This heat wave is really wearing out its welcome. On July 4th we recorded the 6th highest all-time high temperature for Madison (102 degrees). But that record didn’t stand for very long because the next day we hit 104 degrees (the third highest-ever recorded temperature).
I’m thankful that I still have electricity and that my air conditioner is happily (well, maybe not happily) chugging away, and I pray for the people in other parts of the United States that don’t have power right now in this heat.
But it’s really the lack of rain that is taking a toll on my yard. We’ve had just over 2 inches of rain since the beginning of May, and most of that fell in the first few days of May. Yesterday the U.S. Drought Monitor gave us a Moderate Drought classification. We barely had any snow over the winter, so we were already entering spring with a precipitation deficit.
The grass is brown and the ground underneath is as hard as a rock, yet the Japanese Beetles keep appearing by the hundreds every afternoon. They mow down the rose blossoms in a few hours:
There is no way they can be hatching from my lawn unless they have drilling equipment, so I’m still going with the theory that they are coming from the well-watered city golf course several blocks away.
My daylilies were really looking good this year. Some of them had an impressive number of scapes, but in the dry, steamy conditions many of them have started aborting buds. In some cases entire scapes are turning yellow and shriveling up.
My lilies are blooming several weeks ahead of schedule, but unfortunately that means they peaked during the excessive heat. My 6-foot-tall ‘Satisfaction’ Orienpet lilies faded and started turning brown after only 2 days in the blistering sun:
And my Sunny Lady Impatiens have held up remarkably well considering some of them get several hours of direct sun around noon, but after 4 days of temperatures near or above 100 degrees, even they started to cry uncle:
I keep reminding myself that perennials can be replaced if they croak (and I’ll just sprout fresh annuals again next year), but I hope the surrounding oak trees can survive this beastly summer. A couple of them already looked tough in early spring with leaves that were turning brown and shriveling. When the wind blew there was an unnerving rattling sound. Quite a few oak leaves have been wafting onto our lawn in recent days.
The rain can’t come soon enough.