First year in my new apartment. Quite a change from the 90 acre horse farm, where I had 3 gardens and plenty of plantings around the shack. My (new) tiny garden of beloved old perenials did fine despite the drought, but then they're used to my form of neglect. Rose, spiderwort, Siberian Iris, sage, columbines, lavender, black-eyed susans, lamb's ear, pulmonaria...I finally got the blue garden I always wanted. I have a total of two dozen pots scattered around my door and up into the parking area, filled with lilies, hostas, swiss chard, peas, lettuce, cosmos, sunflowers, basil, the biggest pots with tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and peppers. I had to water these EVERY DAY. What a chore! Back on the farm, they were lucky to be watered once a week! But, it has been a success, this planting in containers. I miss my potatoes, though, and the volunteer nicotiana, tomatillos and crookneck squash.

Droughts are funny things, very individual. Spring stuff here in the NYMetro area did OK--I picked 4 quarts of lucious, large wild raspberries (about a quarter of the whole patch!). Summer stuff didn't do well--a much smaller harvest of wild blueberries up in Maine, and most farmstand farms had to irrigate, not just water. May the cycle be broken for next year.

WyoWoman, I have a friend (a tree man) who planted a wildflower garden for a customer this spring and it was a beauty! Well, half of it. The second lot didn't do much at all, partly due to heavy rains right after planting and groundhog appetite. He attributes the successful half to thorough rototilling before seed scattering an ALOT of watering (every couple of days, each area of the garden got watered with an upright sprinkler for about 2 hours). Seems contrary to some of the promo material on wildflower gardens ("Just scatter the seed and watch nature bloom…"), but it's the first time I've actually seen one work. Goood luck if you try it again.