Yuck...makes me thankful to live near the gulf. I can put up with the humidity in a trade-off for rain.

OUCH, I feel for ya. We haven't had enough rain here but have had some. Only thing is it's been so windy that it gets sucked right out of the ground. I'm having to water more this year than normal.

Yep Mark I know what you mean, I spend at least 4 hours a day watering in one way or the other! My water bill has gotten so out of hand that I've had to give up on trying to keep the back yard green and now I'm only starting to water every 3 to 4 days if I can get away with it. We have a 30% chance of rain today but I'm NOT going to hold my breath! *rolls eyes*

Roxy girl - you're watering that often? What grass do you have? I can get away with 10-21 days before having to water again for st augustine.

And I live on limestone rubbles...

I could give a care about my sod. It's a good attitude here too in drought years.We can't afford to water the sod. I'm just watering the trees and flowers. Crispy grass makes for a icky backdrop for my poor,dry flowers tho! PJ

I have Bermuda grass, we have not had any rain here in my area for over 2 months! *eek* The ground is so dry that it's starting to crack. Also I have not one shade tree, we started our yard from scratch...my trees are just babys and provide no help sadly.

Roxy,

You are probably not watering deep enough. What kind of sprinkler are you using? Have you used tuna cans or something similar to show how much you've put in? They are usually 1 inch depth.

PJ - I care more about trees and want them to keep growing so I give them deeeeeep watering and st augustine happens to get some of it anyway. I'm all about shade and I ain't being cheap on the trees. They have grown a lot because I have made a point to give them deep watering every couple weeks and they grow like weeds. My grass my suffer toward the end of 2nd week but it's just making them tougher and growing roots deeper and deeper. I also mow grass at 4.25 inches to provide more shade on the ground and keep it cooler too.

roxy - Stop watering so much. It is such a waste when water is such a precious resource right now and in the future. Water deeply, but infrequently. And, if your Bermudagrass goes dormant during the summer because of the heat, it will recover when it cools off.

Lou - You are so right about protecting the things that matter - trees. I also have St. Augustine and wait until the grass starts looking dull and plants look a little thirsty before I water deep. We're slowly converting the landscape beds to the new drip irrigation - the brown piping with holes down each side every six inches. So far, where I have it installed, it is working great.

Lou, I keep my sod long too just to hold down on evaporation. I'm moving from calcareous limestone to very sandy kinda loam soil in an area with better trees. I actually picked the area because of the soil! LOL!
It's bad when your "indoorsy" DH tells the real estate agent that the house has the "wrong soil,looks like clay" and doesn't look embarrassed. The agent looked a bit surprised tho! I'm going to be able to dig w/o a pick axe!!! All my water is going to vanish!!! Can't win for losing!!! LOL! PJ

We just missed the rain again. You could see this big black cloud and the thunder and lightning and it just evaporated right before it got to us and then formed again the next town over. Grrrr. I water every day and not my poor grass either. It is beyond help I think.

Yep, it got really cloudy and I thought the rain was coming. Turned on the news and it passed us by, some spots got 3 inches! Grrr is right!

We got some piddly sprinkles but at least the temp dropped a bit and put my out-of-control evaporation problem on hold for a day. PJ

Some dark clouds here in west ft worth but only a few sprinkles.Watered all the plants in the front yard yesterday, think Ill wait to water the backyard plants until tomorrow.

Rigo

Well, I don't know who did the Nekkid Turtle dance in dfw, but hallelujah! There was rain!

So glad. I couldn't take it much longer, much less my plants!

I was doin' the Nekkid Turtle dance!! It was just enough to wet the top layer of soil, but hey, I'll take it!!

I shoulda mentioned windy too. That really sucks, the water that is. Been more'n 8 weeks now. I never water my grass, but it's every day for flowers w/ drip irrigation and every 5 for fruit trees. every 7 for the crepe myrtles and magnolias.

As for using water, I really hate to do it, but me likes me flowers y fruit.

As for cost, I'm happy I have a well right now.

We had one small rain a couple weeks ago but it barely went a half inch into the ground. I am just working on my roses, but I let quite a few things go... most of my annuals croaked, even the drought-tolerant ones like cosmos.

Funny thing is--two days ago a huge patch of rain lilies came up and bloomed! It made me happy. And with no rain! They sure come up at the oddest times. Didn't someone say it has to do with pressure more than rain?

We got 2 inches last week, Tue, Wed or Thu, I've already forgotten, anyway, I took a day off from watering my garden, and then the next day dug about 5 inches down & it was bone dry. I don't know if the top layer of dirt was so dry that it took all the moisture or if I just got 2 inches on the patio by the rain gauge, and the rest of the yard just got a shower.

It probably rained too heavily for the dry ground to be able to absorb all that much water. Think of really dry sponge that you've used in the past. Turn a full blast of running water on dry sponge. Does it absorb all the water? Nope. Several days of slow soaking rain is the best way to really saturate the ground otherwise all the water just runs off into the sewer or wherever they go.

It was a really strange rain, it never really poured, just steady for about 4 or 5 hours. The brillant builder of our house built the patio about 4" lower than ground level and a hard rain fills it up like a wading pool, but this time it didn't. I was really surprised to see 2" in the rain gauage because of that. I figured we got 1/2" or less judging by the runoff.

We finally got a little and boy howdy do I mean "Little" rain out my way. It was that steady rain for about a hour and then again for about 30 mins. the following morning...by the afternoon it was dry as a bone again though! Better than nothin' I suppose...

I've taken the advice about watering deep and a lot less often by the way, at this point I can't really tell that it is doing any better to tell the truth but maybe I'll save some $$$ on my water bill.

marti,

I wonder if you have a serious soil compaction if you did really get 2 inches of rain.

Guys,

There's a tropical storm in the western Carribean sea that is going to get into Gulf of Mexico in a couple days and could hit Central to South Texas to Mexico end of week. If it does hit Central Texas, it would bring rain for everybody in Texas.

RAIN!!!! PJ

I've wondered that too lou. This was in an area that I've never worked, just covered with cardboard & mulch to start a garden last year.

Looks like Mexico is going to be the winner of the rain from this storm.

Unfortunately things are dry, my lawnmower is down, weeds need mowing (it's been a while - see my lawnmower is down statement above) and did I mention it's hot. I think this is one of the hotter summers we are blessed to have. I know it's hotter than the last three years.

Come on September.

Sorry chickadee but if it's any thing like last year it's going to be Oct. before we get any relief. I was pickin' tomatoes at Christmas last year...and no I'm not kidding! *lol*

Dena

Bite yo' tongue roxy! LOL! Good grief! maters in December!!!!!!PJ

I'm with chickadee, come on September, or better yet, October!

ugh. it's not coming here. Things are bone dry here! It'd take a miracle for that storm to start curving east towards us instead of going west into Mexico...

Another storm is on the way. It's gonna probably land in Galveston and possibly send rain to DFW.

I'm so tired of this perpetual summer.

I have this condition where my feet turn bright red, hot and burn. Seriously, everytime I go out in the heat..ouch!!!

I wish it would just cool off.

Yeah but it may not bring much rain to DFW if it stays to the south and going straight west. At least, it appears to go for worst drought stricken part of Texas. They need it bad! Things were pretty dry when I drove through San Marcos on the way to Austin. Even if it didn't bring rain at my house, it will bring cooler weather at least.

How dry is it? This came in an email :-)

It's so dry in Texas that the Baptists are starting to baptize by sprinkling, the Methodists are using wet-wipes, the Presbyterians are giving out rain-checks, and the Catholics are praying for the wine to turn back into water.

Now, THAT'S dry!

roselee ROFL!!! PJ

Now THAT'S dry! :)

I'm in NW Houston. We got some heavy rain yesterday, but then it stopped and got sunny again. It was enough to water the plants deeply though, which is what it needed to do. Cooled us off as well.

Now we should be getting rain on Tuesday from the next storm, Edourd. Think I might try to catch some of that water in a big container to use to water flowers in the future. Would be cheaper than having my water bill get higher!!