Water? Overrated...

This summer I made a decision - the water wasting garden hose was going to stay rolled up unless it was being used to fill the Hellhounds' paddling pool. No more trying to explain to them that watering wasn't a game of 'who can hurl themselves headlong into the wet flower bed first, causing the maximum amount of damage'. No more ridiculous bills; strategic hand watering only, and of course, a little help from the skies. Then it happened - the rain stopped. Excuse me? This is Seattle! It rains. All the time.

Yes...they have a paddling pool

Days turned into weeks, and lugging a watering can around started to lose its already limited appeal. I figured I would concentrate on the pots and somewhat leave the beds to their own devices. Cruel, I know, but plants have been around for a long time, and I'm sure there have been occasions over the centuries where they had to survive a drought or human neglect. 

As a rule, I never water the grass. In my mind, grass is a complete waste of time and if the Hellhounds didn't insist on having somewhere to play ball/poo/fight, I would have yanked the damn stuff up years ago. It usually starts to disintegrate at some point during the summer and then (unfortunately) grows back even stronger and more irritating than ever. But this year it just died. It wasn't a pleasant or tidy death - no, the grass turned into what can only be described as a wasteland with a texture that felt like walking on broken glass. Not pleasant for those who don't like shoes or those with paws. Ball playing was replaced with sitting on the patio sulking, just waiting for the rain.

It is officially dead. I hope. Forever. Off to buy some Creeping Thyme...

While Col and Archie wait...

They pee a little for good measure...

While Penny does the sensible thing and takes forty winks.

That's when I noticed it. Two clumps of perfectly healthy, thriving green grass, growing through a crack in the concrete patio! How is that possible and why am I conjuring up images of "The Day of the Triffids?" Great, we were being invaded by a mutant species of Poa Annua that will sting, kill and then devour your carcass. But try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to pull it out. There was something quite spectacular about a plant that had the wherewithal to grow in the most unexpected of places without a single drop of rain. So while everything else around me proceeded to wilt, my two little clumps of illegal grass grew and grew. No, not that type of 'grass', I simply mean that I hadn't given it permission to take up residence on the patio! Thinking about "squatter's rights" back in Britain, I did a little checking, and suddenly realized that under the law, the clumps now had adverse possession. Hmm. Oh, alrighty then. The grass wins…for now. 

Happy, healthy and squatting on my damn patio

The Archie version of a

 withering look

The creeping thyme never happened.....

Another unexpected turn of events during the drought was how successfully the non-watered plants coped with dire thirst. While a couple of the fussy ones complained, most of them just got on with it. It turns out that they are a lot tougher than humans. 

Honeysuckle

Japanese Anemone

Feverfew

Sedum

For 14 minutes on September 10th, we had 0.01" of rain, marking the end of 48 days without a single drop falling from the sky. Thinking about it, 0.01" probably isn't much more than a drop or two, but nevertheless - it rained!

So, two months after the self-imposed hosepipe ban we received the new and hopefully extremely low water bill. It was exactly the same…