How awful! I know how devastated I'd be if I lost my roses and I'm so sorry you're facing this awful prospect.

Is there some way you can use gray water from when you're washing vegetables and fruits in the sink? Instead, put a large bowel underneath to catch the runoff. Also, a bucket in the shower to catch the water before it turns warm enough to shower. I imagine there are all sorts of creative ways to harness water in the home that would normally go down the drain. I wish you the best of luck; this must be so hard.

Assuming you have good neighbors or a privacy fence/hedge for the back yard, I would look to harvest all the gray water from your washing machine and use that to water the backyard roses

If you have just a few in the front yard and assuming the water restrictions will end with your rainy season (guessing sept) I would buy the cheapest 1g's of bottled water I could find, poke a small hole in the bottom of the bottle and set by each bush. Your not using city water and anyone with an issue can see the bottles are still store sealed.

You would have to check the rules, but you technically are not using any city water on your shrubs.

Or, plant a tomato-pepper-squash in between each rose and water the veggies instead

I think if you maintain a good mulch, the roses will survive a month without water.

Brilliant! I love the pepper/squash idea!

In retrospect, I had made the [now] unwise decision to be responsible and water only enough to keep the roses alive. I had given up on watering enough to keep everyone happy & in full bloom. This is pretty aggravating. Had I been a bit more wasteful, I'd probably have roses that could withstand a month or two of little-to-no watering.

I'm really most angry with the city. Stage 1 restrictions were not imposed until July 23rd. Absolutely stupid considering that everyone knew there was a problem in June, if not May of this year. Voluntary restrictions on the 17th, then Stage 1 on the 23rd, and now Stage 2 on August 9th. Way to go, City of Decatur. Too little, too late.

TONS of mulch! Michael's right about the importance of mulch.

Ingrid's right about kitchen sink water.
I have a photo taken in 1914 of my grandfather's family, standing on the front porch of their home in TX. There's a fence, and yes. There are roses in the front yard. My Step-G-Gramma "always had roses." I'm pretty sure that all cooking and wash-water ended up in that dooryard garden.

We can still do that today. Here, veggie-wash water, dishwater, warm-up water, all goes into our front garden. And when, eventually, things get bad enough, laundry water is going to go into the hillside garden.

Jeri

I forgot to mention--the long term forecast does not provide any relief. Dry conditions are expected to continue throughout the fall because of prolonged high-pressure ridges that keep stalling out over the top of us.

Jeri,
I'd posted over on HMF about the heapin' helpin' of mulch we added this year. Lyn had cautioned about the danger of inhibiting oxygen flow with too much mulch--but with the ground forming cracks large enough to stick your hand in & touch the roots, she agreed we're probably very safe with 5+ inches.

I have 180 gallons of reserve capacity in our rain barrels. Here's the freaky thing; I can completely drain all 4 of them onto 1 bed of 25 roses today, and by tomorrow you can't even tell they were watered.

The water we collected from our air condition units is more than enough to water my three dozens of roses and I have never use any other water for my roses throughout the summer. I assume that water is not subject to your town's restriction as it technically is waste water. How much water you can collect may depend on factors such as how many units you have and condition of your units. However, my intuition is that you will be surprised by how much water you can collect. I can reliably get about 20 to 30 gallons of water from each unit.

Right, mulch mulch mulch too!

FYI Kale grows easy here and comes in a few types, the Russian Kale is a very pretty plant. Same with chard. One of the benefits of not using toxic chemicals on the roses, we can inter-plant with food crops. Our vines are all passion fruit. Pepper plants can add a pop of color too Pomegranate tree/bushes are beautiful. Same with stone fruit trees.

I am working on the raised bed in our winter garden, it will be cabbage, kale, cucumbers, zuchini and Munstead Wood..lol

Take a quick shower, then take a bath without using soap. An inexpensive pump and a garden hose can get the bath water out to the roses. You are not forbidden from taking baths (yet) are you?

You're going to giggle, but yes--they have asked us to NOT take baths. Showers only. Of course there's no way they can march in and enforce that, but.....my husband & I still work 40+ hours a week & we have 3 kids. It's 'get in and get the heck out' of the shower as fast as possible.

I'm supposing that whomever passed this silly regs may not know the difference between an ornamental pepper and a bell pepper.......lol.

Egads Flaura. How is Decatur Lake looking? Lost Creek that feeds into the Mackinaw in back of our meadow is bone dry. Even the Mackinaw has only itty-bitty tiny pools of water left. I wonder how the deer and other critters are faring. Il-American Water hasn't sent me any water restriction notices yet but I live in the country. The Mighty Mississippi is also closed to barge traffic clear up to Wisconsin. It's frightening. We haven't had rain here since May...it's all gone North of us.

Well, when you talk about long-range prospects -- let's face it: Things look gloomy.

We have moved into the sort of conditions which brought us the Dust Bowl, and there's a real conflict between water for agriculture, water for the general environment, and water for human needs. Ornamental horticulture is probably going to take a back seat.

If we want to grow flowers, we're going to have to be inventive.

Jeri

It is was not for used water or unusable water, I would not have planted many of the roses I picked. Just because water is so expensive. But over something like a leech field, I am not going to grow a food crop so why not a rose garden. Besides once they get a root or two down in that honey hole..... (talk about nitrogen!)

Think of the difference many towns would have with current water woes if they had cancelled lawn watering. I know many people live for their green front lawn, but we have none. Just a trail between two beds with a few plants on a drip system.

Same with large ornamental trees, we have one, the rest produce food. Or hedges/shrubs, we have a couple of old old camellias and one other drought tolerant volunteer, but for the rest, they provide some kind of food. Other than the leech/septic/graywater rose beds, the rest also have some kind of edible that is enjoying a bit of rose/flower water. The water is just too expensive to use to keep large expanses of lawn green. We have our little grass patch (under the closes line) even our paver patios are spaced so we don't let the water run off and keep it to water the ground cover between the blocks.

You do have to think outside the box on how to save or use your water to get the most out of it.

Start drinking rose hip tea and claim it as a food crop.

When we went through our droughts, we had rain barrels. Alas, they only work if it rains, but they can also capture morning dew off the roof. Every little bit helps.

Also we would stand in the shower with a 5 gallon bucket and use that in the yard. You can also buy bags of ice and put them around the plants.

About mulch, yes, it keeps the soil moist. However, if it dries out, it can actually repel rain. So if it's going to rain, move the mulch away from the drip line of the roses temporarily.

besides the other useful suggestions, I second sacks of ice.
many folks here are using them to try to save liveoaks far from the reach of hoses.

I also keep several stock tanks, netted, with a few goldfish in each. No mosquitoes & no problems drawing off a bucket or two as needed.

Do you have a neighbor with a pool? They have to be back-washed & yeah the water has chemicals in it but it is water. LOTS of mulch, even if you have to buy some hay--cover the plants up with loose hay or leaves, pine needles, etc. prayers for rain for everyone.

Gardening in glacier slurry is an adventure. Sometimes, when I think I am watering one rose, the water is really moving underground to the rose next to it that may be just slightly lower and the first rose doesn't get the amount of water I thought it was getting.

The reason I mention this is that a rose that has always handled my high summer temps was looking very water stressed today and, in my mind, I had given that plant a deep watering just yesterday. I won't mess with the roots during a period of high temps, but when I talked with Kim this morning, he suggested that I remove all of the buds and blooms because the plant was using some of its moisture to maintain those blooms.

The more I thought about it, the more it makes sense to me, so off with their heads.

I also mixed in some of my forest duff in with the leaves I had used to mulch that rose, because it is denser and will hold the moisture longer.

Our temps will be over 100 degrees for at least another week and they may drop to about 90, so it was time for an intervention.

If your roses are blooming, you might want to think about deadheading them and sacrificing the bloom this year.

Smiles,
Lyn

Flaurabunda - my deepest sympathy. I've been there myself a couple of years ago. Not only did they ask us to refrain from taking a bath, but we were also advised to limit our shower time to 4 (FOUR) minutes. In his frequent horror shows, the Water Commissioner (we're talking Israel, not the US of A) vowed to distribute a tiny hourglass to each household (he was eventually replaced and seawater desalination was speeded up).

I for one used the post-shower soap-free quick bath tactic as in hoovb's suggestion, only I had to skip the bath part since I have no bathtub.

In case you don't have a privacy hedge, you'd better see to it that whichever of your roses visible to passersby should LOOK bad. Chopping the blooms is a good idea for this reason as well as for helping the rose save moisture.

Suggestions: Place some large potted plants up front without watering them, so they are visible in all their misery and eventual demise. Most people tend to seize on easily recognized bits and pieces as a basis for constructing whatever they expect to see. If you provide some props to help them along, chance is they'll go for recognizing the picture in their head, rather than for the more strenuous task of real observation.

Sprinkle the visible part of the roses' foliage with a bit of flour using a sieve like for sprinkling cocoa powder on a cake (might as well mix cocoa powder with the flour). The roses will look diseased and this will be attributed to lack of watering.

depressing, isn't it?. These serious deviations in weather are likely to continue so we are going to be very challenged as to what we can actually grow well without massive intervention. In the UK, the jetstream has simply passed us by leaving southern europe baking while we are simply drowning. Watching your house and garden disappearing under feet of filthy water is truly grim but this is the all too common scenario at the moment.
A few years ago, everyone was planting olives and citrus, in preparation for global warming. In the UK, we all thought (selfishly), what fun, nice summers and no dreadful freezy wet winters. Of xcourse, it has not worked out like this at all and most of us are now terminally unsure what to plant. I, for one, will be looking towards my gardening friends over the pond (that's you, folks) with freezing winters and boiling summers (Illinois sounds about right) since we have become very complacent here in temperate zone 8. So nope, I will not be growing mediterranean plants but I will be growing tough shrubs, fruits and berries, wildflowers while heavily hybridised and risky plantings of dahlias, bedding plants and fussy roses (not the tough ramblers and wildlings, of course) are going to be history in my garden since I am broke, lazy and distant (even a short bike ride is still a daily trek)and I cannot bear to preside over a plant cemetary.
Flaura, and the rest of you wilting in drought and heat, my sympathies and good wishes.

I am very frightened about the weather here in Tuscany, Italy; we have had no rain at all since the beginning of June, it's been constantly hot and dry,and who knows when/if things will change for the better! Last fall and winter we got very little rain, so it's been a situation of prolonged drought conditions...
However,I wonder if it really WAS such a big mistake to "only water the roses to keep them alive". Remember the rule "try to water deeply ,or not at all". I think this is particularly apt for roses; we want to encourage them to develop roots that reach deep down, searching for water,so that they can resist drought. If you water them constantly, they remain "lazy" and "spoiled".I have no running water on my land, so my roses have to rely on rainfall,and water I bring from a spring,so I only water the new implants,maybe every two-three weeks.My soil is clay in some areas of the garden. I don't expect my roses to flower all summer; I just rely on the spring flush. But I am wondering if I will be able to continue; I'm just so scared by the ever-scarcer rainfall in my area! bart

The powers that be here in the US need to get with the program and start doing preventive things, like outlawing huge lawns and particularly St. Augustine grass, which is a water hog (but then, of course, the sod growers are going to scream bloody murder), requiring a huge percentage of a yard be left natural natural, etc. When I lived in Gainesville, Fl. 30 years ago they were already leaving everything natural except for a small patch of grass. Everywhere else I've lived plunks down a house in the middle of a square sodded lawn with a few token landscape plants, the sod being the star of the show that has to be watered twice a week. Something like 50 percent of our water here in Fl goes to water grass.

But you know what they're going to do. They're going to stick their heads in the sand until we have extreme water rationing and water wars. For that matter, we're already fighting over water rights here in central Fl. How come we can send a man to the moon and a rover to Mars, but we can't figure out how to store the water we get when we have these outrageous floods we've been having?

Thank you everyone---all your thoughts & comments hit the nail on the head, many times. I wish someone could pound these ideas into the heads of the dolts that are responsible for the regs here in town.

Terry, Lake Decatur is a wreck. This summer they nearly doubled the boat slip fees & everyone was up in arms, and now they have declared the lake unusuable and ordered all boats out of the slips by Friday. No more recreation of any kind on the lake. Add to that the fact that the dam has been shut for months on end to conserve water & keep the Asian carp from jumping into the lake proper and...well....we had 2 months of rotting fish stink by our house. We live just south of the dam and as the water level below the dam fell to zilch, all the fat carp died & were left rotting, uncovered by water. Add to that mess a bad case of rapid decomposure by triple-digit heat, and it was quite awfully stinky. The city's choice on how to deal with it? Do nothing. (Jeez---no innovation here? No way gather the corpses & make fish emulsion, or anything? Just leave them? I still bang my head on the desk on that one.) So yeah; a legacy of stinky dead fish, doubled slip fees, and no recreational lake use. A comedy of errors.

I can deal with losing the $4 annuals in pots. I refuse to let the roses die. Like Lyn said, we thought--earlier this summer--that we were watering adequately. You know, around 5 gallons per rose a little more frequently than normal. It wasn't adequate. Pulling back the mulch, we saw how horrible the ground looked. Dry as a bone 1 hour after watering. Dry far, far down.....the ground is parched to such a deep level that it boggles the mind.

I, for one, want the lawn gone. It's a point of contention between my spouse & I. He's been fighting the futile battle of trying to maintain it; I'd rather have it replaced with vegetable plots & walkways, seating areas, a swing, a pergola, you name it. Buh-bye, grass. I'd gladly give up the lawn mower & weed trimmer as I have better uses for the space they take up in the shed. But that's crazy talk according to the men in the neighborhood! They are as emotionally attached to blades of grass as I seem to be to roses.

I, like many of you, cannot understand why retention of rain water isn't mandated and why localities do not become concerned with good practices until it's just too late.

There are a lot of politics in our state about water. I live in the northern part of California and we have sufficient water even during the drought years from rain and snow melt, BUT southern California is more densely populated and they need more water and of course the source is the mountains of northern California. The water wars are getting ugly and it's going to get worse.

The good news is that roses are survivors, if they are suited to your climate. If they are water stressed, they will abandon growth they cannot support for the plant to survive. That's what I am watching for while I am gardening in my glacier slurry. Yes, I'll have to get underground and fix the drainage issues, but the roses always have managed to survive. They make look horrible to our eyes, but they are really doing their part to handle the stress, while other plants just croak.

A rose in survival mode really doesn't need as much water to survive as we think they do when we have a thriving plant to save them. They stop adding new growth, they drop all leaves that are not functioning well, some canes will actually be abandoned and die, the root mass usually shrinks and what is left is a plant that can survive on less water. It's true that they are not as healthy going into winter, but even then, they may surprise you and come back to be strong plants when conditions change.

In our County, we work to maintain healthy watershed areas and to manage our water resources very well because we know the politics are such that there will be increased demand for our water from less wather-thrifty areas of the State.

It's mind boggling that developments, golf courses and such are allowed to be built when they don't have a designated source of water to support them. I have to tell you that I am not the least good natured when it comes to the demands for more water for the southern part of California.

Smiles,
Lyn

Yes use mulch to keep moisture in the ground...
Next month I'm going to visit my son in DeKalb Illinois...
He says they had days in 100's...

Here in Central Pa it rains enough that roses do not need extra water...

Suzy, from what I've read about global warming, most of Europe, instead of getting hot and dry, will be heading toward a mini ice age. You may already be seeing the beginnings of this with the weather you mention. Scientists have been predicting what we are now beginning to have for the last fifteen years, with the powers that be with money agendas denying it strenuously all the way. You can't argue with what we're seeing now, and five or ten years from now roses may be a thing of the past. Lawns of course are an incredibly stupid idea in most climates in the U.S., do nothing for birds or wildlife, and are greatly contributing to the waste of precious water. We took out our five plots of grass when we moved in without a moment's regret.

Ingrid

yes, quite true, Ingrid. If too much arctic ice melts, it affects the thermo-haline cycle and we basically lose the mitigating effects of the Gulfstream. Rosa acicularis then...... but there will be apples, and delphiniums, high alpines and conifers - we will adapt and survive. Much more worrying is the rising ocean - East Anglia has only been claimed from the sea for 400 years, so we may be going under.........a boat looks like a good option.

Same here, Camp. Fl may soon be under water. I also think golf courses are an absurdity, or at least the amount of water and fertilizer they use. They need to start using artificial turf or something. We had a golf course upstream on our little creek, and they were destroying the water quality. We finally raised enough heck, the county finally shut their fertilizing down. I've already said how I feel about lawns. So many people overwater their lawns, the chemical companies make a killing selling chemicals to kill dollar weed which only occurs from overwatering.

yes, quite true, Ingrid. If too much arctic ice melts, it affects the thermo-haline cycle and we basically lose the mitigating effects of the Gulfstream. Rosa acicularis then...... but there will be apples, and delphiniums, high alpines and conifers - we will adapt and survive. Much more worrying is the rising ocean - East Anglia has only been claimed from the sea for 400 years, so we may be going under.........a boat looks like a good option.
Urk - spent an obscenely long time perusing end times stuff, mini ice age, coolists, warmists, blah blah. terrifyingly confusing so am going with the ever-hopeful head-in-sand approach.

If after a while, it looks flat out like the roses are going to die, what about pulling them up, trimming them back, potting them up and using the spent bath water on them?

Lucille, I would imagine that in the temperatures we're getting around the country, the plants would be safer still in the ground instead of in a pot above ground. It doesn't take many inches of soil to insulate against a lot of heat. Definitely use the bath water. Kim

No to pots! I went away the week it was 100+ here in Atlanta. When I came back, all the plants in pots were very stressed (even thought my neighbor watered them). The roses in the ground were fine.

When I was younger, we went through a period of water restriction and had a family with 6 kids. We put a 5 gal bucket in the shower and were told to point the shower flow towards the bucket, get wet, soap down, and rinse off. Even a very quick shower filled the bucket.

We used dish pans one with soapy water and one to rinse dishes instead of the dishwasher, which does use less water, both pans of used water got dumped into the garden. Of course, we did have to fill them a couple of times.

We kept a bowl in the sink for when we washed vegetables, and others in the bathrooms for when we washed our hands.

In other words, we captured all water that might go down a drain and it landed in the garden.

You will be amazed at how much water that kind of thing gives you for the garden.

As for pulling the roses and putting them in containers, other than the fact that containers are harder to keep moist, you don't want to mess with the roots of a rose during periods of high heat. That just adds more stress.

Smiles,
Lyn

Sorry to hear the situation is so dire. Like others have suggested, perhaps collecting shower and veggie-washing water is an option? The rinse cycle of the washing machine? Hope things get better soon.

My parents well went dry a week or so ago but they do live there yet they had to gut the house. ( it was my uncles and there house the home I grew up in was taken from them) Now they have to order water or something to get water back in the well.

Ah yes.....the drama continues. Apparently last evening trucks were lining up at the bulk water purchasing station, as many county residents who are not on city water must rely upon their well-water system. Many wells have run dry and basically anyone who could get their hands or wallets on a tank filled up last night; much like a 1930's depression-style run on the banks.

We found out last night that there are 2 places from where the community gets water piped to them: the South Treatment Plant and the Lake proper. We are 1 mile south of the treatment plant; it's where we get out water.

The local news showed the statistics of each site's categorical use. South Plant has only 22% going to residential use, and the lake has only 12% residential use.

Who's using the most water? Well, that would be your good buddies down at Archer Daniels Midland, the folks that brought you the comedy of errors of pigfeed price fixing ["The Informant"]. Now I'm not one to bash big business just for the sake of it, but I think that there could have been just a weensy smidge of use-curbage over the last few months without causing massive layoffs.

This is why people get angry at business & government. Their marriage is so messed up it's like blaming the kids for the divorce. The 120+ thousand county residents didn't cause the problem, but By Crackie it's going to be solved on our backs.

Bet they have a green lawn too (and pay less for their 78% than your 22% too)

Flaura....

We have a population of 13,000 people in our County. We can't even begin to make a dent in the water in the Lake, but they had drawn off enough water for SOCAL to leave it less than 45% full.

That's where the votes are ... it's not only about money. we have what they want, they have the votes, so they are going to take it in spite of the fact that it will hurt our economy, the local ranchers, the fisheries, etc.

I don't blame you for your rant. I could easily have one of my own.

Smiles,
Lyn

Argle bargle...(@@*#&*.....yes, I have my rantypants bunched up in a wad over this.

It's frustrating trying to get a movement started, isn't it? Too many apathetic folks who don't want to speak up, or the ones who do speak up go on the news with gems of wisdom like: "I don't think they should do this becuz I likes water."

I'm about ready to put on my viking helmet & storm the gates.

How terrible that it got so bad before they tried to do something about it. I'm afraid that's what's eventually going to happen here, not necessarily because of drought but because of mismanagement. The scary part is that due to global warming, it's not going to end with this drought. The chances are, it will happen again. My thoughts are with you and your roses.

I've just taken a look at the mandatory water restrictions, and was quite struck by #10:

"The service of water at restaurants is prohibited unless requested by the customer".

This sure beats those tiny hourglasses that never got distritured over here (and a good thing too, as such a gimmic would have cost millions).

If there's no water, let them drink lemonade!

Since the glacier is melting why can we just use sea water (but with out the salt) since the ocean is rising... It will save land not being gobbled up and it will eventually end up back there. Its not like we are going to throw it into space and never see it again. Right.....?

Jessica, they are called De-Sal plants. It does get used, but is an expensive process.

Flaurabunda, I am so sorry to hear of your plight, which may be the plight of many of us in the coming years.

Question: which is better for the rose plant that receives little or no water in already dry ground; cutting it back or leaving as is?

Jessica, as Kippy says desalination is being used, but is a very expense process that uses a lot of energy in the form of fossil fuels or nuclear power; neither of which do the environment any good.

Here is a link that might be useful: Why Desalination Doesn't Word (Yet) from Live Science ...

Flaurabunda, what about shading your roses to cut down on evaporation and transpiration? In last year's record heat and drought here in Texas I put up sheets on those green plastic-covered garden poles fastening the corners with thick rubber bands, and also used beach umbrellas to give the roses some relief. It didn't look all that bad; rather festive actually.

Well, the good news is that we're getting a few days of milder temps; around the 85 mark instead of 97. We watered EXTENSIVELY yesterday before the ban was implemented at midnight.

If things get hairy again, I'll be out erecting tents and umbrellas for the ladies.

On the bright side, I'm only having to worry about roses. It could be much worse if I were on a well.

Flaurabunda, your roses will be okay. Mine have only got two deep waterings all summer (except for the bands I planted this Spring), and they're doing be best of any of the shrubs; no signs of drought while the oak trees and lilacs and forsythia and hydrangea are all trying to bite the dust simultaneously.

My pot-the-rose idea was not to pot them and leave them in the heat, but to pot them and bring them inside, maybe near a window. I still think it might be worth thinking about if the outside roses are actually dying.

Shade cloth on poles or market umbrellas will greatly help. I am using the washer only to wash not to rinse. I rinse everything in a big bucket in the yard. I save bottles all year and bottle up the rain on that rare day when we get rain. My neighbor laughs at me but it really does help. The grass is long gone now. My roses look best in spring and when it gets into summer, I trim them and don't feed so they grow more slowly. Keep on with the mulch and maybe think about relocating some roses to a morning sun location this fall. If you have a big thirsty tree nearby it could be drinking the water you put on for the roses.

There's the rub: no morning sun in my yard and 9 large maples planted just on the other side of my fence, exactly where I need them to NOT be. I can't remove those trees as they belong to the neighboring church. It's afternoon sun or no sun at all.

On the bright side, it has been far milder for the last week and we had more rain in one day (Monday) than we had over the last 2 months. So far so good. Odd though, because mid-August is usually the most severe part of the season for us regarding drought & heat. I shouldn't be surprised--lol--the rest of the year has been Bass Ackwards, so why should it be any different now? :)