It will be interesting (and scary) to see what damage has been done to our landscapes following the drought of last year. This is an excerpt from a newsletter from “The Garden Professors” (note: the author lives in Tacoma)
Fast forward to summer – for us, a record-breaking drought (again). Our temperatures weren’t as high as last year, but we still had very hot weather and no rain. For our landscape it’s not a problem, as we have well water for irrigation. But those gardeners who have little or no supplemental irrigation may very well find that their woody plants and perennials don’t perform very well next year: perhaps fewer flowers or branch dieback will appear. This is due to root dieback that happened all summer in unirrigated conditions. The damage is only seen in the following spring, when there aren’t enough roots to supply water to emerging buds.
To read the fully newsletter click here: Understanding how weird weather affects our plants – The Garden Professors™