HotHotHot

Today: 95 degrees F and 25 mph winds. I hope the dumbells who still smoke take care where they toss their butts.

Peach, cherry and apricot trees in my little orchard are simply wilting. I'm watering bonsai 3-4 times a day. The moss has melted into the soil. Pretty ugly.

Warmest winter and spring in the eastern US in history.

JimLewis wrote:Today: 95 degrees F and 25 mph winds. I hope the dumbells who still smoke take care where they toss their butts.

Peach, cherry and apricot trees in my little orchard are simply wilting. I'm watering bonsai 3-4 times a day. The moss has melted into the soil. Pretty ugly.

Warmest winter and spring in the eastern US in history.

hi jim i just up here virginia last week was 105 + and today 102 . last month we did not have any ran, we just have some have ran last to day but it only 3 " water most of tree and grass around my house are die if no ran next week

Never over 80F/27C here = Heaven!

Hi Jim, it was 100f today in central VA today. I have been watering twice daily, am and pm (after work). I only have a couple of trees which start to wilt. My solution, which seems to help, is to set them in water trays filled with pebbles. We were blessed to have about 1 inch of rain this past week and cooler temps. The ground was wet for two days, now its getting hard and dry. I hope the heat lets up. Todd

You guys have it easy thats a pleasnt late spring day here. When it gets over 113 thats when it gets tricky

Brett Summers wrote:You guys have it easy thats a pleasnt late spring day here. When it gets over 113 thats when it gets tricky

Point made! That's hot! What do you grow over there?

Yeah, windy and warm. Nice to pick on a guitar, more trouble when it comes to trying to keep your trees healthy...

Alain,
Funny that you mention that song as I just started working out the fingerpicking a couple days ago. Great song. It been pretty nasty here in Illinois as well but not 113f. Try to stay cool.

Todd

Hey Todd
It is a fairly wide variety. I have only been doing this for about 5 years so I am still learning what works well. Hornbeam are my first love and I do battle the leaf burn with varying degrees of success. I reckon I have the winning plan this year and will be throwing a party if I can get the great autumn colour come next Autumn. Various elms , zelcova, prunus, junipers, pines, ficus firethorn, cotoneaster, porotia, acer (japanese, trident,paperbark) Hawthorn, olive, crab apple, casurina and other Aussie natives.

It might be easier to say what doesn't grow here. I have heard that Scotts pine does not do any good in our heat and I have not tried that yet but I did have a dwarf scotts pine (jerremy) that went gang busters in full sun for about 4 years.(I thought pine full sun ) Just when I realised how special a tree it was after Peter Adams had a look at it, I killed it with poor timing on the repot I have heard that beech will not take the heat here but other Aussies reckon it will be ok. My nurseryman won't sell me one for this reason or larch either so I started growing larch from seed and although the heat tramps them they keep keeping on for the last 4 years. I found a larger one from a general nursery this year so I will get to much around with that and see how it goes. It is good to remember that a larger tree is easier to take care of when it is getting out of it's usual zone.

I now use 50% shade cloth on my main bench but that does not even go up until the temperature starts hitting 95F

As I run out of space in the sheltered areas I often have many of my trees in full sun 113F. Mostly the sun lovers like olive pine juniper casurina firethorn. Some that I have been surprised taking full sun at that heat with little leaf burn or such is Tridents ficus hawthorn to name a few. Although trees such as the sujie elm seemed to lap up this heat I was scared by advice that the roots will cook at this temperature and the damage may not be noticed until Root Rot sets in the Winter after the heat damage. Well I have been doing this for several years now and it has been a non-issue. I don't use anything to protect the pot from the heat such as carpet rocks or mulch. I prefer to keep it all open so I can have easy access to the pot/soil seeing what is going on. I would plan to water the tree whether it needs it or not on these hotter days at least in the morning and again at the hottest part of the day to help cool it down. It could be three times a day on the hottest but everything gets a water around midday when it is very hot at least.

I have also found that tridents and such even the ones growing in full sun do not have a Summer dormant period. They never stop growing. English elm shut down mid Summer and never get going again in contrast