. I try and grow chillies every year but this is the best I have seen. I also have a sweet pepper plant (Redskin) doing really well with loads of peppers appearing. This year we got an aubergine plant to play with too (Black beauty) and that too is doing really well in the high humidity. The aubergines leaves are slightly hairy which helps retain moisture in hot dry weather.

Plants for Hot Weather

We are really grateful of plants that can tolerate dryness and the silver hairy varieties are perfect for this type of weather.  A lot of plants like this come from the Mediterranean where it might not rain for months. 

Aromatic silver-leafed plants, and those with pungent foliage, produce an oily film on their leaves that acts as a sunscreen while minimising water loss. Most develop deep root systems that penetrate metres into the ground allowing them to reach water reserves. Most flower in summer and their sugar-rich nectar pleases the bees.

Silver and grey leaves dominate this Mediterranean group because this colour absorbs less heat. Some silvery plants have finely divided leaves (like dianthus) and others develop a woolly surface like certain stachys. So if a plant has silver leaves that are either woolly or aromatic it will usually thrive in full sun. Lavender and rosemary are two examples. Most of their growing is done in winter so there’s no need to cut back until spring.

Other plants store water either in their leaves and stems. Succulents, house leeks (sempervivums) and sedums shrug off drought and never flag, thanks to their plump foliage. 

Some plants cope by developing long tap roots as a water-seeking device. Poppies, lupins, hollyhocks and lots of umbellifers rely on tapping into moisture underground.

If you are planting now add organic matter to the soil, water the hole and use mulches to retain moisture after planting. Hold off on any fertilizers to if possible as this can encourage too much lush growth which may flop in the summer sun, require extra watering, and be affected by frost in the winter.

Fruit

The warm weather has also produced an abundance of sweet peas. If you pick them regularly they produce even more, in much the same way that mange tout do, twice a day we’re getting a bowl full of the sweet pods.  It’s been an excellent few weeks for fruit production too with the strawberries, currants and raspberries all fully ladened ready for a daily pick.

All The Leaves Are Brown - But Not For Long

  

Baked chamomile on their own individual wrappers

I had a ‘chamomile crisis’ last week.  Only a few days before the heatwave I moved about 500 plug grown chamomile plants into the polytunnel to give them a boost as it was a bit chilly. I took my eye off them for a while and the result was cooked plants, totally shriveled root and leaves.  Growing in small cells does make the plants very susceptible to temperatures both hot and cold.  The trays were on a large table raised from the ground so there was no cooling earth to save them so they all cooked in their own small 3cm square ovens. 

I did have some other plants on the ground and they survived.  In this case the plants perished purely because of the heat and not a lack of water as they were kept constantly wet and it was the outside edge plants that were hit first. It was probably like dropping the plants into a boiling kettle.

We can see the same thing happen on the edge of lawns where the grass meets the concrete paths and tarmac where the soil is generally shallow. Although in this week’s case it’ll also be because of a lack of water too. So how do we stop our lawns from going brown?  It’s not really something we here in Inishowen have to think about very often but this week was an exception.  

Some lawns are hit harder than others depending on a lot of factors. 

 

The lawn aspect - south facing will get more sun.

The soil type - sandy soil dries out a lot faster than a clay or loam soil.

A lot of us are seeing old regular patches of brown grass appearing on the lawns like unearthing an archaeological dig where old paving slabs have been covered up and grassed over. The brown areas show that the sandy soil under the slabs don’t hold as much moisture as the loamy soil surrounding it.

The type of grass seed being used for the lawn.

Rye grass will go brown really quickly but others such as Tall fescue(recommended about 70% in the mix), red fescue and deep rooted meadow grass will be a lot more resistant to scorching and keep green even under trees.

Drainage and the lack of watering.

A mature lawn could need as much as 2.5 to 4 cm of water a week to keep the colour and on large lawns this would mean emptying the reservoir.

The overuse of fertilizers as we overcompensate to try and bring back a bit of colour. 

Any form of feeding will only damage the grass even more as a lot of these chemicals require water as an activator.

Other patches can be caused by dog wee as it’s not washed away and children playing. These will be brown patches for now but if the dryness persists the area will become a bare patch which might need a bit of care to restore. These patches can be reseeded when the weather cools or you could move sods from other areas of the garden where they won’t be missed.

Preventing damage

The two main factors for lawn damage in the summer are heat and dryness so the simplest solution is to water when you can trying to keep a bit of consistency by not letting the grass totally dry out (hosepipe bans permitting), resist the temptation to feed with any type of nitrogen fixers and if you must cut the grass (some of us just can’t help it) then set the mower to a really tall cut. The tall grass will retain moisture better, hold in some cool air and cause less stress than scalping would cause. 

New turf

New turf hasn’t had a chance for the roots to penetrate deeply into the ground so will be very susceptible to drying out. It’s a real balance as too much water would cause the roots to remain shallow and stay near the surface and too little will see the sods dying really quickly.  Hopefully if you do have a newly laid turf lawn you will be able to water it often .

Preparing good drainage and a humus rich soil on both a turf and seeded lawn will save a lot of hassle down the line as the grass will be able to cope with all our weather conditions and generally do away with the need to feed the grass.

Don’t despair though if your landscape has turned yellow and brown. The grass will soon recover as I’m sure as you are reading this there will be a few drops of rain hitting the window. Living in Ireland really does make me realise that water is our best friend in the garden and it’d be a scorched, dusty place without it.

Spending More Time Looking at the Pitch than the Players

 Checking out the turf...

Isn’t the World Cup fantastic? 

I suspect there’s a divided reaction to that question. I enjoy it but not for the usual reasons I suspect.  I couldn’t tell you anything about the teams or players and I’m not really that bothered who wins or loses. It’s the pitches that interest me. 

The football pitch is as much a part of the match as the players, the ball and the goalposts.  In the gripping finale of a close match I’ll be commenting on the grass sward and guessing the percentage of real/artificial grass and the composition of the sub strata and drainage(usually sand or polypropylene) . I’m asked to leave the room pretty often.

In my early gardening days when I worked for a local council, one of my main responsibilities was marking out the football pitches. Armed with my line marking machine with the squeaky wheel I would walk the pitch covering the old washed out lime with some fresh. The lines were always broken around the goal area as the grass had been worn away as well as some soil disappearing, probably making its way into the changing room showers, boots and washing machines. It was a mucky game especially in winter. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t play football in summer when the ground was drier, but that’s the time for cricket.  So for those of you interested in the grass here is a brief definition of the composition.

Football Pitch Grass

You might have gathered by now that most professional pitches are a mixture of real and artificial grass. This keeps things clean and tidy compared to when the ball would land at the player’s feet in wet weather, stop dead and disappear in the mud.

This is regulated by the Football Association.

The Football Associations have rules on the type of grass that is acceptable for use during professional games. One of the first rules declares that the pitch must be green; this doesn’t take into consideration about all of the advertising paint that’s becoming all too common on the pitch. This is because artificial turf can be used in places where the weather prohibits the use of natural grass and there are all sorts of colours to choose from.

The FA’s rule book states, “The field of play must be wholly natural or, if competition rules permit, a wholly artificial playing surface except where competition rules permit an integrated combination of artificial and natural materials (hybrid system)”. So that more or less covers every type of grass - real or artificial. The top stadiums use a very specific blend of real grass with artificial components as permitted by the FA.

Blending Turf

Described as a ‘sports playing field surface’, there are common hybrid systems available in the game today. It is made up of a mixture of natural grass and artificial fibres which pass the FA’s rules.

One company injects fibres into ready-made turf twenty centimetres deep which covers about 3% of the entire surface of the pitch. As the grass grows its roots intertwine with the artificial fibres and this anchors the field of play. The company that makes it claims that this allows for a solid, even structure of turf with better drainage than natural grass on its own and improved ‘playing comfort’.

Some of the best known stadiums that use it include Chelsea’s home ground, Stamford Bridge, Everton’s Goodison Park and perhaps the most famous of all is Wembley Stadium and if it’s good enough for the FA’s flagship ground no wonder other clubs have been quick to introduce it.

3G Pitches

Original artificial grass was called Astro Turf.  It’s pretty much the same stuff you see in garden centres now and after being laid on a cushion of sand had more sand added to it (This was the 2G pitch). If you have any memory about playing on this surface you would recall that when you fell over it was like sliding along a large sheet of course 40-60 grit sandpaper.  

The artificial turf sand has been replaced by a rubber crumb infill (3G) and more shock absorbing underlay technology. The rubber crumb mixture, which is made from recycled tyres, allows the surface to be played on for around eighty hours every week. A significant improvement on the five hours total that natural grass can cope with before it will struggle to recover. There are a few health issues regarding the use of rubber which are being investigated and a few countries are removing the pitches all together.  The main advice we are given is to wash ourselves after playing, to remove lime deposits too and the safest advice given is “If you get the rubber in your mouth, don’t swallow it” You’d need to empty your boots too.

A Growing Industry

Data from the major synthetic turf manufacturers operating in the EU indicate that around 1,200–1,400 new football fields are installed every year in the EU with over 40 a year installed in Ireland. Figures show 30 GAA pitches are also laid annually.

There’s a lot of money and technology in creating the perfect playing pitch but thankfully you’ll still find muddy pitches and coats as goalposts in parks and open spaces and if you want a kick about in wet weather, we’re lucky enough to have plenty of beaches not too far away.

 if you are still reading and would like a bit more information about pitches (especially GAA pitches then you'll find this article from the Croke Park website very interesting  

Country Garden Herbs (and Microgreens) in Garvagh and Check Tree Ties

 Country Garden Herbs wide choice of mints

 Perennials coming on well

 Plug grown thyme

 Pot grown thyme

The perennial bumper collection of 72 plants is doing very well.  I have had to re-pot a few varieties of some faster growing plants like the gaura, delphiniums and verbena into larger one litre pots and the others aren’t far behind. 

I’m very happy with the impulse buy but still haven’t found anywhere to put the plants once they mature. I did salvage a small plot of ground where the broccoli was growing. It had gone from flower to seed and the insect buzzing stopped so the time was just right to clear the ground. I built a small raised bed on the fresh, weed free soil and have decided to create a small creeping thyme area.  I am hedging my bets as usual and have acquired plants and seeds from different places.  The first set of cuttings I got from a neighbours garden, I then bought seeds from two different places to germinate, I ordered mail delivered plug plants and then I went to a plant nursery in Garvagh near Coleraine for the mature 9cm pot grown specimens.  

It might sound a bit OTT to get plants from so many places but it’s my irrepressible urge to not only grow the plants but to research and view how well each batch does. Some growers say cuttings are not a good idea and only go for seeds so we’ll see. I’ll probably bore you with the results sometime next year.

The seeds have been sown, cuttings taken and plugs planted in the raised bed.  I was happy (ish) with the plugs but they were a bit yellow on arrival but will soon pick up. The 9cm pot grown ones on the other hand were fabulous and well worth the trip into the North coast countryside.  I got them from a bloke called Malachy who runs Country Garden Herbs in Garvagh.  He specialises in growing all types of herbs so when I got there it was like a sweetie shop for me. He has 12 different types of mint so I couldn’t come away without getting a couple of varieties. Malachy suggested I sniff the separate leaves and there were subtle differences to the aroma.  I bought three types, chocolate, berry and cream and pineapple flavours. They are in pots on the patio as I would guess they are all just as invasive as the more common types.

I came away from Country garden Herbs learning a lot and 12 beautiful thyme plants.  I planted 10 of them straight out  in my new planting space and then took 360 cuttings from the last couple and put them in 3cm plug trays. If only a few survive I’ll be happy and if loads of them grow you’ll see me at the country market with a stall.

Microgreens

As well as growing the dizzying array of herbs in pots, Malachy also spends his day delivering hydroponically grown Micro greens to hotels and restaurants along the north coast. He can pick, pack and deliver the fresh greens to discerning chefs within two hours of them being picked. He’s a busy man who seems to take everything at a really relaxed pace and loves what he does. 

To give you an idea of the range of microgreens Malachy is growing, he has 4 types of basil – including spice and cinnamon flavour, coriander, celery, fennel, mustard, chervil, red cabbage, broccoli and spicy mixed salad so the next time you are eating out on the North coast chances are you’ll be tucking into some of Malachy’s freshly picked greens.

Mulch can damage trees

If you plant a small tree, ties aren’t generally needed. In fact research has shown (not mine) that a small tree without a tie will grow far faster and healthier than a larger tree planted with a stake and tie holding it in place.  So when I see trees all tied up where the bark is straining to expand because of the pressure of the rubber, I generally adjust them so they can grow unhindered. – or take them off all together.

All too often they are just forgotten about after planting. There’s another issue for trees and that’s to much mulch around the base of the trunk.  Too much mulch applied over the root ball or resting against the trunk can cause problems. Roots often grow up and into the mulch causing stem ‘girdling’ roots. This is where the tree doesn’t know where ground level is. The cover can also hide decay and dead spots on the lower trunk and major roots. Decay in this portion of the tree can cause the tree to become unstable. If you are mulching around trees then keep mulch about 12 to 18 inches (30-45cm) from the trunk for any size of tree. If you see someone kicking mulch from a tree trunk in your travels it’s probably me.