Notes on the 2023 Drought:

Dear Clients + Friends,

     After I got a call this morning from the West Feliciana water company that they will be restricting our water pressure between 6 - 8 AM + PM for the unforeseeable future, I felt the urge to email you immediately. The fears/stresses we have been experiencing as a company and stewards of so many gardens were exemplified greatly with that phone call/reality jolt.

      Needless to say, I am sure you have all noticed we are in the middle of an extreme drought. One that has now caused our daily temps to soar regularly into the hundreds. Though our summers are always hot, the lack of rainfall in what are usually our rainiest months has caused tremendous havoc on our gardens, wildlife, and local ecosystems as a whole. We have been having some odd dry breezy days that are also not helping hold moisture in. At this point, any sporadic rain we get, no matter how hard it may be, will not do much to aid our problem until the rains come consistently. The earth's water table is just so low.... so when it rains the precipitation is hardly getting to the roots of our plants and trees if moisture is being held in the soil. 

It's a good idea to start having this conversation now, seeing as this may be our future for summers to come.

Good luck out there and email us (info@sweetfernlandscapes.com) if you have any further questions! 

Jess + Team

  • Water before the sun comes out (this will assuredly be the case for those in West Feliciana parish as we are not allowed to use lots of water between 6 - 8 AM/our water pressure will be severely lowered).

  • DO NOT plant anything new in the ground. Wait till fall temps and regular rain. 

  • Make sure all plants are well mulched and no roots are exposed.

  • Those of you with highly biodiverse gardens that are of usual benefit to pollinators and wildlife (native perennial gardens and gardeners, I am looking at you!) consider keeping up the laborious task of watering deeply and keeping your bird baths full. You are likely helping out more wildlife and pollinators (insects, birds, and more) than you realize. 

  • Just because a plant's leaves are wilting does not mean they need water. This can be confusing for people at first... listen here, even in a really wet and regularly well-watered garden bed, plants may still wilt in the heat of the day. Plants lose water through their leaves and even in well-watered situations the plant will choose to close up their "water release" valves to hold on to that water and this will often produce a wilting effect. If you wait till evening, the sun has dropped and the heat has relinquished; they usually perk back up. Plants respond to heat in various ways. The best way to know if your plants are wilting because they need water is to know your own garden... if you know you have been watering well and regularly (soaking the ground) and you see wilting then it's just a temporary survival mechanism, don’t water more! If you know you have been irregular and the soil is dry then your plants are likely underwatered and when the sun falls water well!

  • Consider not watering at all, esp. your plants that are super water-needy or ones that have already been ignored/on the verge of dying... I know this is a wild idea but also who knows how long this will go on? I read this week that the famous Sissinghurst in England is going this route. Amongst their hottest and driest summer, they just decided to not water whatsoever and see what lives by the end of their drought to then inform their future plantings/how to proceed with what looks like similar future summers. Just note, if this is the route you go, we are unsure what will survive/die.

  • Consider letting your warm season annuals die sooner rather than later. Our classic summer annuals are famous for needing tons of water to carry on. If it's too much and they are already severely struggling just let them die and throw seed to the ground. When it's time to plant cool season annuals, you can re-up.