Effects of Record Rain and Gray Skies on Container Plants

I stopped by a client's in the northern suburbs last week about 6 weeks after we had done their annual plantings in containers.

May and June are officially our wettest since Illinois began record keeping in 1895, according to Jim Angel, State Climatologist. He also said (in a Tribune article) that four of the five wettest Junes in state history have happened since 1998. That was the year I began in the landscape business.

For those of us who listen to Climate Scientists, these records tell us something about the effects of Climate Change. Personally, since I have worked with landscape these past 18 years, I have noticed huge shifts in weather patterns. Everything seems to be extreme. So, for example, this year we have a late, cold wettest Spring/Summer.

Last year, we had record amounts of snow.

The two summers before, we had droughts...and when the extreme rain events occur in a drought: the precipitation just rolls off the baked earth and is not absorbed.

During one of those droughts, a number of suburbs away from Lake Michigan had water restrictions (not quite as severe as California now or where we partner with AFOPADI in Guatemala through SSG). Down by the lake where I live, our proximity to the lake has kept us in La La land...although Evanston is a progressive community working on being sustainable about green things. 

In Chicago, when the rain overflows the sewers, the city lets out the overflow into Lake Michigan and usually the beaches are closed for a few days.

We've hardly had enough heat this summer for much beach time...

And while rain barrels and rain gardens are an addition (if done correctly), they are hardly adequate to absorb abnormally high rainfalls.

So, the key is to examine the larger constructs. Not just how we use landscape, but how our societal values figure into our long-range choices about sustainability.

Enjoy these annual containers while we can still have them!
(PS: The client's landscapers planted those multi-colored wax begonias.)