Rainy San Francisco eastbay day..

I'm glad you got the rain you desperately need. We've had steady rain here in NY for just about 3 days- non stop.

AH!..any other time that would sound like an incredible amount of rain. This year BG, we are soaking wet. Right now that heavy rain- after my post- has brought flooding. We are on a near week run of predicted 66f rains..very mild for December. Usually,we get Alaskan fronts and 50-55f rains this time of year.

Isn't it so, so beautiful to see rain again? :>))

I know up in the Bay Area there was a tremendous amount of rain (4 to 10" worth) from the "monster storm". Even though, it's a about two months of rain, it was such needed rains.

Here in San Diego the "monster storm" didn't affect us too much. We only had about 1" of rain. I was hoping for a lot more. It's a good start to the rainy season.

It was not only heavy rain I think at one point Andy,it had rained 33 hours non stop. Until that,previous rains were for a couple of hours or so. Still,not the huge deluge they had warned their was a chance of.

I just hope that weather cycle of drought has been broken.

Stan, the good thing is that you don't have to water your plants. It's the same for here, also. I did see Hayward had 3.28 inches of rain on the Dec. 11...that was record rainfall for the date. We ended getting a little more than an inch of rain (where I live). Downtown San Diego had 1.05 of rain for the Dec. 12th and that was a record for the date, too. We are going to be getting more rain tomorrow and Wednesday. I'm so happy! My plants are looking so much better. The weather had cooled down quite a bit, it's only been in the mid to upper 60's (compared to the upper 70's from last week).

I see it's raining up there today, again. This is most likely the rain we'll be getting tomorrow.

Bathgate:

We'll need at least 20 inches more rain for most of California to break the drought. However, the rains we've had is a good start.

We wont be getting a break until the weekend. It's not real cold- but I wonder if this is going to affect the Maridol Papaya's? And here,I'm talking their lives!-lol. Not even close to fruiting size. About 14" is my tallest leader in ground.
Still,no Croton leaf drop so far. I did bring in the Plumeria obtusa- and sure enough,its dropped its leafs. Outdoors,P.rubra is still in leaf.
So,photo's wise- it still looks like summer. Just doesn't feel like it..

Stan510:

Papayas are very susceptible to rot in very wet soil. This is even true in the tropics. Young plants are even more prone to rot.

It's most likely not cold enough (and long enough) for leaf-drop on the croton. I know the weather has been very mild up there, also (for Dec. anyway).

Like I mentioned in the past, Plumeria obtusa 'Singapore' is the most tropical. It doesn't like even a little bit of cool weather and wet soil. When I lived up in the Bay Area I always had to bring mine indoors. On the other hand P. rubra is really hardy and could take the cold with no problems (as long as the soil didn't get too wet).

It's funny because my plumerias were doing horribly because of this drought. Some of my plants even died. The ones in the ground were even suffering. Now, that we've had rain they've all perked up and the stems which looked shriveled up have all plumped up, again.