Sweltering heat. Too-hot-to-walk-on sidewalks. Scorching Temperatures. The list goes on. We ask ourselves, what would we do if we had no indoors in the midst of heat waves? What would we do if we had no technologies and devices to keep us occupied? What would we do if we had nowhere to retreat as our environment holds on, waiting for the worst of the triple digit temperatures to pass? When is reliance on irrigation beyond its capacity? The summer is a long awaited season as it is the precious time we have our noses to roses, it is the season of cut flowers; dahlias, dinner plates, hydrangea, coneflower, crocosmia and all the beautiful in-betweens. Year after year, I have been able to count on bouquets from the garden to last well into the fall season, but this year, without supplemental water, the garden quickly called its quench. And it called it early. As early as late July, I've said goodbye to the long lasting blooms and farewell to the dance of the birds and the bees fluttering between petals and zipping on by. Nature's resilience encourages my hope for a better season next year, but I can't help but wonder just truly how much stress plant life is enduring from rising temperatures. As everything is cyclical, when do plants, the natural balance to impervious surfaces start to wilt and stop providing us the buffer from sun scorched surfaces if they themselves are sun scorched. What is our role, as land stewards to create ecosystems that can thrive in drought? But truly, what is our role, as land stewards, to prevent the drought?
Photo credit is a garden completed in 2020. Located in Vancouver, WA
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