Barb Taddeo grows sunflowers, hundreds of them, but only about 50 plants popped up this year after water restrictions made it difficult to sustain her usual garden.
In the water-strapped neighborhood of Heatherwood Estates, use of the resource was cut by 66 percent from last year, as Taddeo uses a sump pump and hose to pull water from her bathtub out a house window and to her precious flowers.
“They attract bees and that’s the main reason (I grow them) but I also just like sunflowers. They just make you smile,” said the retired educator.
In Taddeo’s neighborhood, water is scarce because about 26 homes share a well in an area that has been hit hard by the state’s fourth consecutive year of drought.
Taddeo has noticed that the lack of water this year correlates not just with her smaller garden but also with the drop in the number of bees visiting her yard. As Taddeo looked down at a sunflower that had toppled over exposing its roots, she called the magnificent plants “drought flowers” and marveled that a plant with such a shallow collection of roots—with a little concentrated watering—could sustain a stalk of flashy flowers nearly 10 feet tall.
“But see, there are no bees right now,” she said. “We should be standing here right now and this should be covered in bees.”
It’s not just the bees that are suffering from the lack of water and corresponding foliage. Taddeo has noticed the birds seem extra hungry, too, she said. She attached the sunflowers to stakes so they would stay upright during the winter months, giving the birds a good meal. But this year, her avian friends have finished off the seeds ahead of schedule.
“Look at how the birds already have cleaned this out,” she said, as she examined a sunflower head that had been emptied.
Neighbors are responding to the lack of water for landscaping in different ways. In May, Kathy and Noel Provost, who live directly across the street, paid about $71,000 to install a lush, green lawn of artificial turf.
While the Provosts installed artificial grass, Taddeo got crafty with water management so she could grow the real things. She bought a submersible pump—AKA, a “sump pump”—“at good old ACE” for $68, she said. Every two to three days, she puts the pump in her horses’ water troughs and runs the hose into her garden.
Down the street, the Peters family chose not to have a lawn at all, said Dora Peters, who moved with her husband and son to the site two years ago.
She has been known to lather up with soap before running the water for a shower, she said. Her husband, Tim, has been known to take showers that are five minutes or fewer, he said. Their son, Ibbie, 11, is even quicker with the resource.
“He’s in and out and I’m like, ‘Did you even shower?’” she said.
Peters has friends who say they don’t notice the drought, but for her family the effects of the dry year are easy to see. It’s a topic Tim Peters, a teacher, discusses frequently with his pupils.
“I tell my students, ‘It’s got to come from somewhere,’” he said.
