Round Robin: Heat Wave

ATLANTA, Georgia—In August, my pond (which I call Glimmer Pond) is murky with a bright green algae bloom, the water lilies are thick with their chalice-shaped flowers of pink or yellow rising above the glossy lily pads, and heat shimmers above the surface of the water in vertical waves. It is so hot that my white catfish won’t touch their catfish chow at noon but prefer to wait until the sun sets and dusk cools the air a little. Then their bewhiskered mouths open wide and pink, and I can see all the way down to their tails as they vacuum up the chow that floats on the surface.

Although I have a great recipe for breaded catfish fillets seasoned with cayenne pepper and stuffed with fennel, watercress, and parsley, I have yet to eat any of my “pets”. Indeed, I think I never shall. I can always get catfish fillets from the local fish market.

Like the catfish, I, too, wait until the relative cool of the evening to see what weeds need pulling and what herbs need pinching. Often I stay out so late that my husband, David, teases me about being a nocturnal gardener who sees by starlight. Friends know not to telephone until it gets good and dark. My most indispensable gardening tool this time of year is a 44-ounce insula­ted tub of sweet tea with plenty of ice and two lemon wedges. After dinner, when I start mixing up the tea tub, our dog, Pepper, starts wagging her tail, knowing that we will soon be going outside.

As I trail my hand over the side of our paddleboat, with Pepper joyously crisscrossing the pond in a dog paddle all her own, the water feels tepid. The pondweed that grows under the surface, oxygenating the water for the fish, makes a great mulch when applied to my herb garden. I set out in the boat, armed with a short aluminum rake, and harvest great armloads of it. I have found that few weeds will grow in the garden under a mulch of pondweed, and it seems to make the ‘New Dawn’ roses clambering on the arbor grow at a great rate. I have to work out a few kinks, however, since the pondweed grows long and stringy and after drying turns a bright tan that is not inconspicuous. Perhaps if I nestled the pondweed under the leaves around the bases of the herbs, and then covered it with my usual weathered woodchips, it would work out better.

In Atlanta, gardeners are not concerned with cold hardiness. Instead, it is the heat tolerance of herbs that is put to the test. Day after day of 100°F heat, 100 percent relative humidity, heavy clay soils, and slow-moving air melts away some of the more temperamental performers. For example, good old garden sage often succumbs to root rot, but I replant it each fall in a different spot from before. I have had better luck with the little-leaf sage, planting it in a raised planter alongside some steps, and with this perfect drainage it has returned year after year for about eight or nine years, and rewards me with flowers. The broad, low ‘Berggarten’ variety of sage seems to do well in the South, too.