This is the Botanical Gardens weather channel, right? Just looked out the window and I see a massive ground level rain cloud but a few hundred metres away. The wind is up, rain just hit as I type...and it's thundering! Good heavens, what next? The noise is really surprising.
Sounds like you won't have water or fire problem this year Keith, so that's quite a blessing. Bet your garden will love it.
We've had a grand total of 29.4 mm of rain this May. That's only about 43% of expected, although probably not far off most recent years; 2021 was the exception, a nice rainy spring but very cold, which many maples really resented. Our total is better than some around here, but the main storms that provided a real drenching to the south and west just missed us: we got to watch the lightning and enjoy the power outages, but mostly stayed dry. What we need is a steady westerly flow to bring the rain in off of the ocean. That used to be the regular pattern here except in high summer (and often even then). Recent analysis I read from Meteo France puts the change down to the jet stream moving north and sending our wet up over Scotland.
We really don't get water restrictions here because our water comes from the lake, and it's a really big lake! But we have already been warned to expect another bad fire year. How they know that I have no idea. But warm days this year have been in very short supply....so far.
Just wish the wind would stop blowing in the North of England. North South East West comes at me from all angles !!! couple of pics from to night.
Exactly!! At least the wind hasn't been too bad here this year. (So far, knock on wood). We had our heaviest gust of the year during the big (and disappointing) thunderstorms: 77 kph as it was coming in and the temperature was plummeting. That's really not that bad, all said, especially for here. Last spring the wind took most of the new growth off of the larger-leaved maples, really frustrating to watch one finally grow a foot only to end up back where it started. Looks like those breezes could shake a few aphids off anyway, Mark!
Keep expecting to see a tree fly past the window !! All the clematis in the front garden are blown away from their trellising , cut them all away this afternoon hopefully might see some small re growth ? the wind just seems to get worse every year now , 2020 they were hammered again and i thought they would be ok this year big mistake, think a re positioning is called for now. Must admit the aphids haven't been to bad really this season quite manageable.
Some good news on the weather front. Our Canadian weather channel now suggests that this year will not be as bad for wildfires as last year. On the flip side, the recent snowfall in the British Columbia coastal area mountains may be the cause of flooding if the temperatures warm up too quickly. Given that June is usually not a very good weather month as far as sun and heat goes, we might even be spared those potential floods.
How's the snow pack up there @Keith Elliott ? Enough to avoid the droughts that seem to be striking the rest of us? The situation in many places in France, (for example where @AlainK lives) just keeps getting worse. We have enough in the water table locally in the Orne department, but that seems to be the exception. On the other hand, it's been really cold, many maples are rebelling and we're seeing both quite a lot of chlorosis and some browning. A couple of nights ago the weather service announced 2C for our village, which is pretty unusual for this time of year. We saw around 5C over the last few nights, but we're very well protected against big drops, as we're surrounded by the forest, which acts as a stabilizer. I don't doubt that in the valley they saw about 2.
Good grief Emery, we haven't even had it that cold here for several weeks now, and it has been a cold spring for sure. As for the snowpack, I understand that it is quite good on the coastal mountains. We still have snow on some of our local mountains and it is June already! With some luck there won't be any water shortages this year. But, of course, all the various and sundry local governments will not agree with that, and undoubtedly water restrictions will be in place soon enough. When it comes to fighting the wildfires, that water is scooped up from the local lakes, of which we have hundreds in B.C.
The minimum we had here in the past weeks was 7.3°C on Monday May 30th, afternoon : 22.2° C. Today : 9.1, 26.5 Total rain for the month of May : 12.4 mm. Average temperature : 24.2°C Climatologie mensuelle en mai 2022 à [MAE] Collège André Chêne - FLEURY LES AUBRAIS | climatologie depuis 1900 - Infoclimat
Acerholic: I was just discussing the same type of 'thing' with my hubby; re: No Mow May. We have a large corner lot and have to take care of the 'city' portion...a lot of mower pushing for this ol' gal. I think I will go ahead and let the grass have its way and see if the by-law officer comes knocking. I agree re: the noise. Especially the gas powered leaf blowers etc. Cheers
Does the city think you should mow their grass at your expense? How very kind of them. I use a cordless electric mower and still cannot believe how well it works. Finally got around to mowing the municipal owned grass a couple of days ago. It was all between 18 and 24" tall. Surprisingly the little mower handled it without difficulty.
Hi Keith, you hit the nail on the head re expense in your comment to @Creatrix , over here the petrol costs are rising by the day and it will get worse, so any saving on petrol mowers is going to be the way forward. Electric mowers are also now a very high cost to run, as this is going up ridiculously. So perhaps the No Mow May is a way to save money and the planet re allowing insects to thrive. A win win. !!? I have seen the old style hand push mowers being advertised near me. Not seen this for decades tbh. This maybe the way things are going to be now. I've got my old hand propelled mower out of the shed. All sharpened and cleaned up. Worked a treat today. Plus no power costs. Felt very good tbh. Might be a bit much for your size lawn though, lol.
Thought I would mention the weather, yesterday was my eldest daughters birthday. For the last 40 years it's always been lovely sunny and warm on the 31st May, but yesterday it was cold, and we had thunder, lightning and hail stones. Hit my small acer pictum seedlings, all destroyed, Urghhh. So as everyone has been saying it's a weired Spring, I can now confirm it is here as well, lol. Stop press:- Sunday is forecast more thunder , lightning and heavy rain. And it's June !!!
One of my sons has one. He rents a house with a very small backyard garden, 10 x 5 metres or the like. My father used to be the caretaker of a football ground. I was 5 years old. At that time, he didn't have a an electric or fuel-powered lawn mower, but he raised rabbits. He built a sort of enclosure with iron mesh, put the rabbits inside and would move it around during the week. On Saturdays, he would finish mowing with the hand-mower. On Sundays, we would have rabbit stew with "kluski", a kind of gnocchi, made from the potatoes he grew in the garden...
Our current gasoline price is between $1.99 and $2.08 per litre. We used to have a gas powered mower, and I think the tank size was about .9 of a litre. So it would cost about $1.80 Canadian to fill it. Don't know what that is in your money, but I'm sure it's enough. It takes about 45 minutes to charge the lithium battery in the mower, so that would be about 5¢ or less. All things considered, I would never go back to the old noisy, obnoxious gas mower. And this one is so easy to push around...light as a feather.
Think we are going to see more Alain. I've also seen Solar powered robotic mowers whete I live. Very green indeed and so very, very quiet. Times they are a changing... as the old song goes.
There's an outfit over in Salmon Arm that sells those robotic mowers. Yes very quiet, and they program them for you to mow your entire lawn areas unattended. But at $3,400 a pop...not so sure!
That is a bit steep Keith I agree. My son in law bought one, as he and my daughter have a very busy life, as most people do these days. But the lawn is mowed every night whilst they are asleep. So so quiet. Hopefully the costs will come down as they become more popular.
It's about the same here. I think current events that made the situation even worse must make us think of alternatives. At least, we live in countries that can in some way tackle the problem one way or another, but what about the rest of the world ?... There was a time when I really thought that the world would be better for me, for us, for our children. Now my children don't want to have children. I don't find it sad for me, what's in a name ? And I understand them : let them make the best of their life as long as it lasts, here and now. They're right, we can't change the world, I'll die a utopist, and chaos after me ;-)
I remember you mentioning that some time ago. Keeps the lawn looking nice and no work at all. Can't beat that.
