Lammastide, as they used to call the first day of August and still do in places where the old names cling, was once synonymous with heavy rains and serious flooding.
Not so last year, for over all the East and almost the whole country, the worst drought on record had held its grip since April. Gardens suffered as they never had before.
And yet it is surprising how much blossom and growth were saved here at Millbrook Farm in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, by two familiar remedies—judicious watering and an adequate mulch.
Trick of Watering
The trick of watering, we have found, is a deep soak, even for annuals, once a week rather than a light sprinkling several times more often.
However, even the best-applied water evaporates or hardens the soil to a rigid crust without mulch.
Hence we always use the two together, soaking the ground well before the season’s first mulch goes on, then allowing water to sink through this mulch. There is no crusting then. Nor are there weeds to pull, another asset in the dog days.
During last year’s appalling drought, we used grass cuttings of the year before and old wheat straw, supplemented with some salt hay, as mulch.
This year we are trying, in addition, some cocoa husks, a small quantity of them, on some of our roses, although the straw last year worked miracles. Cocoa husks are expensive. Straw costs us nothing.
With no rain since April, we were fearful, particularly of the cutting row, but mulch and weekly watering again saved the day. Since the seedlings had sprouted, we had had the triple-cutting row protected a foot deep in wheat straw.
At first, of course, the mulch was held back between the rows to avoid smothering the tiny plants. But the mulch was there all right from the start.
As the plants grew, we moved the straw in closer so that it was touching the plants themselves by thinning time.
Below the straw, the soil remained cool and damp all summer, although it never watered more than once a week.
When we did water, we used an oscillating sprinkler on the hose and gave the rows a minimum of five hours. Luckily, our spring held up under such strain.
Check Cutting Row
Checking the cutting row after six or seven months of devastating drought, we found in flower at one time in August:
- Our ever-faithful zinnias
- Seven or eight varieties
- Marigolds of many sorts
- Asters
- Mignonettes
- Forget-me-nots
- Petunias
- Ageratum
- Scarlet sage
- White and gold cosmos
- Gaillardia
- Calendula
- Scabiosa
- Cockscomb
- Angels-trumpets
- Green Bells of Ireland
- Calliopsis
- Carnations
- Heliotrope
- Cornflowers
- Nicotiana
- Gloriosa daisies
- Everlasting-flowers mixture
- Summer chrysanthemums
Not only were these in flower from week to week, but they looked green and sturdy.
Soil Mixture
They had all been seeded in a soil well fortified with cow manure spaded under in early spring; 5-10-5 had been added just before seeding. Success, however, seemed due to deep watering and mulch.
Each year we leave the mulch of the past summer in place all winter to prevent erosion. Manure is added to this old mulch. Then in spring, all of this—the rotted last year’s straw and the well-rotted manure—is turned under, doing wonders for the texture of the soil.
Every second year, according to our pH rating, we add a bit of agricultural lime so that the cutting row and the vegetable garden beside it keep fairly close to pH 6.5 or 7.
Weekly Chores During August
A glance at our weekly chores during August may prove of interest. We opened the month by watering two new Burford hollies, our terrace geraniums, some morning-glory vines on the north terrace, six new Heckrotti honeysuckles, and a new firethorn near the porch, giving them a pail each.
Then we set the hose on the cutting row. By refreshment, we ate some delicious Portland grapes unaffected by the drought.
The fish emulsion was given to our new roses, several gallons to each bed from a watering can. This was an easy chore.
The next day the drought was reported as the worst in 85 years of the midst of a herd of Ayrshire cattle; surely an odd location.
In midweek, just to keep abreast of things, we visited a conservation demonstration near Gum Tree, where we saw diversion terraces underway and contour plowing as it should be done.
Spray With Wettable DDT
The next chore—and we almost forgot—was spraying our peach saplings with wettable DDT to offset borers.
To surprise us, a few very belated sweet peas blossomed amid the morning glories. They had been left over and forgotten since May.
On the fifth, we watered some more new plantings, including a laburnum, a witch-hazel, a pussy willow, two chestnut saplings, and a row of new strawberries. Normally, all these would have been able to fend from shower to shower, but there were no showers.
The sprinkler was on the young sweet corn now—five hours a row. Wheat and oat stubble on the hill were brittle as I had never seen it.
Day-flowers were out, and there was a hint of the earliest goldenrod. How fleetingly the seasons overlap—and pass.
Sampling Fruits
Coming down Millbrook Hill, I sampled some wild cherries, the bitter mazzards. Yet they were tasty. While at it, I also sampled our apples and some more grapes. Blackberries had not even formed in the drought.
An armful of corn husks and vegetable tops delighted the sheep. In the west terrace border, the heliotrope was heavy with scent. Marjoram, rosemary, lavender, and the rest added spice. Ragweed, beloved of none, had opened on the slope.
We soaked a new red oak and a Franklin tree for hours as the week ended. Then we cut back our early-blooming phlox and nipped dead heads from the roses. Grape vines were side-fed and manured. They are voracious feeders.
Second Week of August
The second week of August started almost chilly. We watered the green bed. Each day something had its turn for five hours in the morning and something else for five hours after lunch.
The scent of fresh mint in the meadow at Newington, where they were mowing, was almost as good as a shower, so pungent and so rich it was. Jasmine branches were trimmed a bit on the terrace wall.
Thanks to the goldenrod on the hill, we ordered spring-blooming bulbs:
- Daffodils
- Tulips
- Snowdrops
- Snowflakes
- Crocuses
- Scillas
- Winter aconite and others
Honey bees were thick at the marjoram. White bush clover was in bloom along the lane.
It was gray, warm, and humid on the ninth, but still no rain. Katydids and crickets were noisy. We saw fewer fireflies than ever before. Was this because of the drought? Might be.
Sprinkled The Wildflower Bed
Half of the old rambler roses on the rock were dug up to be replaced; they had been there for a generation and passed their prime. New ones, dormant, were set in later when November had come.
Then we sprinkled the wildflower bed all day. Also, the west terrace borders nearby. Blaze roses at the barn and the gate were pruned back a bit. Not the best time of year for that. The Tick trefoil was in flower.
A crystal clear, cool day set us to burning the rose prunings and giving our Blaze a good measure of fish emulsion—one tablespoon to a gallon of water. Purple asters were just showing on the hill where Goldenrod had opened in earnest.
Thimble anemones and sundrops were in flower. Hints of fall were showing now. Even a few leaves of the dogwood and the sassafras had turned. Our vegetable patch, however, thanks to watering and mulch, seemed green as Eden.
Corn, tomatoes, string beans, beets, carrots, and lettuce were delicious. Okra, squash, broccoli, eggplant, and lima beans were just coming in.
The first half of August ended clear and very cool but drier than ever. We sickled weeds in the orchard where the cutter bar had missed, then cleaned our lane bank from spring to milldam.
Third Week of August
The third week opened with an hour or so of warm, soft rain, provokingly brief. Virgin’s-bower (clematis) and wild buckwheat flowered in the lane.
Wild hyssop and ironweed showed more color as the short-lived shower freshened their dusty leaves.
We kept on with our watering, especially the saplings and all new plantings. Squash was given its turn with the sprinkler. Then we got in eighty autumn-flowering bulbs—so often overlooked or not even considered.
Our planting included the following:
- 25 Crocus speciosus albus
- 25 Crocus sativus
- The meadow saffron
- 10 Colchicum autumnale albums
- 10 Colchicums special mixture
- 10 Colchicum Bornmuelleri
Of our autumn flowering bulbs, all did well except the Crocus sativus. What went wrong there, we never knew.
On the seventeenth, we watered a pink dogwood, slowly soaking all day. The curl of the leaves showed how badly it needed a boost.
Heavy dews now were giving some respite from the drought. Our Franklin tree showed its first blossoms.
During Fall
Fall was creeping in. Gray and chilly weather promised rain, but none fell. Towards the end of the week, white wood asters opened by the corner of the west wood with here and there a wild cardinal flower.
Every day had its new gift of bloom to offer. Heavy dews continued. Hummingbirds were at our Heckrottii honeysuckle.
On the twenty-third, we dusted all the new roses. The asters in the cutting row were also dusted. They do not often need this.
Our lima beans were filling slowly. Vines were marvelous, but pods could not be hurried. In the end, the beans were the best we ever ate. Un-bagged grapes tasted sweeter than those we had bagged.
My wife kept the house cool and fresh with flowers from the cutting row. Twenty-six varieties are in bloom there now, with many more in the beds and borders.
On the twenty-fifth, a light shower turned to rain, heavy rain, by afternoon. A godsend that kept up. It was the first real soaking since April.
We put a specially formulated “acid” fertilizer on the Japanese hollies, the boxwood, the azaleas, the mountain laurel, the cherry laurel, and the rest of the acid-loving shrubs. After the rain, it was clear and cool as fall.
End of August
As August ended, so did our grapes. They had been delicious during their first year of bearing. My wife is busy now putting up ripe tomatoes and freezing lima beans, corn, and other vegetables in quantity.
The friendly goldfinches were tumbling in the air, not lifting and falling in their usual flight. Evening primroses were the brightest gold. Pennyroyal sharpened the air by the upper west field how we love to crush it in our palms.
On the last day of August, the first colchicums opened. We buried mole baits near them as a precaution, for where moles go, there go mice, and where mice go, there go bulbs—for good.
August is not an exciting month in the garden, not really, yet it need not prove a dull one. Something new blossoms each day.
Perhaps the real thrill comes with cooling nights and morning dews and a knowledge that heat and drought will soon be over.
We know the splendors of fall are near. Flowers respond to that challenge. I think we do so, too.
44659 by Clifton Lisle