Hey y'all!
It's easy to hate on Texas summers. I've lived here for exactly 20 years now, and every year I have high hopes of coping really well with the heat, get out and swim more often, only to find myself grumbling by July.
Something I'm striving to improve on is noticing all the positives, particularly in tough situations. In that spirit, here's my list of 10 things I genuinely appreciate about gardening in the summer in central Texas:
1. Breezy mornings. The morning is by far the coolest time of day, and it's a joy to be out in my garden with the sun rising, listening to the birds chatter, sipping my coffee, which I can enjoy hot. (Later in the day, it will be iced.)
2. Minimal weed problems. Almost any other time of year, especially when the weather is pleasant, all sorts of weeds are quick to jump in and try to take over anywhere they can. During the summer, I spend little to no time weeding each week. Nutsedge and Bermudagrass are still a problem, but even they slow down during the hottest months here.
3. Handwatering. Wait, what? Isn't handwatering a chore? Well, technically, yes it is. In theory, with enough time and money, I could install drip irrigation into absolutely all of the garden beds, bubblers around tree drip lines, and automatic watering thingies in all of my potted plants... but that's not going to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, I actually enjoy my morning routine of watering and garden inspection. I change "zones" each day, so that I'm watering a bit every day, but not the same areas every day. I deep-soak my trees at least every couple of weeks, and weekly if we're up around 110F (as we were in mid-July). My husband goes off to work and my kids are used to my routine, so they pretty much entertain themselves while I'm out watering. Sometimes my little guy joins in as my garden helper. Being out in the garden so regularly in the summer leads me to...
4. Wildlife encounters. Summer being hotter than Hades most of the day means that the wealth of birds, butterflies, bees, etc. that call Central Texas home in the warm season tend to come visit my yard just when I do--I regularly see several hummingbirds and butterflies visiting their favorite flowers, bees buzzing around my salvias or beautyberry, or Cenizo when it blooms, beetles, spiders and Praying Mantises (what's the plural of those? Saw one almost catch a bumblebee the other day!) I see owls and hawks flying low overhead at sunset.
I particularly love curling up in a chair with my coffee on the flagstone patio nearest the Hummingbird Bar. Currently they're sipping on the Fall Obedient Plant in purple flower, checking the Coral Honeysuckle daily for blooms (it's in between blooms right now), and zipping over to the Bat-faced Cuphea in the evening for a drink. There's a newish Flame Acanthus that has yet to bloom. I'm excited for them to discover it. They'll often perch on the wire fence to rest ever so briefly before zipping away.
5. Pots on the porch. Fall and winter are always welcome in my mind, but covering and/or hauling potted plants to overwinter in the garage is an annual bummer. Bringing them back out again is exciting. The succulents look gorgeous over the summer in their part-shade locations under the pergola, and the flowering plants bloom like crazy. They continue to grow this time of year, when so many other things are going dormant here. I look out the kitchen windows and smile to see my little friends thriving in pots.
6. Shade. Obviously shade is crucial for summer comfort and to keep many plants from frying to a crisp, but it's also nice to be able to enjoy the shade of our porches, the pergola, the back row of native Ashe Juniper and scrubby oak, and the Texas Red Oak and Live Oak out front. This spring we added a pergola, and watching its shadowy grid pass over the yard opposite the sun is a particular joy.
7. Long days. Especially for folks who work 8-5, isn't it nice to have daylight when you're setting out on your commute, and again when you pull into (or up to) the garage at the end of the day? There have been a few days when I've been up at 5:30 or earlier to get a jump on the morning watering, and fumbling around in the dark with hoses is no fun. But shortly after 6, the sunrise is gorgeous. My kids can get out and play after breakfast, as long as they don't sleep in too late, and we can all head out again after dinner, when the sun begins to hide. In between, there's always the pool at the YMCA. Otherwise, we're mostly indoors while the sun's out. In winter, I'm bummed that the days are so short, and our entire routine changes to make the most of the daytime sun. Getting outdoors for at least a few minutes a day is crucial to my sanity. Daylight helps.
8. Seeing neighbors at dawn and dusk. I enjoyed this in our former neighborhood, and I enjoy it here, too, even though our houses are further spread out. Like me, my neighbors have small windows of time to get out for a walk or to work in the garden in the morning and evening. So as I'm out working in the yard, particularly in the front, I enjoy waving to my neighbors and stopping for a chat when time allows. I love that my kids get to ride bikes with their neighborhood buddies. Hanging out in the front yard watering in the evening affords me the opportunity to be around my kids outside without hovering.
9. Dormancy. In Central Texas, winters are short and in unusually warm years, our perennials won't even go dormant. Spring brings a lot more trimming in those years, or else overgrown monsters. But summertime brings dormancy for many of our plants. My bulbs are sleeping right now, or else working on their underground network of roots. I don't have to think about them, let alone trim, water or fertilize them, and one day they'll happily pop up again. Or not. But most of the time, they will. Some perennials will go dormant in the heat, too, and growth generally slows down. It's not as exciting, but I need a break from the excitement after the spring flush of growth.
10. Dreaming of fall. Sitting around in the A/C waiting for the scorching heat of the day to pass, what else am I going to do? Well, now that it's August, I could be following one of the planting guides out there and starting seeds in pots. August is a peak-busy month for me in other areas of my life, so mostly I'm just visualizing what I could do with my garden next. There could be a sheet-mulching plan in the works; there was a couple of years ago. Or I could be solarizing away some Bermudagrass and weeds. But this year, I'm just dreaming, mentally filling in gaps with salvias or yuccas I haven't tried yet, thinking of putting some drift roses in the bed in front of the front porch to cascade down the slope, imagining where I might divide and transplant a few things in September. And there's the truckload of compost I'm contemplating to improve the side yard, which is scorched, compacted death right now. Compost followed by new trees, maybe a Mexican Sycamore and a Big-Toothed Maple. There are issues of Texas Gardener and episodes of Central Texas Gardener to catch up on.
Hey, with all this to enjoy, summer's not so bad, right? It gets too hot and dry for even the mosquitos to survive, at some point. And autumn is around the corner... eventually...
How about you? What do you actually like about crazy hot summers? How do you cope?
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