|
Drought affects area business
Published August 17, 2009
CLUTE — Rainfall and the plant business are always closely tied, but this year’s drought gives them something else in common.
Both are far below normal.
“It’s been terrible,” said Faye Adaway with Adaway’s Garden and Gifts in Clute. “We’ve had to throw away hundreds and hundreds of starter plants. We water three times a day, but the sun just sucks it up.”
Keeping plants in shaded areas helps, but even hardy trees are feeling the effects of the drought.
“Business is really slow,” Adaway said. “It’s every bit of 50 percent off. People are buying fewer things for the same reason ours are dying. There’s not enough moisture.”
Through Thursday, the weather site at the Brazoria County Airport has received about 10 inches of rain for the year, well below the to-date annual average of 36.29 inches, according to the National Weather Service. The site last recorded above-average rainfall in April, when 4.61 inches of rain fell, topping the monthly 3.74 inches.
The average annual rainfall is 57.24 inches.
The drought now is the worst in recorded history for the hardest-hit counties in Texas, state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said in a press release. Bastrop, Caldwell and Lee counties in central Texas and Victoria, Bee, San Patricio, Live Oak, Jim Wells and Duval Counties in south-central Texas are the hardest hit.
Those counties are facing the worst drought conditions since modern record-keeping began in 1895.
Brazoria County is joined by all surrounding counties in a burn ban in place since June. Until the Keetch-Byram Drought Index, which measures soil moisture, falls below 400, the ban likely will continue, county Emergency Management Coordinator Kenneth “Doc” Adams has said. That index still is above 600 here.
Plant sales are down by half at Landscaping By Marji in Lake Jackson, co-owner Leon Sebesta said. Landscaping work also has fallen. “Grass isn’t growing so they’re doing less mowing,” Sebesta said. “When you first plant your plants, you have to water them to get them established.”
Some communities have enacted restrictions allowing outdoor watering on certain days. But an attractive yard is important to some, Sebesta said.
“Landscaping and maintenance are holding up OK,” he said. “Someone who has money isn’t that concerned because it doesn’t effect them like it does the average Joe. They don’t have to physically get out there and do it.”
The good news is cooler weather is on the way, Adaway and Sebesta said.
“Retail is just about closed down this time of year anyway — August and September,” Sebesta said. “It’s too late to put in summer stuff and too early for fall stuff. But it will pick up around the end of September when we get a cool snap.”
Share |
Save |
Mail |
Print
|
|
|
 |
|
FREE BAY BOAT WITH WATERFRONT PURCHASE Get
...
Click for all
Top Ads listing
|
