Planting Rainy Day Perspective Change

It always strikes me as strange
when folks say they can’t work in the rain.

I’m learning that people in different parts of the country have very different perspectives on working in the rain.

I lived in Seattle for nearly three decades. What happens when you have plans to work in the yard in Seattle and it rains? You work in the yard. If you waited until it was not raining, you would never work in the yard. Ever. Except maybe when you did, it would be burning hot and dry and kill everything you planted!

What could be more fabulous for plants than to be planted when it’s raining? Especially the Seattle rain: A soft, misty, warm but not too warm, cool but not too cool, perfect weather for plants. When you work in the yard in the Pacific Northwest, you can almost hear the plants as they were being planted or transplanted: “Let me just sit here for a minute and soak up the rain before you put me in the ground the ground. AHHHH! Nice and moist! Perfect for me to grow in!”

Then I moved to Utah. What happens when it rains in Utah and you want to do work outside? You don’t go outside. You wait until the rain is over. You have to wait 5-10 minutes, maybe 30 minutes at the most. Then, if you’re smart, you run outside while the weather is clearing but the ground is still moist. You plant quickly, before it becomes 90° and the blistering sun kills everything you drop into the ground.

Now I’m in Georgia. Springtime in Georgia as a little like all the time in Seattle: A nice gentle warm rain. So I keep working in it until it becomes evident that the rain is going to become a torrential downpour. When that happens, I run back to the front porch, sit on a chair and wait for 15 or 20 minutes until it’s a nice misty rain again. Then I go out and plant or prune or transplant. I can almost hear the plant sing “Rain! That sweet Georgia rain!” (Is it weird that I talk to plants? And they talk to me?)

If you’re working in the yard, in the garden, you have to ask yourself: “So what if I get wet? Isn’t that what clothes lines and dryers are for?”

Spread the love

David Kuhns

Dave Kuhns is originally a quasi-city boy from suburban Milwaukee, but he spent weekends and summers in nature on Lake Winneconne in central Wisconsin. After raising his kids in a Seattle suburb, he moved to a small town in central Utah. He figured he’d buy some rural property there, or back in the Badger State.

Then he fell in love. Through a series of amazing events, he bought a rural property (a few acres) across the creek from the Chickamauga National Military Park (Civil War battlefield). There, he and his new wife are putting into reality the conservation, gardening and land management practices he learned from his grandmother, his forest ranger Dad, his little brother, and his own surburban experience.