Ferns recovering from the drought

In a July post I noted that all of the ferns in one of our north-facing woods had died and were completely crisp from the drought. The ferns seemed more sensitive to the drought than any other groups of plants.

I was happy to discover today that these ferns are now reviving and are showing lush new growth, brought about by the rains that have come since mid July. The photo shows the new maiden hair fern growth side-by-side with the crisp plants killed earlier in the summer.

Maiden hair fern recovering from the drought

Other species of ferns in this woods have also recovered. Although there is still a lot of dead material, we can probably look forward to eventual recovery of this handsome woods understory.

The graph, from the State Climatology web site, gives the history of our early summer drought. Note the long flat line in June! This graph also shows how deficient we still are for the year. Will we ever recover this loss?