GHOSTS OF SEASONS PAST
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s I sit back with a cup of coffee to brainstorm about ideas for this article, the usual thoughts of “what to plan for” and “new for 2022” pop in my head. But after the fourth cup (we have really good coffee here at WN), I start thinking about what this PAST season afforded us. Why should we forget all we learned the past growing season and just blindly dive into the next year? There were so many ups and downs in 2021 that we can learn from and head into 2022 armed with education and a hefty to-do list … as well as a really, really long plant wish list! And the one thing that kept coming up in ’21 was rain. A lack thereof, actually.
April and May came in and stayed like a lion. Those two months were some of the driest months we’ve ever recorded in our 96 years, with just a little bit more than 3.75 inches of rain TOTAL (here at the
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Nursery with our fancy weather system … yes, we are weather nerds too). Usually, April and May in Chicagoland bring about 6-10 inches of rain. That is a severe deficit to start the year. We didn’t get any big rains until mid-June and ended the month with about 6.5 inches total. When we finally did get rain, it may have been too late for some plants that didn’t get what they needed back in April and May. We started to see some death and health issues on plants in June. It rained again in July but never enough — only about 2 inches total. Keep in mind that any moisture we may have gotten back in May or June is long gone and cannot be counted on to keep everything hydrated. Rainwater doesn’t just “stick around,” so those rain events don’t count a month later. It’s pretty rare for us to tell someone to skip a regular watering in their schedule after a rain event. One thing to learn
from 2021 is that you can’t say, “But it rained a few weeks ago,” or “We got soooo much rain so I haven’t watered.” Rain from three weeks ago was used three weeks ago. Don’t let your plants go weeks without water because it rained “sometime back a week or two.” Sadly, we saw plants die because folks didn’t water because they told us we got so much rain. (Narrator: We did not, in fact, get so much rain.) August brought us about 3 inches of rain, similar to July. The temperatures weren’t too bad, but it was still typically hot. People tend to forget about plants in August because school is starting, vacations are happening, etc. Always make sure you water your plants before leaving them for a week or two. If you will be gone longer, make arrangements with a neighbor to help. Never skip a scheduled watering. September was so freaking hot that we all just about burst into flames trying to do anything outside at all.
HOME & LIFESTYLE JANAUARY 2022
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12/22/21 11:17 AM
