If you look closely you can see rivulets! Intense rain

Of all the "Wedding Movies", Monsoon Wedding is far and away my favorite. It's colorful, interesting, well plotted (subplots included), the cast is attractive and competent. I may have to watch it today to celebrate the arrival of the rain from Tropical Storm Hannah. After having plenty of rain through most of the summer, we hit a sort of a snag over the last month and a half. Temperatures in the Washington area in August were above average, as they have been fairly consistently for the last year and a half. Rainfall was infrequent; Reagan National Airport received approximately 2.25" less than would have been expected. Added to this were a number of recent days when the wind was high and the humidity was low, and shallowly rooted plants including many perennials, and plants that had not yet established root systems were showing significant stress.

Today's rain will be nice, we have almost 2" at noon, but it won't be a monsoon....still, to those of us who's jobs it is to establish and maintain plants and gardens, it does come as a welcome relief. Summer, which just ended meteorologically, has been broken. There will be hot days and there may be the need to water, but the urgency is gone. Thank you Hannah.

It's time for fall geophytes

Presuming Hannah (the Tropical Storm) comes through for us we could get significant rain. They say up to 7". Aside from making watering easier for the next few weeks if not the rest of the season, even 3" of rain would be enough to get the fall bulbs started and even, absent future rain, to bring them into bloom. Colchicum, Crocus spp., Sternbergia, Cyclamen...I'm probably missing a few, but they're fun bulbs. They are unusual in that you can plant them now, just before they bloom. This is because they stored up energy and formed buds last winter/spring and have been dormant all summer. Since it is a drought dormancy they can go right into the ground now and flower in the next month.

I planted 6 Colchicum, two varieties three each, at the Library last week. I'll dig some clumps of Crocus speciosus from the Adelphi garden, divide them, and move some to the Library when they appear; that ought to be later this week. We have accumulated some different varieties over the years and it would be doing the clumps a favor to divide them. Though I don't remember having ever transplanting Autumn Crocus before flowering, I have done it with the spring flowering types with no ill effects. I am sure this will work out. I'll move some Sternbergia too. Maybe the Friends of the Beltsville Library will buy some Cyclamen. I'm sure they will. Once planted, the bulbs will steadily multiply over the years and produce new propagules for moving into new spaces.

Over the years I have done designs for Schools, Churches, Orginizations and have always enjoyed it. The people involved are always gardeners, always enthusiastic, and almost always display a level of patience that is less common in homeowners or business owners. A good garden takes time to develop. You have to site the plants in such a way that when they reach maturity they are not crowding themselves, the hardscape, or the people who visit the garden. Even though these gardens are always managed by committee, as a "client" they seem always to be quite receptive to these requirements.

Planting these, less common, geophytes in such a conspicuous public space will, I hope, suggest them as options for visitor's their own gardens. Fall bulbs are one of the easiest, most exciting, least utilized groups of plants in the garden. Though sometimes cyclamen are eaten, as a general rule once you plant these guys all you have to do is....well nothing.