Hi Mary, Coastal gardening can be a challenge and a joy at the same time. I live in Palos Verdes and have also grown roses in Torrance and Manhattan Beach. My list of mildew and rust resistant roses is: Hybrid Teas: Mellow Yellow New Zealand Gemini Ingrid Bergman Just Joey Olympiad Voodoo Floribundas: Honey Perfume Trumpeter Mardi Gras (not the Hybrid tea) Playboy Gruss an Aachen Sexy Rexy Sheila's Perfume Sunsprite Our Lady Of Guadalupe Grandifloras: Fame About Face Tournament of Roses Shrub Roses: Belinda's Dream Bonica Carefree Beauty Gourmet Popcorn Hope this helps. You might try a separate new post for your question. You also might plan a visit to the South Coast Botanical Gardens in Palos Verdes in April or May and see what you like that they are growing. If you search this Garden Web for discussions of rust and mildew prevention you will find easy methods of minimizing mildew and rust. Some common tips are: 1. Watering only in the morning gives your roses a chance to dry in the sun during the day. 2. Mulching reduces fungus (mildew and rust) and insects. 3. Hose spraying your roses with a water wand each week to wash off insects and fungus spores. 4. Removing any roses or plants that regularly suffer from mildew and / or rust no matter what you do. 5. Try organic sprays for prevention. There are recipes out there on the internet. The Otto and Sons Nursery website does a good job of providing rose lists that explain the characteristics, coastal tolerance and disease / heat resistance of the roses they sell. Happy Gardening, Lee Here is a link that might be useful: Otto and Sons Nursery in Filmore, Ca.

Love the new pics. You know, I'm ashamed because I have no excuse for not growing figs or grapes. I know so many people in person and on our fun forum that have had great results for years. Great pics and information Queenie and all! Here's something looking good this morning, a first bloom on our native passion flower, Passiflora foetida. It's got a ton of other flower buds too. I bought it as a tiny seedling at the last AZ Rare Fruit Growers sale (always worth going!) and now it's got three or four stems each over 7 feet long. Fun! This stem/branch is climbing up and over an orange tree. Anyway, I thought folks might enjoy it so here it is. The blooms aren't as large as some of the more tropical types, but our good ol' native species is immune to anything our climate can give it. My little covered patio is looking good these days too. Nothing fancy, but it's a nice space where I sit with hot coffee and the newspaper (paper or iPad version if the paper version is late) almost every day of the year, prior to doing some *quiet* early morning gardening chores. Happy gardening! Grant Here is a link that might be useful: Pics from my garden June 2013

I really really REALLY wish you had written in here before getting the soil. This is a very bad start. Here are the issues. Yes fescue is fairly common all over SoCal but that doesn't mean it is socially acceptable in your drought. Unless you live west of I-5 in Orange County or west of the 405 in the LA area you should reconsider fescue. I can see by the hills that you are most likely more inland, so where are you? (note: I figured out where you are...see the last paragraph). LA is a big place with respect to climate and soils. About the only places to the west with hills like that are Palos Verdes and Malibu. Put it this way, if the weather forecast, "Late night and early morning low clouds near the coast burning off by 11," does not pertain to you, then don't grow fescue. I would suggest looking into two other grasses that can get by with much less water. Those are St Augustine and Shadow Turf (a variety of zoysia). Both of those will work in the narrow strip between the house and fence. Bringing in more soil is usually a mistake. Why did you do that? You can see how much work it's going to be to break up the clods. It might be easier to put a soaker hose in there and let the water drip into to soften them. Then break them with a shovel, hoe, or rake. I see there's a slope there, but was it unusually steep? Are you okay with water pooling up on your side of the fence when it rains? Or are there openings between the fence posts and the fence? It looks like a big puddle going to form about where the little dog is lying down. No grass is going to like standing in inches of water. The right way to do this would have been to leave the existing soil as is, get a soil test at Logan Labs, post it here, correct the soil chemistry, add organic fertilizer to correct the biology, kill off any vegetation already there, then seed, sod, or plug. You've got 10 times more work in just soil prep than had you not done that. Now once you have the soil declodded and leveled and grass in, you still need a soil test to correct the chemistry of the new soil, and you'll need organic fertilizer to correct the biology. So it's the same procedure, but you added tons of extra work with that new soil. Okay, I'm a dummy. I just saw your screen name. If you live in Inglewood, you are definitely in the morning fog zone. But being a touch east of the 405 you seriously are on the border of using one of the Marathon fescue varieties. I lived in Hawthorne over by Aviation for most of the 70s. Marathon should work. If you get Marathon III you may only need to mow it once a month and water it once every 3 weeks. This last point is very important, because virtually everyone in SoCal will advise you to water it every day. That is wrong. You don't even need to do that in Phoenix. With your climate (summer high temps in the 70s) you should NEVER have to water it more than once every 3 weeks. When you do water you should water deeply, 1 inch, all at one time. How were you planning to water that strip? I might be inclined to put in either drip irrigation or just lay a soaker hose in there. If you were to water a full inch on 15x50 feet of ground, that would be 460 gallons of water. If you turned on your soaker with a trickle drip out of the faucet you would be applying about 850 gallons per week. So you could turn on a soaker at a trickle drip and leave it on 24/7 for 4 days and not have to water again for 3 weeks. Well I've been my usual wordy and possibly helpful, but in this case confusing about your location. I am so adamant about getting the right grass for the SoCal drought that I'm leaving my rant in for future generations of readers. Please don't take it personally. Fescue is used all the way out to Palm Springs and it is just inappropriate east of, well, YOU!

Some of your plants are not as drought tolerant as others so placement of those and the ability to water as necessary is critical. In particular, the echinacea (coneflowers), penstemon and the May Night salvia are thirstier than the others. Also the kangaroo paws vary in their water needs - some species/cultivars are more DT than others. The BeWaterWise or California Friendly Gardening programs are great resources for you. I've linked to one resource for Orange County that may be helpful. Be sure to take some time to go through the photo gallery........there are some stunning xeric gardens included that you can use for inspiration as well as to gather some tips for placement. While you don't necessarily need to be restricted to natives, they are a great source of plant material to select from, being both ideally suited to climate as well as having low water needs. And they are generally colorful, attractive to wildlife and not much bothered by pests or disease issues. Any lavender will work and they are pretty commonly found in most nurseries - both English and Spanish lavender are great xeric plants and put on a long lasting flower show but I wouldn't spend a lot of lime looking for so-called "colored" varieties (lemon lavender very blah in flower - hardly noticeable). Other plants I would consider including are California fuchsia (Zauschneria californica, aka Epilobium canum), manzanita (Arctostaphylos species), California lilac (Ceanothus), Salvia greggii, S. jamensis and Justicia californica. byw, Rogers Gardens in Corona del Mar is an excellent resource for this type of project. You might also get some very good feedback on your plans in the Californium Gardening forum.