by Liz Smitten, Certified Master Gardener

Originally printed in Avalanche-Journal Spring Home & Garden Supplement, March 25, 2006

My dear Mr. Webster, in his Ninth Collegiate Dictionary, defines Nature as “a creative and controlling force in the universe,” rather like certain of my friends – lively, exciting, and fun to be around, if a bit bossy at times. Nowhere in his definition does he refer to Nature as cruel or destructive, yet after one hundred thirty eight days without any rain or snow (or “measurable precip” as the weather gurus like to call it on their nightly report), followed by the merest of showers yielding only a tenth of an inch of the aforementioned “precip”, during the winter of 2005-2006, Nature was clearly no friend of mine!

For when autumn arrives, I will happily spend my last dollar on an end-of-season, half-dead and root-bound plant with no identification tag, which will usually either die on the way home or turn out to be so aggressive that I spend the next two years trying to get it out of my flower beds. However, except for the twin extravagances of plants and books, I am by and large a thrifty person, and with the first hard freeze I always shut down my watering system and rely on the winter rains or snowfall to see my garden through the next five months before the growing season begins again. I do this not only because of my thrifty Scots heritage, but also because I have, over the years, done much to create a xeric/ water-wise garden. I have rejuvenated existing beds and dug new beds, tested the soil and added the needed compost and other amendments to create a moisture-retentive, loam which drains well. And I have selected plants which do well in this area, needing a minimum of supplemental water after being established, and able to stand up to the sometimes strong winds and the extremes of heat and cold. Plus I use a soaker hose system that runs at low pressure overnight during the growing season, and every bit of visible soil is covered with a top dressing of a finely shredded pine bark mulch to minimize evaporation and help protect the plant roots from extremes of temperature.

All of this preparation should carry my garden safely through a normal winter, but if there is one area in which we Lubbockites have bragging rights, it is that there is no such thing as “normal” when it comes to weather, as statistics for the past ninety years clearly show. Even though our average monthly temperatures range from 38.8 to 80 degrees F, we have had a high of 114 degrees and a low of -17 degrees F. Our average last hard freeze of spring is April 10, with a range from March 12 to May 8; and the first hard freeze of fall has arrived anywhere from October 7 to November 23, with the average falling on Halloween. And most people in this area remember that in 2003 we had only 8.83 inches of rainfall, while the following year we had 33.25 inches.

For a gardener, drought is one of Nature’s cruelest tricks, and in the past ten years, Lubbock has had seven years when there was no measurable precipitation for at least 40 days and nights, but none so lengthy, or with such warm weather as this winter. So this is the year when I gritted my teeth, resisted the urge to get out the hose and hand-water the more vulnerable plants, and prepared to update my list of truly drought-tolerant plants for this region. In short, I am arm-wrestling Nature for the life of my garden. I doubt that I will win, but every day when I see a few more green sprigs and twigs and bits of shoots poking skyward, I think the match might end in a tie, and while I will lose some plants, it will give me much needed room to choose some of the beautiful new cultivars on my ever-larger wish list, to begin planting in mid-April, and to have the beginnings of a splendid garden by early summer. Unless, of course, we get another hard spring freeze on May 8!