Despite the original posters overly extensive post, with certain questionable content, the central point is still quite vaild. We as a nation spend more money on grass than on any other crop. That by itself should be reason enough. Read up on the history of lawns and you'll find that they were orginally created as a means of demonstrating wealth (aka, I have this big area and I can afford to do nothing with it except grow grass I can't eat) Regarding the comments of junegem13 and zachslc, you might want to read up on the legal history of this movement. As it turns out, most weed laws (ones based on hight, not on noxious weeds) are unconstitutional. Nonetheless, if you are in a city or subdivision and decide to do a wildflower meadow where there is not an reasonable ordinance, then you should notify your neighbors and the city about why you are doing and the legal preceedants. The EPA has all this information. Regarding property values, that was the original complaint neighbors made against one landowner when she converted her lawn into meadow. When they were unable to demonstrate an actual decrease in property values, the city ordinance was ruled unconstitutional. Afterwards, the neighbors decided if they couldn't beat her that they'd join her and replace their own yards with meadows. Property values in that one neighborhood are now some of the highest in the city (Specific names and places, are available if you want them). Time and time again, lawn alternatives done correctly have shown to raise values, not lower them. In Charlottesville, VA local government is working on an ammendment to exclude native meadows from our weed ordinance. Other cities are doing the same very quicky, especially since the weed ordinance as written by many localites constitutes a legal liability to local governments.

Um... okay.

Robert, Back when we all were flooded, I never expected a Flash Drought would develop so quickly. Let's hope it goes away as quickly as it came. Your area is in the worst shape by far. Talihina's KBDI for tomorrow is 704. For comparison's sake, Burneyville's is only 529. As dry as we are now, I know your area must be quite a bit drier just based on a comparison of those numbers. On the Mesonet ticker a couple of days ago, Gary McManus said SE OK, for the previous 30-day period, was the driest it has been since 1921. I don't think SC OK is quite as dry because some of the counties that make up our region have had a bit more rain. While we cooled down a bit this week, especially at night, our daytime highs still are running 3 or 4 degrees higher than forecast. I blame our excessively dry soil for that. Bon I hope you are getting enough rain up there to keep everything green. We've been thru flash droughts before and we'll just deal with it (ha ha, like there is an alternative). It is hard on the plants that made lush growth in all that rain to now have no rain, but there's nothing we can do about it. This is not the summer we were hoping for, but that's nothing new. I always hope for cooler, wetter summer weather and rarely get it! Dawn

Even though it has been less than 2 weeks without rain with temps in the 80's and a few 90's, it is hard to believe how dry my sandy loam soil can get with sunny windy conditions. My one 7 ft. Paper Birch that is recovering nicely from being planted too deep a few years ago, and raised this spring, had leaves turning yellow even though I was giving it water regularly. Apparently, it wasn't enough to keep the soil moist deep enough to prevent this from happening. A long soaking watering stopped the yellow leaves from increasing in number. My 3 ft. Eastern Hemlock had it's first branch turning brown. I thought being it's second year in the ground, I could cut back on the every 3rd day watering when it doesn't rain, guess not. When you read that Tsuga Canadensis will not tolerate drought at all, believe it. My Black Ash in the front yard, had individual leaf clusters in several spots, shriveling up with no change in color, like it was adjusting to lack of water. So, to prevent further crisis, I'm back to every other day soakings of the new trees planted this spring and the trees that were raised this spring, plus every day soakings of any water loving trees like Red maples as they quit putting out new growth until the watering resumed. And this is all on soil that is a real upgrade (Sandy loam) to the Loamy sand where I used to live. The single biggest factor I attribute this problem too is the lack of shade in my area (due to the lack of any mature trees at all). The mulch makes sure that only the tree gets the water which is a plus but it doesn't prevent the soil from getting sucked dry by the tree in short order. Finally tonight were are getting a nice soaking rain that is supposed to last all night and most of tomorrow, hopefully giving us a couple of inches to penetrate down past the dry layer. Otherwise an inch will help but it won't totally alleviate the dryness. Either way, irrigation will start again in either a few days or a week at the most, depending on conditions of temps, sun and wind.