I hope folks around Nacogdoches have been watering their gardens and landscapes. Water is life, you know. Life as we know it cannot exist without that simple combination of elements which we recognize as H2O. This is especially so in our gardens.
I've been watering the landscape around my house for several weeks now, and for the last two days I've been watering my side garden with a vengeance. It's tempting this time of the year to just give everything a cursory "wetting," but resist that temptation. If you set out the sprinkler or turn on the sprinkler system, give it a deep soaking. Then maybe that will be enough to get you through to the next rain, and that's the best treatment for your plant material. When the soil dries out, it dries out from top to bottom. Your plants will be motivated (if you can speak of them that way) to grow their roots deeply, seeking water, rather than staying on the surface of the ground where you water them lightly.
Photo by Jeff Abt |
Tulips and a grand fountain in a great park, the Peterhof Gardens, in St. Petersburg Russia.
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But water isn't just for your plants. I set water out in shallow pottery dishes for the birds. I set them under azalea bushes, in the shade of a tree or any shady area of the landscape. I remember Neil Sperry saying, on the radio back when I was a kid, that there was nothing worse than a bird bath set out in the middle of a hot, dry yard. A human wouldn't take a bath in such, and neither would a bird. No, a watering hole for a bird should be in a shady spot.
Water features in gardens have been around for millennia. The ancient Egyptians loved formal ponds in their landscapes. They filled the ponds from the river, the Nile, and then used the water in the ponds to irrigate their orchards and shrubberies. These "paradise gardens" were cool, watery places in the midst of a desert. You and I, centuries later, still love water in our landscapes. We love pools, goldfish ponds, the trickling sound of water and the cascading opulence of a grand fountain in a great park.
Lots of folks tell me they want a water feature in their garden. It doesn't have to be big they say. They just want a small bit of water for the wildlife and something just to cool their own psyche in the Texas heat. I always tell them that such water features, grand or small as they may be, must be cleaned meticulously and regularly or else the water becomes a mosquito breeder, something foul and nasty that will not serve the intended purpose. I have a friend that has a goldfish pond under an arbor in his backyard. He is very faithful to keep the pond clean and clear, and the goldfish thrive. But it takes a lot of effort on his part. He works on it several days a week. Also, he figured out very soon in the process that he had to put a wire mesh over his lovely pond to keep the raccoons from eating the goldfish. He will readily admit to you that the wire somewhat spoils the gardenesque effect, but it is necessary to keep unwanted visitors out of the goldfish pond.
This brings me to the swimming pool. There is nothing more glorious than a pool, the supreme water feature, as far a humans are concerned. They look cool and inviting in the landscape as a visual effect; and, of course, humans love them as swimming holes. You remember the TV series "The Beverly Hillbillies" and their "concrete pond" in their backyard. Pools have a universal appeal. I would have one if I could afford it, or had the space. I console myself saying that I don't want to spend the necessary time and effort on a swimming pool, and they have to be watched much like my friend's goldfish pond.
This brings me to the story of an Egyptian prince and his wife. They had a formal pool from which they irrigated their orchard and vineyard. Everything was going swimmingly, until the head of the household went on an extended trip. While he was gone, his wife invited her secret lover for a swim in the pool. Unfortunately her husband, knowing that water features should be taken care of and tended to (as I have suggested in this column) put a crocodile in the pool. Needless to say, the lover only managed one swim. As the moral of the story goes, water features often have multiple functions in the landscape.
