Well Pardon this Gardener for being a posting slacker but I went on a family vacation to the Western Slope of Colorado to see some family.  While we were there we took a day trip into Utah to Arches National Monument.  This picture is from a hike we took.  It was my first trip to the Western Slope, Utah & Arches.  The scenery was simply breathtakingly beautiful.

My family took Amtrak out to Colorado & that was quite an adventure.  We got to see all kinds of neat things from the train.  We saw tons of deer, a black bear, a coyote, Kingfishers, Great Blue & Little Blue Heron, Magpies, Hummingbirds and more.  It was quite the scenic trip.

We also got to see firsthand how crisp everything is from Illinois to Colorado.  There were some areas where the corn & soy crops looked to be doing well & others that we so brown & crisp that farmers were plowing the fields under already.

We went into the mountains to see some wildflowers but it was so dry that they weren't in bloom much to my great disappointment.  The trip to Ouray to the hot spings made up for it though.  My body has felt that good in 20 years.

While I was away the temperatures here at home in the Chicago burbs were in the upper 90's to 100 plus degrees.  I am very grateful to my neighbor that undertook the arduous( it takes over 3 hours to water my gardens) task of watering my garden for me.  I was happy to see that only a few plants withered a bit from the extreme temps while I was away.  My Convallaria majalis along the sides of the drive got a little crisp as did my Geranium macrorhizum but I am pushing both of their sun tolerances anyway so I wasn't really surprised to see them a little singed.

I hope your gardens are surviving this heat wave.  Water if you can & water deep.  I take the nozzle off the hose and water at the base of each plant until it puddles & then I come back & hit again.  Water if you can or you will most definitely lose plants in this heat.

Good luck & happy gardening!