I’m not usually one to complain too much about the weather. Complaining about the weather is like complaining about taxes. However, enough is enough. I have slowly come to the conclusion that my house has an umbrella over it! The current drought situation is starting to become critical.

I hear that many of you lucky folks outside of the city limits have been getting some of the hit and miss showers in the afternoon. I call them the &uot;miss and miss&uot; showers. The rumbling of thunder in the afternoon would get me all excited about the chance of a good thundershower. But, time and time again, nothing, not a drop.

The other day, I found a fun way to create a virtual reality winter. Get into your car, turn the AC on full blast, and get the car good and cold. Then, take a drive down John R. Junkin Drive or Sargeant Prentiss and look at the grass in the medians. The grass is so brown from lack of rain that it looks dormant like it does in the winter. Try it, it really works!

The grass really is in a dormant state from lack of rain. When many plants are under drought stress, they enter a survival mode. The plants want to conserve water so they close their pores or stomata to reduce water loss. This also reduces the plants ability to cool itself by transpiration.

Lawns under drought stress are very prone to injury. Cutting your lawn is normally not a very big deal. But, when the grass is under drought stress, the open wound caused from the cutting of the blade results in even more stress and more water loss and could be very damaging. If your yard is under drought stress, I would encourage you to mow it as little as possible to prevent injury until we get rain. It is probably not growing much anyway when it is in this condition.

A sure sign of drought is the Kudzu drying up and turning brown in the ditches and gullies around town. Some trees are also showing signs of drought stress by having a premature leaf drop. Trees in the South grow very large because we usually get plenty of rain. Large trees use tremendous amounts of water everyday. Severe droughts can cause microscopic damage inside tree limbs. The result is very large limbs breaking and falling out of trees for no apparent reason. This may happen up to several years after the drought has ended.

I am not much on watering plants in my yard. I usually boast that if a plant needs to be watered you won’t find it in my yard. I prefer to do other things in the garden besides pulling a hose around. Besides, my water bill is high enough already. However, in situations like this, watering is almost unavoidable in order to prevent the loss of a lot of plants.

If you must water, make sure to water deeply. A few minutes sprinkling the parched ground with water simply will not help. In fact, it may do more harm than good.

A proper watering should ideally be done early in the morning or late in the evening. This will minimize the amount of water lost to evaporation.

Make sure to soak the ground with water as deeply as possible. This will help to encourage deep rooting of plants and decrease the frequency that you have to water. Don’t be afraid to check and see how deep the water is penetrating. If necessary, take a shovel and dig down in the bed to check.

Another problem that you might notice is many more insects on your irrigated plants. Insects like aphids, thrips, and whiteflies seem to be worse on cultivated plants during a drought.

These insects feed by piercing or rasping plant tissue and feeding on juices. During a drought, the plants that they usually feed on are all dried up and dead. The only place for them to feed is on your well irrigated and cared for ornamentals. They really appreciate your hard work.

Don’t forget about the birds and butterflies. Both are really looking hard for water right now. Having a bird bath for the birds and a shallow saucer with pebbles for the butterflies will really help them through the dry period.

Hopefully, we will get some relief soon. If any of you know a rain dance, start boogying!

Gardening Miss-Lou Style is a weekly column written by Traci Maier of Natchez. She can be reached at Fred’s Greenhouse at 445-5181 or by email at ratmaier@iamerica.net