This Drought Is No Joke! Photos of My Scorched Yard

If you aren't living in the drought affected areas of the country, you may have seen footage on the news. I tell you, it's awful! Here in Middle Tennessee, we've experienced the dryest - and probably hottest - August ever.Well established trees now have withered up brown leaves and look dead (though I hope they aren't!) The grass crunches under your feet and there are literally patches of scorched grass all over the lawns. I can't remember the last time we've had to mow the entire yard. Except for the little area in front of the lanscaping beds where I water, it's been weeks since the grass has grown. I wanted to share with you a few comparison photos of our backyard -the first one was taken from June or July of last year and the others I took yesterday. Usually in August, the grass does start to lose it's green - but not like this! We live on an acre so keeping the grass watered isn't an option- plus we're in a drought, so that wouldn't be wise anyway.



All those brown spots are the scorched patches of grass...









Of course, this was the year that I decided to finally plant flowers in our front landscaping beds. I have a brown thumb of death when it comes to plants, but I really wanted to try hard this year to keep a few plants alive. And somehow, even with the lack of rain and blazing hot temperatures, I've managed to keep most of them alive! They don't look fabulous, but they are alive, and that was my goal for my first year of "gardening". There were a lot more blooms several weeks ago , but many of the plants stopped blooming, so I took a couple of shots of some that are still in bloom...AGain, not gorgeous but alive. I've learned that lavender, lantana, verbena, and rosemary do very well in dry conditions. I didn't realize that lantana (the plant with the yellow blooms) gets very big very quickly and so I will probably have to move that plant next year. The red verbena is great and I have it bordering my entire landscaping bed...it grows quickly, too.





I want to thank Primrozie over at Prim's Place in the Spring for nominating me for the Nice Matters Award! What an honor and that was so sweet of you, Primrozie! I'm going to nominated some, too, though all my cottage neighbors are nice! Thank you so much!