hi, all. I talked to some of you just over a year ago now on moving to Centralia, WA--about a half hour south of Olympia--from Maryland. Well, I am settled here at last and spent much of the spring planning and planting my new garden areas here. I was pleased to find the huge similarity in pollinator plants available in both MD and WA, and thought I knew what I was doing.
Well here it is midsummer, and although I've always heard how 'rainy' it is here I now know that most of that rain falls in the winter and summers as far as I can tell are pretty darn dry! (Not to mention the abnormally scorching heatwave we had a few weeks ago , which so many plants are still recovering from...)
Cue: my first irrigation system! something I always swore I would never do. I've always been a pollinator gardener at heart, but maybe it's time for me to learn more about xeriscaping.... ?

Hi Robin, Welcome to Washington. That was some crazy heat we had, very rarely do we get weather like that. This week is more moral for us. You're right we have dry summers here and wet winters. The rain shall start back in mid October and usually November is the wettest month. February is usually the coldest month.

thanks, Spring! Yes, I'm enjoying the weather much more this week, that's for sure! Glad it's more typical. I have so many plants that got leaf-scorched during that heat wave

I faired well, just a few hydrangea blooms browned.

You're lucky! Several of my shade plants in the front yard ended up with scorched leaves.

Well the coastal PNW zone 8b is where gardening can be tricky . I learned thru a few years not to plant anything outside til after the last frost .. when? Well it's different every year but generally a few weeks after Mother's Day. Then of course the sun in the northwest is so close and scorching hot in summers to be carful to have shelter even for those sun loving plants. It's always nice to have many plants still thriving into oct and nov.
Maybe last winter was so mild all the plants in the pond hyacinths, water lettuce thrived. We never really had the usual hard freeze at all. Well .. until February… really late and extremely odd. And the hot weather this summer was a shocker and we all need air conditioning, including some of our plants. But all in all next season remember will be another learning curve on how to garden thru the unpredictable weather and climate changes.
Sending lots of good fair weather your way and many more seasons for plants to thrive.