July of 2015 turned out to be one for the record books. It was a scorcher, the hottest in Washington history. Compensating for a broken water pipe to the Medicinal Herb Garden turned out to be very difficult. There’s too much ground to cover and whole areas were drying out before I could get water to them. I suspect that some of the damage we sustained this year will not be seen until next spring, in the garden and around campus.
Luckily, Dale, from the overworked irrigation team, managed to fix the pipe to sections B and C last week, just when all looked lost. Way to go Dale, and James and Scott. Though I shake my head in disbelief whenever I think of it, there are only three people doing all of the irrigation repairs and installation for a 700 acre campus with 500 buildings. I honestly don’t know how they do it. Kudos, gentlemen. The priorities of a large bureaucracy are sometimes hard to fathom, but your work is appreciated by all of us who care about plants. Good work!
Salal (Gaultheria shalon) at the edible bus stop. It can handle dry conditions but the combination of extreme heat, dryness, greenhouse thrips (Heliothrips haemorrhoidalis) and no irrigation was hard for it. It’s a tough plant. It should survive.
Oak (Quercus sp.) at the northwest edge of section C. It’s hard to imagine one hot summer without water would be enough to kill it, but it’s not looking good. Maybe it’s going into a drought-induced dormancy. Time will tell.
The lesson for me in this extremely dry, hot weather is to look closely and make note of plants that aren’t bothered by it. It will take planning to make the transition from what has been a cool Mediterranean climate to one that is hot. Water conservation is going to be so important as the population increases and the snowpack decreases in the Olympics and Cascades.
But enough about heat and drought. We’ve got both but others have it worse and we will get through it, hopefully a little wiser and better prepared for the future.
Now it’s time to look at some plants that are doing well.
Devil’s bit scabious (Succisia pratensis) in section A. It’s a recent addition to the garden and is flowering for the first time.
Compass plant (Silphium laciniatum) in section A. It’s one of four species of Silphium growing in the garden.
Great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica) in section B, surrounding a tripod trellis of pipevine (Aristolochia macrophylla).
And everyone’s favorite morning glory, known as granny vine (Ipomoea tricolor) in section C, right near the…
lion’s paw/lion’s ear (Leonurus nepetifolia). This and the granny vine are magnets for garden visitors.
A closer look at the lion’s paw flowers. Hummingbirds love this plant.
Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium purpureum) in section C. It’s about ten feet tall. Its other common name is gravel root because it has been used to treat gravel or kidney stones.
Snake gourds (Trichosanthes cucumerina) looking snakey in section B.
Bitter melons (Momordica charantia) in section B.
Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale var. autumnale) and wild cucumber(Echinocystis lobata) in section A. The bed to the right has hemp agrimony (Eupatorium cannabinum). No, it isn’t related to marijuana, not even in the same family. Its specific epithet, cannabinum, refers to the superficial resemblance of the leaves to Cannabis leaves. I’ve had to explain this to countless garden visitors. Let’s start teaching taxonomy in K-12!
Note the broken stems. The grain bed, with six species of grain, has been frequented by the birds this year. The first few years they didn’t touch it, but they’ve gotten better at foraging every year, learning to break the seed heads off and drag them to safe places to eat. Good for them. Anything for the birds.
The evidence. Oats (Avena sativa) seemed to go unnoticed until this year, when the birds have been eating almost every type of grain in the bed. (Revision from 2017: The birds stand falsely accused! It was the rascally rabbit after all. Oh well, we’re one big, dysfunctional, floral and faunal family here at the garden but there’s room for all of us.)
Chinese winter melon/ dong gua (Benincasa hispida) section C.
Safflowers/hong hua (Carthamus tinctorius) section C. They grew twice as tall as last year.
Prairie dock (Silphium terebinthinaceum) section C. Some of the flowers stalks are 11 feet tall. Imagine what the tall grass prairies must have been like for humans, wandering on foot in grasses and forbs that tall…and, before we forced them out and nearly into extinction, plains grizzly bears (Ursus arctos), American bison (Bison bison) and Great Plains wolves (Canis lupus subsp. nubilus) running around. Now that’s adventure travel.
Ironweed (Vernonia fasciculata) in the border between sections A and B.
under prairie dock
the slumbering grizzly bear
dreams of bison herds
See you in the garden.