Oak Savanna on a dry hilltop in Shiloh Ranch Regional Park, Sonoma County, California.

Second in the Water Series

Try to imagine life without water….No matter how dry it may seem to be here, the soil cracked open in supplication, the lawns toasted and tan, Rhododendrons with their leaves curled and burnt along their margins, Vine and Japanese Maples, their leaves crisped blowing down curbs in late summer’s heat, there is water…everywhere, locked deeply in tissues, bound tightly to soil particles. Like most things, there are no absolutes with water. It is not simply here then gone, but on a continuum of availability. Biological scientists and agronomists will often speak of ‘dry weight’ when looking at growth trying to minimize the variability of water weight in living organisms. They bake the subject in autoclaves reducing water weight to zero without igniting and burning the carbon and more ‘solid’ structure to ash. There is water throughout the structure of plants, hydrating their cells, making possible the many processes at work within them. There is water in the atmosphere even on a blistering hot and clear day in the form of vapor effecting everything from the Evapotranspiration Rate, (ET), to how hot or cold we may feel beyond what the thermometer reads; and there is water in the soil though our plants be wilting or dead of desiccation, and it effectively sucks the moisture from our skin when we work bare handed in it. Water is everywhere even in the dry periods within the desert and, nature is okay with that and has in fact adjusted to it. Our gardens, however, are anomalies we’ve created. We are invested in them and as gardeners we do what we can to assure their survival, and more, their success! Continue reading →