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[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Robert Walton wrote:
> I was just wondering yesterday about the rain in your area. Last year
> was so dry. The last two years have been dry here, so it's strange
> having rain. It rained 1/4 inch night before last and then almost 2
> inches yesterday afternoon.

It has been hit or miss, typical summer thunderstorm kind of thing, just
that we haven't had a hit at my location.  One day a week or so ago,
some local areas were flooding, and yet not a drop of rain here at the
farm. From tomorrow through the weekend, we have about a 30% chance for
rain everyday.  Hope it is accurate.

> Hope the rains come your way. The other thing I was wondering about
> is your Pawlonia trees. How have they fared?

Ah, a sore subject.  I watered them diligently through mid June, but the
deer ate most of them.  I killed a few accidentally by not keeping the
fertilizer away from the herbaceous stem.  I was fertilizing the trees
and tossing the sand-like organic fertilizer in the root zone when it
started raining very, very hard.  It felt like hail on my head, so I was
hurrying.  Unfortunately, I was not as careful in my placement of the
fertilizer and later the heat(temperature) from the sandy fertilizer
burned through the herby stem.  At first, I was not worried, as I had
read that as long as there is a rootball, the plant should sprout a new
stem and regrow.  I suppose that would be true for an 'established'
rootball, but not one that is only 5-6 weeks old.  I lost 5-10  trees
from this plus the secondary blow of the lack of rain/watering.

By mid June, in the heat of the dry spell, my foot was really painful
and I did not haul water down to the trees as I had been.  I had my
surgery on the first of July, and I have not watered trees since then.
Consequently, I can only see about 7 trees of the 47 I originally
planted.  Like I said, deer ate probably 80% of the missing trees, and I
killed the rest, either by improper fertilization application or lack of
watering.  The 8 or so remaining trees are maybe knee high and are
finally starting to really grow.  (they were 8" tall when planted May
12)  Skyguy wants to order more trees and plant them in the Fall instead
of the Spring to allow more time for root development and take advantage
of 3 seasons of rain before the drought of summer hits.  We still have
to figure out a way to thwart deer from browsing them.  I'm thinking of
buying some of those little pyramid tomato cages at summer's end.  I
think the Paulownias could handle losing a leaf or two if they are as
big as they are now, but when they are only a foot tall and look like a
juicy weed, the deer eat them to the ground.  I could use the small
cages around the young trees and tie ribbons or other anti-deer agents
to the cages.  Just for background, the trees are in a open pasture
paddock about 1-5 acres in size, surrounded by 4 ft tall field fencing
with an electric top wire.  Deer leap right over it, no problemo.  You
can see a picture of the pasture here:
http://erthnsky.blogspot.com/2009/05/trees-wonderful-trees.html

Bev

--
"Never expect magic from no where"  Baringo (Kenyan) working motto
http://erthnsky.blogspot.com/
EarthNSky Farm, NW Georgia, USA