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Mid-winter Weather Concerns for the Mid-Atlantic Gardener

© Wesley Ford

Well, we've arrived at mid-winter and as usual for the mid-Atlantic region, our weather seems to be anything but normal. Our three-year drought is continuing and we are having one of those damnable extended warm spells. It makes a gardener want to pull his or her hair out- by the roots!

Probably of most concern is the ongoing drought we are experiencing. It is reported from Maine to the Carolinas and Georgia, that stream levels are at or approaching long term low levels. Some not seen since the early 1960's when as a youth growing up in a flower business I remember several summers of drought when we irrigated till our ponds went dry.

Here in the Shenandoah Valley, streams that normally flow year round went dry last spring and summer, and have yet to resume a flow. This is the case with Fraughts Run which runs just west of my place. Now normally, when the evapo-transpiration draw on the soil moisture is near nil in the dormant season, streams that dry up in warmer weather usually resume their flows.

Not this year. In driving up Interstate 81 the other day, I crossed over numerous streams with little or no flow. The interstate crosses the North Fork of the Shenandoah several times and yes the flow appeared to be only a fraction of normal. Local weir records confirm this observation with some reporting as low as 21% of normal. I have several friends that have had wells go dry- wells that have never gone dry before. Yesterday there was a report that a large local monitoring well was at a 31 year low level (that's all the further records go back), with a drop of 30 feet in water level over the past 18 months.

And news reports in our local rag indicate that this is a wide spread phenomenon. It appears to be an issue throughout most of the Mid-Atlantic region.

While we have had occasional replenishment of surface moisture over the past several years, it has been insufficient to replenish depleted deep soil moisture and ground water supplies. Is this a serious problem in winter? It certainly can be. Especially now that this moisture stress on plants is so prolonged. Sooner or later moisture stress will contribute to serious depletion of plant vigor. It can be especially telling on evergreen plants, both conifers (needle species) and broad leafs. These plants require some moisture availability in winter to maintain leaf turgidity.