Hey, I'm in Chapel Hill and I hear you! It's crunchy and miserable here -- you showed great patience with that woman!

I just watered my potted plants and a squirrel came up and drank out of the water hose! We have a water feature/waterfall/stream and then he went up on the rocks and continued drinking. The deer are drinking from the manmade stream, too. It's sad, isn't it? I don't usually care too much for the bird-feeder raiders and the garden munchers, but I'm feeling sad about the wildlife, too. I've actually been amazed that the deer are leaving my deer-resistant garden alone so far. We have a herd of 20+ on our land and there are fresh tracks all through the outer garden every morning where they've come in for water. I can't keep my butterfly bath full because other critters are drinking from it.

WRAL says rain later this week with temps around 79! Let's pray that it happens.

shhhh...don't talk about the predicted rain. We might scare it away. I'm convinced that's why Gabrielle ran the other way. The weatherfolk made too much of her. ;~)

Crazy... I keep hearing you that live in the eastern US talk about the drought you are experiencing and its exactly the opposite here in the desert.
I think I've seen more rain here in the last two months than I have in the last two years! Its rained almost 10 inches this summer and our average yearly rainfall is 8 inches. My plants don't know what to think :)
Isn't it odd, the weather fluctuations and imbalances. Its nice to be on the receiving end of the precipitation for once.

Deer are doing and eating things now I've never seen except at the end of a very hard winter. They're going to eat every woody they can reach this winter, even if it's poisonous. I've bought some Plantskydd (in place of the Deer off and Liquid Fence I usually count on) and hope to spray almost everything, even stuff they don't like. I expect they'll eat the hellebores this winter too.

I hope the weather breaks for you all, and those wanting cooler and wet get it. I probably shouldn't rub it in that this is a perfectly lovely season to be gardening in northern California coastal areas, (as long as you aren't on water rationing that is), with gardens full of color and great gardening weather as well. The deer can be rather pesky at this season here too, as the gardens offer so many more tender things than the desiccated natives do, which are mostly in summer dormancy unless they are next to perennial creeks.

It is too bad that nursery customers can't always be persuaded to overlook initial size and appearance of small one gallon plants and take one's advice as an article of faith... Of course, it never hurts to have a display garden on hand to show what larger plants look like. I can't imagine that someone wouldn't be impressed with the Carex 'Sparkler' if they saw a mature one, and deer resistant as well!

Too picky design clients also get my goat sometimes, and I much prefer the clients that can describe the overall look they are interested in, and leave the detailed plant selection up to me. I still give them the option of saying yes or no when I get the plants on site, or will replace with something new if they really don't like it, but figure they are paying me to give them the easy care/drought tolerant/specific seasonal color in an assemblage that I know will work well over time, and sometimes have to point out the positives of the plants I've selected and the negatives of the ones they may think work better. Of course, there are a million ways to design a garden, and no one way is correct, but years of experience and knowing ultimate sizes of mature plants does count for something.

Bahia...if I hadn't been sweating buckets and quietly dripping I might have had more patience. And I've been doing both for DAYS. We are in a relatively urban setting--I would LOVE to have a display garden to show people. In fact, I've been putting photos of specific plants in my garden 'in situ' up on my photobucket account so I can show customers what the plants looklike. 'Sparkler' is a new one around here, so I've not planted any yet, nor do I have any personal experience with it. I DO own three plants now...since the lady in question wasn't interested.

I plan on planting them as soon as the weather breaks. Enjoy your garden! I plan on enjoying mine again...someday. You KNOW it's dry when the (established!) sarcococca and the helebores are suffering.

I'm in SC, and have to let y'all in a little secret: My husband is a meteorologist, for the military. This means, he supports the war effort, and therefore, has to be accurate. The guys on tv, well... They're paid to keep the viewers happy, for the most part.

We're brown and crunchy here as well, and it's horrible! It rained last night, and we've a 30% chance of rain tonight, increasing to 50% Friday night. I hope it rains each night!

BTW, that plumbago would have been great for the customer's needs.

Ok, I have to question your assertion about accuracy of military meteorologists. I used to be friends with a guy who was also a meteorologist for the military, then got a tv gig. He never claimed that he was always right - and in fact, was always completely embarrassed when his forecasts were wrong. The viewers are happy when the forecasts are correct, y'know?

LOL! you sound just like the helpmeet. I sympathize, as trite as that sounds. He gets home, covered in dust and dog-tired, mumbling about the stupidity of the great American consumer.

We went to buy some trees and shrubs for the final phase of the garage/driveway relocation project 3 wks. ago. We went first thing in the morning mid-week. We had a "to scale" plan, an understanding of the sun/shade patterns throughout the season, some "definites", some ideas, and were "willin' to talk". We received GREAT "service"! but we were willing to look at things we hadn't considered... and people who work in nurseries have a really good grasp of what is thriving under the worst conditions a plant can endure (potted, balled&burlapped!).

Hat's off to you, Msjee. You have one of the toughest jobs going... no one wants to hear the truth about plants!