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| Agave attenuata 'Raea's Gold' looks lovely decorated with raindrops. I planted this pup in the south-side succulent bed shortly before the rain started. |
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| The Renga lily (Arthropodium cirratum) nearby was also studded with raindrops |
As forecast, Southern California got rain on Monday, the majority of it falling between noon and 3pm. I'd scrambled to get a lot of things planted over the weekend, including 12 plants received by mail order on Friday, tree lily bulbs I'd received earlier, and the Freesia bulbs dug up when I tore out some invasive plants in September so I was invested in getting everything well watered. After nothing but drizzle in the morning, I ventured out to take care of one of the tasks I'd forgotten on Saturday: taking down the shade covers in the lath house. So of course the downpour started while I was mid-way through that project. That was the first time I got soaked.
After changing my clothes, I pulled my car out of the garage to let the rain wash it clean(ish). I also started collecting water running off the rain chain in the back garden. I have 50- and 160-gallon tanks to collect rain running off the house roof but a large amount comes down the rain chain too, where it's funneled down to the back slope and the canyon area beyond. My 50-gallon tank filled quickly and I tapped some of that to start filling the 160-gallon tank while rain continued to flow into the 50-gallon tank. I also pulled my car back into the garage and wiped it down. Running back and forth between those tasks was how I got soaked a second time.
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| I still had these 5 buckets filled with water after dumping much of what poured down the rain chain into the 160-gallon tank and on plants under the roof overhang |
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| You can see the water line near the top of the 160-gallon tank, filled roughly to the 150-gallon mark |
On Tuesday morning, I poured all the water I had remaining in the plastic trugs shown above into the 265-gallon tank attached to the back of the garage. It's unfortunate that our largest tank is attached to the smallest roof surface but it was too big and homely to attach to the house. Moving water collected in one area to a tank in another area is an exhausting process but, given the severity of our drought, it's worth the effort. I estimate that the 265-gallon tank is 33% full so, in all, I stored approximately 288 gallons of rainwater this week.
How much rain did we actually get? The atmospheric river that pummeled Northern and Central California on Sunday gave us just four-tenths of an inch of rain, slightly more than Weather Underground's forecast predicted.
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| Our total year-to-date rain for the "water year," which began October 1, 2021 and ends November 30,2022 is 0.52/inch. Our total for the previous water year, which ended November 1, 2021 was 4.12 inches. The "normal" annual rainfall for my area is 15 inches. |
Even with less than half an inch of rain, the garden got a good soak. I could have collected a bit more water but my husband and I were scheduled to get our COVID booster shots and, after running my clothes through the dryer, we took off to take care of that. The rain was over by the time we got back.
I won't have to spend much time watering in the short-term but the rain reinforced the need to give the two Leptospermum shrubs framing the path between the front door and the driveway a hard pruning. These plants have grown MUCH larger than the tag on their pots predicted (5-6 feet tall by 6-7 feet wide) . When the branches are laden with rain, it's now difficult to walk between them without getting wet.
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| View of the two Leptospermum 'Copper Glow' shrubs from the front door |
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| View of the same shrubs, looking more and more like trees, from the driveway. Planted in December 2014, you can see them at their infant stage here. |
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All material © 2012-2021 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party