Same here except we are very low on rain, we keep missing it. We've been dry since January.

Temps in upper 90's and forecast is for HOT HOT HOT. Rain chances slim to zero.

I had to look that gaillardia up, I've never heard that name before. There's a story about those red guys.

What happened was three or four years ago I made a trade with a woman on GW. She sends me teeny weeny tiny packets of seed of various types and there were 2 of gaillardia, 1 containing solid yellow and 1 solid red gaillardia along with 3 or 4 of other common seed types. Each packet had a whopping 3 or 4 seeds and a bit of chaff. Wow, the generosity of some people. Mara, you personally know the kinds of bulging packets yours truly sends out so needless to say, I was a bit hot under the collar and felt ripped off in a major way. Its not like you don't end up with a grocery store bag of seeds from a single gaillardia plant or anything.......Anyway, those mostly red gaillardias must have come from this stingy, cheap-ass trade.

I also have two plants that form flowers with shorter tube-type petals that came from, I DON'T KNOW WHERE??? Maybe a bird? The two plants are the same size shape, leaves etc as the common annual types and bloom just as heavy spring to fall except these plants wintered over from last year so these must be perennials, of course it was a warmish winter and the plants didn't start blooming til nearly fall last year and I didn't rip them out like I did the others so time will tell.

Actually I prefer the yellow edges and wish mine had wider yellow, they are brighter in the garden and look more indian blanket-ish.

http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=GAAM

Well I misspelled the G. aestivalis or that awful spell check changed it on me more than once.. TWO seeds ! sheesh. Well , you are a good grower. The Monarda punctatas came from two very small sections of one very dried flower in Tent Rocks slot canyon and now they are expanding exponentially. I think I got about 6 plants off of them. Well stingy me is sending seed from 1 ball of Echinacea augustifolia because it was the only one dried up enough to get seed off of right now. I can wait and get more.. Also the two seed heads were the only seed heads on the E. pallida "hula dancer ". A deer must have got to it. I will collect the yellower Galliardia pulchella for you. They are seeding everywhere right now.

Sometimes two seeds is all you get...but i'd be hard pressed to believe that about almost any gaillardia. I was really surprised that those from you, didn't reseed by self in my garden...I got only ONE volunteer. I guess I have to collect seeds from it and sow myself next spring. Oh, and I still have a few seedheads kickin around from last year as well (in garden). Plus, probably a very adequate quantity in the leftover envelope TR sent me.

I find that gaillardia sometimes needs more than a year to make itself at home. I had a friend who had some extra wildflower seed bags for throwing at the bride and groom at their wedding and they they gave them to me. I saw nothing for several years and just wrote it off after a while, and about the time their marriage started to break apart, the flowers (mostly gaillardia) started growing. He is on his third girlfriend now after the wife and the bank is now full of gaillardia.

I had a self-sustaining colony in Oklahoma, on a rocky road ditch where it perpetuated and grew from year to year...up and down the roadside. I hope it's still there.

I'm an unkind bad girl for complaining. My best guess was the person was a novice who didn't know the difference between chaff and seed judging by the stuff sent because all the packets were stuffed with mostly chaff, I was put out because I'd decided I was being selfish for hesitating to send a couple hard to find types of special seed I'd saved for special trades from plants I'd gone to some trouble to get a hold of and I didn't have many to share.

Sometimes a person only ends up with a very few amount of seed from some plants or maybe only a couple. When that happens, like with the echinacea wantanamara is talking about, sharing is a true example of generosity. Its pretty easy to be generous with plants like gaillardia when you end up with enough seed to plant an acre from a few plants.

I have a solid yellow one that came up this year. I wonder if it will affect cross breeding and produce plants with wider yellow margins? That seems to be what happened with the solid red. The all yellow was a late volunteer and its pretty straggly looking now that the heat set in along with how dry it is.

Getting back to June heat, some of the gaillardias are already starting to look dry and cooked. Last year a couple of my plants blew away like tumbleweeds in late summer. I was outside when one started rolling down the street. It looks like this is going to be one of those summers when watering won't help that much, its a matter of keeping some things alive, forget keeping it looking good over all. Mine whole yard is looking parched but the Little Bluestem looks fabulous, really stiff and blue.

It looks like the heat is centered farther north and west. Our high was just under 90 today. So, not too bad.It looks like the rain has broken the heat wave out west a bit.

Yeah, I live in Illinois and I put in a lot of new native plants in this year.It's been very dry compared to 2014 and 2015.The high heat has also made it very hard.I have to water daily and also screen a lot of transplants so they don't get fried.The temperature really cooled down into the 70s for about the past 4 days so I have been scrambling to get everything planted or moved.Still no good rain I hope that changes soon.The lawns are turning brown here too,but that doesn't worry me.Just want all my new plants to grow and thrive.Wish some of that rain that's flooding the south would come my way.

This is how HOT it is here.

I just back from delivering furniture and picking up more in my van in Austin. They have a heat alert going on with the whole state. God I am not looking forward to the next few months living and gardening under the Death Star.. Time to start waking up early to work in the shop. The century mark still eludes us.

A bit over 6 inches of rain in June here. I'll take that! The big guys had us in for drought up here this summer. We shall see, although I do realize it's still early. Supposed to be another big slug of rain coming tonight, tomorrow, and on into Thurs.

We was robbed! of every single storm passing through over the 4th of July weekend. Heat dome is settling in. Time to hunker down and get through it until late September.

The normal summertime "Texas High" is settling in . We get to watch all the monsoons that hit Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas hit the dry line out there and then slither up it and over Oklahoma , missing OKC to points east. People here will start praying for a tropical depression soon. But that usually doesn't occur till late August. We are still burning off humidity that makes out doors unbearable. At least the streams and rivers are still running clear and a bit cool. That will change.

I'm dreading it. We hit the 100's this week. How long will it last and how high will it go, that is the question. I have a date to gesso and sand two 8' x 4' boards outside this week. Two days of it, I can hardly wait.

I'm relatively good with heat. But I don't know how you guys do it. So hot, so soon. We get up in the 80s and I'm starting to wilt!

I remember BACK IN 2011, when the heat broke below 100 for the first time in 75 days and then we hit low 90's , it felt cool. Humidity was down to 12-15% so the mornings were cool or felt cool. Our bodies had gotten so acclimated, I remember thinking that 100 was normal. This humidity is the killer. 80's is not heat ....its spring time. And even here , I look at how Del Rio has been in the 100's for awhile. Del rio must be miserable because they still get humidity from the coast depending on wind. Yesterday was 111 and 23%( wind probably off the chihuahua desert) and today is 102 and 53% (wind off the coast). God either is god awful.

I don't call being in the 80's heat, thats typical late spring temps in June. What I'm dreading and fearing is when we get up to around 109 then 112 and then 114. Thats when we start hoping a hurricane is brewing out in the gulf and that its big enough to bring rain up into Texas and Oklahoma to break the heat dome up. Once the heat dome settles firmly in place, no moisture can be generated and the thermometer keeps inching up, any chance for relief is locked out because not much can penetrate it leaving us stuck in a kind of purgatory of heat and sun with no end in sight.

Of course I realize that. This is why the example! But one point-we do not ever hit the 90s or even the 80s in WI without humidity. Just doesn't happen. So there's that. I can't even imagine heat like that-upper 90s, and on upward, with such low humidity. It must just suck the life out of everything. It sure would here, with the plant types adapted to this climate! Don't think I'd care for that one bit, no ma'am.

Well, wait till the fires start up in earnest. Then its really fun. I'm dreading it. Much of Oklahoma got rain but where I am its drought. Its not going to take too long for things to turn into a tinder box though. It gets so hot, a piece of broken glass on the ground or a mailbox in the sun can start a fire.

When you get high heat and low humidity, it cools off more at night and the plants get a well deserved respite that they take advantage of. That does not happen in the High heat high humidity. Plants hate it here. What I hate is this period whee we have the humidity and no rain.. Early summer is hard that way. late August will come in with rain but in-between one gets the low humidity. Plants really respond. cool nights are the charm of the west. The south east have hot steamy nights and their days only feel hotter. At least they get rain with the humidity. That makes for good literature..

Heh, indeed, I do fancy me some Florida noir from time to time.

Hey Tex, take heart: By the time fire is licking at your boot heels, maybe one of those "unexplained" earthquakes you guys keep having will take your minds off a little fire! I know, not really very funny.

We have big night spotlights high on the house I use for nighttime summer gardening. Its not too friendly out there even in the post midnight, early morning hours. I still start sweating like a hog in 5 minutes but during the day if I squat down I nearly black-out every time I stand back up and I hate that feeling, that moment of total blackness when it feels like your brain is cut off from circulation and you're literally brain dead for a few seconds waiting for it to pass, like a little taste of death. Do you get that? I only have it when its real hot.

When it doesn't cool down at night it becomes a vicious cycle for generating more heat during the day.

Those quakes are NOT unexplained but I think ye be speaking in jest. Its not caused by fracking, its the wastewater being disposed and forced into the sublayers of rock that causes the quakes. The quakes are coming from shallow levels and that makes them stronger than if they were from deeper down, the 'ripples' are dramatic when its that close to the surface. Some of them make loud 'booms'. Wakes you up in the middle of the night. We got earthquake insurance when it first started but that insurance is becoming very expensive and difficult to purchase now. There are thousands of these quakes.

Yes, I do realize it's the waste water...so in a way, fracking is still the "cause". In any case, regarding the temporary low blood pressure upon getting up off your haunches...oh yeah, I get that too. Plus-as you allude to, on a hot day, it's much, much hotter down at ground level. I've also experienced that many a time.

I was just reading a thread on our neighborhood FB forum about people's electricity bills being suddenly higher. Someone actually said this:

My thermostat was set the same in May and June, how can the bill for June be so much higher??

It boggles the mind. Did this person not notice how much hotter it was? Here's how the cooling degree days ended up for the two months:

CDD May 2016: 94
CDD June 2016: 452

It's continued to be abnormally hot here, but we've had a couple of big rains this month. I'm way behind on weeding the newer beds.

I mentioned the dizzy thing because it was worrying me somewhat and I was wondering if it was anything to be alarmed about, you eased my mind on that. Thanks.

Believe it or not, I only just learned about the waste water being the culprit this last week. There was a documentary show about man-made earthquakes and their causes. Oklahoma was featured on the show. I'd always thought it was the fracking because everyone blames that. The oil companies mostly deny that its the cause but they've done studies and the evidence is just too overwhelming. The rest of the show was about dams which was the other major cause.

Me and this other fella re wondering online whether it is now complete-the takeover of modern society by the "idiocracy". Woods, you have provided important new data!

woods, that reminds me of this woman I once knew who was (for real mind you) wondering why she wasn't loosing weight--she'd started drinking her colas and other fattening drinks out of a small juice glass instead of a big water glass. Of course she was filling the juice glass a lot more often than the big glass (we watched this) but I don't think she noticed.

I saw lots of responses to that post that suggested unfair pricing on the utility's part, perhaps even a conspiracy of some sort. Only a few people mentioned the hotter June weather, and no one brought up the fact that rates are a little higher during the summer peak demand months.

I think part of it is that if you decide the whole thing is a conspiracy, it means you're not part of the solution. You don't have to think about how you could lower your usage with energy upgrades to your home, or set your thermostat higher when you're away, etc.

Tex, what you're describing sounds like heat syncope, or at least being right on the verge of that.

You might be right (about the syncope) Woods, but to some degree, i get that any old time I get up quickly, and it has always been said to be a temporary low BP in the brain case, just from positional factors. Me, I'm no doctor! I do see how it is made worse in stressful heat situations. I even see stars sometimes.

ps....genius that I am, just looked up your term there Woods. Quite clearly, I think you are on to something. That the two factors-positional and heat-related may be connected is a given in such a case, I think.

I looked it up too. Sounds like it fits the symptoms. The blackout part is like my brain shuts completely off into a total blank for about 5 seconds, its hard to describe and my heart is really pounding hard when it happens. It seems like a bad thing to continue to work out there so I just come inside. In the evening or if I'm in the shade, I don't experience it.

I've heard of something called Positional (or postural?) Low Blood Pressure. I get that sometimes when squatting down and getting up too quick but its just a brief dizzy feeling.

I have a similar thing called a vasovagal response -- it's not heat, but usually a medical procedure (or the sight of one) that does it. I have rarely gone all the way out (which would be called vasovagal syncope), but my face feels suddenly cool like the blood has just drained from it, then my vision grays out and it's hard to think clearly. I've been told the best thing is to lie down. Hydration might be a factor.

OK, how about an explanation from a real doc? Syncope, or loss of consciousness is caused by a lack of adequate blood flow to the brain. It is a protective reflex that happens when blood pressure gets low enough that the brain is facing possible irreversible damage due to inadequate oxygen. When you are standing up, lots of your blood is pooled in your legs and feet due to gravity. Once you faint, you fall down and become horizontal, which allows the blood to flow much more easily to the brain where it is needed. Syncope is much more likely to happen when you are hot, because the blood vessels in the skin over your entire body are dilate in an effort to cool your blood by evaporation of sweat.

I could go into more detail, if anyone cares.

Martha

Oh good, I was hoping you'd chime in on this. Just one question. Is it dangerous? I find it scary when it happens, I always think heart attack or stroke (not the heat one, the other kind).