Rain at last

We've finally had rain -- and the right kind: long, slow and soaking. I counted less than an inch in my yard, but that's an inch more than we've gotten in the last month or so. I take full credit: I finally broke down and set up a sprinkler on the lawn yesterday, first time I had watered the lawn all season. So of course it rained. You're very welcome.

I don't think anything, even the grass, has really suffered much from a few rainless weeks. We had so much rain earlier in the summer that there was a deep reservoir of water in the soil. I just succumbed to a primitive, atavistic urge to water the lawn. I feel like an ex-smoker who's backslid. But hey, the president is having trouble quitting too.

Here's hoping that there is plenty of good rain the next couple of weeks, and then a couple of nice dry weeks in early October so I can plant the couple of hundred bulbs I have already accumulated. I have planted bulbs in the rain; I have planted bulbs through melting snow in a warm spell in January. But that is not my choice of bulb-planting conditions. Dry and sunny, between 50 and 55, with migrating geese honking overhead, please.

Plants do need watering in the fall. A lot of people sort of give it up on it as the season dwindles and the plants lose their blooms and leaves. But even though the top growth has died back the roots are still growing. Evergreens resist winter kill much better if they have lots of water stored in their needles and root systems. Any tree or shrub planted in the last two years, and any perennial planted this year, needs diligent watering going into its first winter, because it probably hasn't had time to grow a big enough system of feeder roots to glean enough water from rainfall.

Bulbs need watering too. They go into the ground dormant, but then they need to immediately start growing roots, I was recently told by Scott Kunst, who owns Old House Gardens in Ann Arbor, which sells heirloom bulbs. They need those roots to store enough water to get going in spring. And if they don't get water in fall they can't grow the roots. So it's important to plant bulbs in well-drained soil, but it's also important to water when you plant them and keep watering regularly until the ground freezes.


Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .

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