Can we have too much of a good thing?
We did it! We survived the drought that has been stressing us (and our plants) out for the last year or more. According to the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), drought watches have officially been lifted for our region as of June 30, 2025!
In January 2025, much of Anne Arundel county was experiencing a 12-inch deficit in average rainfall since January 2024. Fast forward to July 2025. In just seven months, we have not only caught up to our average amount of rainfall from January 1 - July 15 2025, which is around 20 inches, but some areas of our County are exceeding 7-inches above normal rainfall for that period of time! Newly planted trees, shrubs, and perennials are loving all of the extra rainfall that we’ve experienced in the past few months. It has also been great for the local frog and salamander populations who have taken advantage of the ideal conditions to reproduce successfully after two very dry springs in 2023 and 2024.
However, those of you managing restoration projects may have mixed feeling about all of this rain. Excess rainfall can drown out plants, creating waterlogged soils that deprive roots of oxygen, leading to root-rot and nutrient deficiencies. Combined wit hour hot summer days, excess moisture can cause fungal diseases that can quickly spread, hindering growth and potentially causing plant stress or even death.
Excess rain can also encourage invasive plant species populations to explode, adding to the many competitive advantages they already have over native plants. This makes eradication even more challenging and can really set back existing control efforts, especially with invasive vines that overwhelm our ecosystems.
All this rain may also cause us to miss-read “normal” site conditions, in that saturated soils and wet areas are NOT actually the norm, leading to the wrong plant selection for specific areas. Your swamp milkweed that you planted may love the wet area in your yard this year and absolutely thrive. However, next year that area may not be as wet and the plant will likely stress or perish.
Finally, with heavy rainfall and high temperatures comes increased amounts of pollution washed into our waterways. These excess nutrients can lead to algal blooms, which consume much of the oxygen in the water column, eventually leading to dead zones. When oxygen levels become too low, many aquatic animals cannot survive. This leads to fish kills, foul-smelling water, and even increased jellyfish populations as they are one of the few aquatic species that can survive these conditions.
So, should we celebrate the end of our year-long drought? ABSOLUTELY! However, there can always be too much of a good thing. Be sure to pay attention to the other issues that all this rain may cause and take action as needed.
Take care of yourself, your plants, and continue to be part of the pollution solution! That’s my sugg-Jeff-tion!