Thank you for your kind words. It was, indeed, a lovely spring. But things change.
Every year there are challenges to be met in the garden. Raccoons, possums, armadillos, squirrels, birds, and (for a long time until I fenced) the deer. The garden pests combined with lack of rain make cultivating a butterfly garden an enormous endeavor in Texas during the hot summer months. I was willing to put in the work in order to reap the rewards.
On June 1 we were put on a water restriction program which allowed me to water for 6 hours (7-10 a.m and 7-10 p.m) on Tuesday and Friday. The plants didn't thrive, but they did survive. I composted, I mulched, and I hand-watered sparingly. Our last rainfall of less than 1" was on 6/24/19. Then a couple of weeks ago, folks in this area started receiving the following message:
THIS IS AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM CANYON LAKE WATER SERVICE COMPANY.
Thank you for your continued understanding and patience as we work together to address with our recent zebra mussel issue at Canyon Lake. On Friday, our water treatment plant was restarted with limited production and water storage has recovered significantly over the weekend. Our crews will continue to inspect, clean and restore our water pumps to increase water production during this week. At this time, we continue to ask all customers on the north side of Canyon Lake, Spring Branch, and Bulverde areas to limit water usage to indoor usage only.
And today this one:
THIS IS AN IMPORTANT UPDATE FROM CANYON LAKE WATER SERVICE COMPANY.
As of Tuesday, July 30, 2019 at 4:00pm, we continue to see higher than expected demand and consumption impacting our water storage. We continue to request that all customers on the north side of Canyon Lake, Spring Branch, and Bulverde areas to limit water usage to indoor usage only. Our monitoring system indicates that demand is very high during all hours of the night due to landscape irrigation. Therefore, we request that all irrigation and landscape watering be suspended until further notice. We will continue to provide daily updates as conditions change.
The few plants that I had managed to keep alive despite the high 90 temperatures are now almost all dead. I know I'm not alone in dealing with this misery, but it still makes me sad. Hopefully some of the Texas natives will come back, but many others are gone for good.
I never imagined that a tiny mussel would cause the demise of my beautiful gardens.
There's no rain in sight.
