Kev Spence

Cloudforest Expert

 

Posts: 412

Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2010 1:24 pm

Location: Loughborough, UK

Climate Zone: USDA zone 8b

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Having watched Joe's thunderstorm I thought one from Central England might be of interest to you guys 3mins 48s
Most of the UK was declared drought areas since then it has not stopped raining and all drought restrictions have been lifted and most reservoirs are now back up to full capacity...I suppose this is a good thing really but it certainly has been wet!!

Las Palmas Norte

Cloudforest Expert

 

Posts: 1734

Joined: Sat Nov 27, 2010 11:18 pm

Location: SE Vancouver Island

Climate Zone: USDA zone 8

Green lawn? Not here ... a nice shade of light brown.
I never made it to this Rhodo in time. All the leaves where flagging and after watering, it appears to have lost about 1/3 of it's foliage and branches are brittle.
Got to some bamboo just in the nick of time.

Cheers, Barrie.

Las Palmas Norte

Cloudforest Expert

 

Posts: 1734

Joined: Sat Nov 27, 2010 11:18 pm

Location: SE Vancouver Island

Climate Zone: USDA zone 8

Here's a quick video for comparison over my way Kev.
Cheers, Barrie.

Kev Spence

Cloudforest Expert

 

Posts: 412

Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2010 1:24 pm

Location: Loughborough, UK

Climate Zone: USDA zone 8b

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Interesting Barrie I see what you mean about my lawn.. does your always come back from your summer heat?
I think you could do with some of our thunder storms, I love them really, as it saves me hours of watering I guess you have missed out this year with rain storms or is that the normal colour for your lawn this time of year?

Las Palmas Norte

Cloudforest Expert

 

Posts: 1734

Joined: Sat Nov 27, 2010 11:18 pm

Location: SE Vancouver Island

Climate Zone: USDA zone 8

Kev ... Yes, lawns here on the eastern southern half of Vancouver Island and our Gulf Islands would normally dry out in summer, and exibit the characteristics seen in my video. Once the autumn rains start in the later half of October, they green up rather quickly.
Any "storms" are quick and very infrequent here during summer, so have little beneficial results. In extreme summers, some of the native established flora suffers. It does take quite some time for rain waters to penetrate deep enough to become effective. There's a good deal of plant material in our exotic gardens that would never survive without human assistance.
On the up side, the Albizia in my video, has really taken off even in the past 24 hrs.

Cheers, Barrie.

AaronJ

Cloudforest Expert

 

Posts: 410

Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 9:41 pm

Location: Victoria

Climate Zone: Zone 8ish

Hey Barrie, our lawns are a nice matching shade of brown lol. Too bad about your rhodo, and the new vivax culms, although the will certainly grow more. The phoenix and med sure don't mind the dry though and look terrific.

Glen in Surrey

Cloudforest Expert

 

Posts: 132

Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2010 8:24 pm

Location: Surrey, BC

Climate Zone: Zone 8?

We're also members of the brown lawn in summer club. With an acre mostly in lawn, it would be a terrible waste of city water to try to keep my lawn green all summer.

This summer has been unusual tho, in having adequate rain until about a month ago, then that line of thunder showers that came thru was it a week ago...really drenched us. As a result, the mid-August crispy brown lawn has not yet occured here. I'm always amazed how dead the grass eventually looks with our typical 6-8 weeks of warm and essentially rainless late summer weather...and yet the first few fall rains bring it right back to life.

Natives are adapted to this, but as Barrie mentioned they can suffer too...vine maples almost always start to turn colour in late August, not from approaching frost, but from this seasonal drought.

Linda, Denman Isl,BC

Cloudforest Expert

 

Posts: 779

Joined: Fri Nov 26, 2010 8:29 am

Climate Zone: 8b

Barrie, albizia is just starting here too. 'Summer Choclate' foliage looks nice, but there aren't any flowers. These trees really respond well to some summer water here, especially when young.