Seeing the Good After a Month of Rain

The recent month long deluge of rain has demonstrated that too much water can be a bad thing in the garden.  There are things growing in my yard that I cannot even identify; strange opportunist seedlings that broke dormancy due to warm temperatures and lots of water.  The bermuda grass that I love to hate is, of course, springing up in all the garden beds, along with pokeweed, spurge and clover.  My allegedly glorious annual Hibiscus, which is supposed to have killer orange and purple flowers, simply refuses to bloom.  I blame the rain.  
 
I don't know of anyone that isn't dealing with some sort of fungal issue, whether it be on vegetables or ornamentals.  And some of my shrubs are strangely succumbing to spider mites this year - something I will attribute to the big balance being 'off' - too much water, too little sun.  Really everything in nature is an opportunist, seizing upon the opportunity to be alive and to survive - including spider mites.  And some of the things I want to thrive, like my pink and white Vinca, are just sitting there doing very little; but I know why.  It is because the ground is not drying out.  Only when the ground dries up a bit will the roots on plants have the 'opportunity' to grow and stretch in search of moisture, ultimately giving them better odds at survival. 

And then, to really top it all off, I found a live frog in the kitchen garbage can the other day.  Definitely the rain. 

There are remedies, of course.  I can and will use Round-up on some of the weeds.  I proudly and gladly admit that Round-up is one of my favorite chemicals, at least until or unless good research fails to support it.  Professionally, I will use fungicides where I must.  At home, I will let a lot of things go just because I can; that and the fact that I'm not a big fan of the fungicides in the home garden.  In the veggie garden, I will really let a lot of things go.  I plan to rip out the early blight infested tomato plant this Saturday.  What's done is done.  But in that vegetable garden I will start again soon with my fall veggies.   

Not everything has drowned or become disease infested in the rain.  The public garden where I work seems to be having a banner year for oriental lilies, Crinum lilies, blackberry lilies, Eucomis, Crocosmia and or course, Zephyranthes, or rain lily.  The tiger lily pictured with the blog has never looked better or been more prolific.  The perennial Hibiscus (Lord Baltimore, swamp Hibiscus, Rose-of-Sharon, etc.) are quite happy, unlike the annual ones with the much awaited hot colors.  The ornamental grasses are enormous.  The re-blooming roses, though many of them have some black spot, are enjoying a nice mid-summer flush of color.   

If nothing else, the garden is a place where you have to take the good with the bad.  Like life.  All of the above really is a parable of life.