I'm so happy for you-----
I love a good rainstorm---such a welcome sound for us and all our rose babies.
good luck with your new plants---

Florence

Melissa, how funny, we have been suffering in a drought as well and had rain on Thanksgiving. Enough to fill my rain barrels and more.

We are also expecting more rain tomorrow and Monday, so DH and I emptied the rain barrels as much as we could and soaked certain plants. I know it's going to rain again, but as you said, the ground is so dry from lack of rain, we are trying hard to bring it back to 'normal'.

I also took advantage of the extra water to finish some fall planting projects. The 3 roses I got from Ashdown in the soilless shipping experiment are now in the ground. I finished planting my divided daylilies, and transplanted some self seeding foxgloves. I'm hoping all of this comes together in some kind of fashion next spring.

I was pleasantly surprised at the moist condition of my soil. I now love having clay! The flower beds where I had heavily amended with garden soil were dry as dust, but the beds that had clay were moist and very tillable. It must be that they were heavily mulched.

I'm so happy for all of you who have had rain. Sadly, we are expecting another tremendous Santa Ana wind, which is already raging in Malibu, where there are 100 miles an hour winds and a fire is already burning, endangering 400 homes, of which 20 have already burned. We also had a fire a few miles from us which however was quickly contained. The winds are expected to last for days, as is usually the case. Nevertheless, we're planting tea roses today. I'm not allowing this to take away my joy in my garden; I want lots of beautiful roses to look forward to next spring.

Ingrid

Ingrid, I heard about the fires on the news - Californians have certainly had their share of tragedy this year. I hope you and yours remain out of the path of those horrible fires, and that your beautiful roses will bloom as planned next spring.
Judith

We expected rain for Thursday night and Friday and didn't get a drop. I hope tomorrow we really get some rain.

Thank you, Judith, for your good wishes; it helps a lot to feel the support of others during the less than wonderful times. At the same time, it gives a lift to my spirits when good things like much-needed rain happen to those who've been struggling with the drought for a long time.

Ingrid

Melissa, I'm so delighted to hear your good news. You certainly have waited a long time for it.

I hope everyone who needs rain, gets it; and those with too much get a break and some sunshine!

Rosefolly

Ingrid,
I hope your house (and others') makes it through this fire too! It must be dismaying to live through a repeat of the experience! Good luck.

I think everyone dealing with drought is happy when some forumer finally gets rain; it means it can happen to them as well. Buford, I remember your being thankful for rain on Thanksgiving. You're totally right about clay. I think it's really underrated in the U.S.

We got six inches all together, a really good rainfall. I am SO happy.

Melissa

Rain is what I dream of. Great you got some! We're still waiting here.

Yes, I am also very happy that those suffering through this drought finally got some 'glorious rain'! I have been following the stories in the newspapers up here, and also some other threads on the forums, and it has been devastating to a lot of areas in the Southeast, and California. Let's hope things improve for you all, and that these water shortages don't become worse.
Judith

Melissa, I am so happy for you that you have finally gotten some significant amount of rain! I know you have needed it badly!

Good luck with all your new roses- sounds like quite a haul you've ordered! Please let us know how they are doing for you in the summer!

Allison

ps- we have had a very cold, very rainy Thanksgiving weekend here in east Texas, and we needed the rain too, although not as much as you have needed yours!

Sorry Melissa, to have left you out of my post; I forgot you were in Italy, and were also suffering with a drought. It is very good news that you finally got the rain you so needed. We, here in eastern Canada, sometimes don't realize how lucky we are. We don't often go very long without rain. It is such a precious thing, both for us, and for our gardens.
Judith

We had a big nasty snow storm here just before Thanksgiving. Entirely normal for a change. All fall i've been studying the birds and wind patterns and thinking maybe we were coming out of the screwed up weather patterns that began in the 80's.
20 degrees on the porch tonight. Still too warm for this time of year.

Yesterday we got a tiny bit of rain but today we got a lot! I've never thought I would wish for rain so desperately in this humid and usually quite wet part of the world.

ceterum,

I think it's worse if you're used to lots of rain. Here I take it for granted that much of the time there's not going to be quite as much water as I'd like, and I automatically plan for low water consumption. Gardeners in the southeast haven't had to do that. Congratulations on your rain!

Melissa

Melissa, you are absolutely right. I guess southern Californians also plan for non-to-low low rain as a rule.

What made this year even worse for us was the watering ban; as far as I know Californians didn't have that. This watering restriction and later the ban clearly showed that the southeast wasn't anyway prepared that this could happen to us.

Yes, it's hard to live in a place that normally gets 50 inches of rain per year, then gets 20 AND watering restrictions. Plus there is so much new construction which means new plantings that need more water than normal. It's a perfect storm!

ceterum, I take it you are now in the SE USA and not Italy:) Have you thought about getting rain barrels? Even the litte rain we had on Monday was enough to fill up my two rainbarrels. I'm so glad I put them in. It is a pain to deliver the water where you want it, but it's worth it IMO.