Piedmont Master Gardeners
As every local gardener knows, this has been a tough year for our landscapes. We entered 2026 already on the dry side, about an inch shy of normal precipitation. By July 1, we had dropped to nearly nine inches below average, making the first six months of this year the seventh driest since 1895.
In the maps released each week by the U.S. Drought Monitor, Albemarle County has appeared in deep red since the middle of May, indicating we are at the level of Extreme Drought on the Monitor’s intensity scale. At mid-July, local reservoirs remained above 90 percent full, but the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority declared a Drought Watch for Albemarle and Charlottesville and encouraged voluntary efforts to conserve water. We gardeners can do our part by adopting these water-wise practices…