Drought comes to New Jersey

kthnry said:

ml1 said:
Texas has been crazy. When I first visited Lake Travis in Austin, it looked like the photo on top. When I visited 2 years ago, it looked like the photo below. And at this link, you can see a time lapse of how the recent rains have virtually refilled it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZtNJXO4IZ4

And more on the way. Flash flood warnings, torrential rains, roads closing, half-inch hail (in San Antonio, heading towards Austin).
ml1, did you see any video of Shoal Creek overflowing Lamar at 9th?

Yeah, my wife is stuck on the runway at Houston trying to get to Austin. They're 1 1/2 hours late so far.

Speaking of Texas, has anyone heard from MommyRock? I hope she and the family are OK, but I have no idea whether they live anywhere near the flooding.

PeggyC said:
Speaking of Texas, has anyone heard from MommyRock? I hope she and the family are OK, but I have no idea whether they live anywhere near the flooding.

They aren't too far from Houston and I suspect there is flooding in that area, although I don't know for sure. I don't think mommyrock has been here since we moved to the new platform

max_weisenfeld said:

kthnry said:

ml1 said:
Texas has been crazy. When I first visited Lake Travis in Austin, it looked like the photo on top. When I visited 2 years ago, it looked like the photo below. And at this link, you can see a time lapse of how the recent rains have virtually refilled it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZtNJXO4IZ4

And more on the way. Flash flood warnings, torrential rains, roads closing, half-inch hail (in San Antonio, heading towards Austin).
ml1, did you see any video of Shoal Creek overflowing Lamar at 9th?

Yeah, my wife is stuck on the runway at Houston trying to get to Austin. They're 1 1/2 hours late so far.

Good luck to her. It looks like there's a lot going on in Houston right now.

Wife is now driving to Austin....

Apologies to those not on Facebook, but this is pretty impressive (and scary): https://www.facebook.com/TexasHillCountry/photos/np.1433036145777105.789494151/10155637937130191/?type=1¬if_t=notify_me

SAC, that link wasn't working for me. But I found the Texas Hill Country page on FB and scrolled down to get photos of the four major cities. Holy moses. That is very scary.

Fortunately for central CT, we are now enjoying a drenching rain. Thank goodness.

I don't water except for the vegetable garden.

If we had roses, I would water them. And that's my limit: Water the fragile stuff that produces flowers or edibles, but the grass must fend for itself.

The sad time is when you no longer bother to have anything 'delicate', 'pretty' or merely decorative, and then later you move to 'is it edible or shade producing?'. In Howlong, we'd progressed to salt-hardy, full-sun, frost-tolerant, drought resistant plants and were watering our long 1/2 acre by bucket, twice a week. The eighteen established fruit trees and the 8' conifer hedges had to look after themselves.

Our river had very little current or depth by that stage. It's one of Australia's major rivers and used to have paddle steamers going past the town.

We rarely water (to the dismay of the lawn guy)...I believe that grass is meant to go dormant in dry weather, and I let it. I do sometimes water around tree roots in long dry periods, since we did lose a tree, probably to drought damage, some years back.

Glad to see some rain coming down now (but also glad that it didn't arrive until after we got home from a big college reunions weekend, with mostly outdoor activities.

We just got our lawn seeded for the first time, and were instructed to water twice a day for 2-3 weeks. I'm thrilled for this rainy day as I feel like the lawn's getting the good deep watering it really needs!!

Otherwise we usually just water the vegetable bed. We've had a lot of plants newly installed though (roses, cherry trees and arbor vitae) so I expect we will need to water those more regularly.

The only plants we water are those growing in pots inside the house. I can understand the desire to keep one's plants alive. What really gets to me are the persons who water during a heavy rain storm (like one property I passed yesterday afternoon) and those who regularly water their sidewalk along with the plants.

joan_crystal said:
The only plants we water are those growing in pots inside the house. I can understand the desire to keep one's plants alive. What really gets to me are the persons who water during a heavy rain storm (like one property I passed yesterday afternoon) and those who regularly water their sidewalk along with the plants.

"Watering the sidewalk" can be difficult to avoid sometimes. Breezes can push the sprinkler water further than intended. Plus, when you're doing a deep soaking there is often run-off. I saw a sprinkler system on during one of the downpours yesterday. I assumed it was on a time and that the owner wasn't home / didn't realized they were watering during a downpour.

We generally never water the lawn but have been turning on the sprinkler once or twice a day since re-seeding last weekend. The weeds are growing nicely...

Side comment, but I do wish that people who use sprinklers on their front plantings during the day would adjust them so that the sidewalks aren't being sprinkled, too. It's annoying to have to keep walking in the road to avoid getting wet - and if you have a dog or a baby carriage or a small child, it's especially aggravating. Most sprinklers attached to hoses can be positioned so as not to douse pedestrians.

cody said:
Side comment, but I do wish that people who use sprinklers on their front plantings during the day would adjust them so that the sidewalks aren't being sprinkled, too. It's annoying to have to keep walking in the road to avoid getting wet - and if you have a dog or a baby carriage or a small child, it's especially aggravating. Most sprinklers attached to hoses can be positioned so as not to douse pedestrians.

As noted, my perennial beds come right up to the sidewalk, so it's extremely challenging to avoid the sidewalk entirely. I try, but don't always succeed.

Like mbaldwin, I used to try to avoid watering the sidewalks that abutted our planting beds in West Orange, but to reach all the plants it just wasn't always possible to keep the sidewalk dry. I was sorry about that but not willing to sacrifice (or move) our young azaleas.

Best time for watering is early morning 4 or 5 am.

ffof said:
Best time for watering is early morning 4 or 5 am.

Correct. On the days I sprinkle, to minimize runoff, I set the timers to three intervals. Do zones 1 to 4 at 4:00, then repeat at 5:00 and then last at 6:00,.

Sprinkling when it rains is a no-no. A rain sensor would take care of that. NJ state law requires a rain sensor for all newly installed irrigation systems. The sensor has to suppress irrigation when more than 1/2 inch of rain has occurred.

maybe cody could suggest this to his neighbors ;-

How have the rains of yesterday and today brought us out of drought? More rain is on the way, too, and this is probably good.

ffof, it isn't my neighbors - I walk around town a lot with my camera at different times of the day and I see this sidewalk watering midday in quite a few spots (and I'm a she, not a he, although I realize my screen name isn't very specific on that~)

I just logged in for the first time in ages today and saw that Sac had shared this post with me. Thanks for the concern, we survived the Memorial Day storm, as well as a more recent one that also flooded a lot of homes around here. Memorial Day was crazy though... It took me 30 minutes just to get a few blocks from my house. So many streets were flooded, I couldn't find a way out! Fortunately, our house was one of the few to survive (water came within an inch of entering the house). Hope you're all well.