Rain and Flooding

I’ve always worried a lot about flooding in our yard. If we have a hard enough rain, our garage will flood. Our lot slopes toward the back, away from the house, and there’s a depression, not really a ditch, that runs along the back of the property, where rain is supposed to collect. I think there was also a ditch along our neighbor’s lot that is supposed to take the water from there, but it’s been filled in. I was planning a rain garden in the lowest part of that depression, but after Friday’s rain – at least four inches – I’m rethinking the idea. From what I’ve read, rain gardens need to drain in 24 hours, which this does not – in the worst cases. I need something, like a bioswale, that will hold more water and keep the rest of yard dry.

It rained all day Friday, and when I got home from work, most of the yard was flooded. The vegetable garden area was almost underwater – my decision to use raised beds has proven to be the right one. Since I really couldn’t do anything about it, I decided to wade out into the lowest part of the yard and measure how deep it was. It turns out it was a foot deep!

By Saturday the water had soaked in a good bit. There was still water in the depression and the yard was pretty soggy, but the worst was over. Too bad my rain barrels were already full! The morning paper reported widespread flooding, so much that they closed all roads into downtown Charleston at 6pm.

Rain...Rain...Freeze...

We've had some strange weather in the past week - well, maybe not strange, but certainly a variety of it. We got several inches of rain during a couple of separate days this week. I don't think it's rained this much since July when we were on vacation. Part of our yard flooded like it always does during heavy rains, this time it was a good thing - it gave me a chance to see exactly where to put the rain garden I'm planning for that area in the spring. One of the plants I wanted to put in it was the Crinum I have in the bog. To my surprise, It looks like I have about six new plants from the three I started out the summer with. I'm glad I'll have extra to use in the rain garden. Another positive thing is the raised bed I built in the vegetable garden this year. While the ground around it was soggy, the vegetables were doing well about a foot off the ground.

I have potted plants all over the yard. Besides the houseplants spending the summer outside, I also have plants that I intend to plant in the yard as soon as I figure out where I want them. Most are in the driveway, but a few are behind the garage. I had to do something with all of those plants today, because we're supposed to have near-freezing temperatures tonight. Every time I've seen the weather this week, tonight's forecasted temperature keeps dropping - currently it's at 33 degrees - cold enough to do damage to some of my plants.

Probably the most important plant was the "Black Pearl" ornamental pepper Robin got at the fall plant swap. Originally, I had put it with all of the other plants in the garden area/future greenhouse, but after talking to Robin and doing some research online, I decided it needed to come in the house. Most other plants like canna, walking onions, bed of nails, devil's trumpet, society garlic, shrimp plant, hibiscus, Mexican petunia, spider plant, ajuga and day lilies, I'm protecting whether they need it or not - I don't know the cold hardiness of everything on that list. I am leaving a couple of things out, because either I think they can take the cold - like sago palms and daisies, or they are annuals or houseplants that I don't care about anymore like a half-dead spider plant or geraniums. I did remember a few other plants I better bring in like my night-blooming cereus, mother-in-law's tongue, and a couple of pots of small cactuses that I'm not sure are hardy.

The cold has a plus side too. We've been eating lettuce from the vegetable garden all week, the broccoli is really heading now, and it looks like the onions are doing well - now if I only knew when they will be ready to harvest...