I'm so spoiled in the north San Diego area. The weather seems to be in the 70's all the time and that is how I like it. When it goes up to 90 like now I get a little cranky! The garden seems to be enjoying it though. A couple of plants that I didn't get transplanted into bigger pots yet are wilting but the sunflowers are way above my head now.

I love San Diego. Sigh.
I had to dig up a few of my new irises and pot them up and move them to the shade. I will be bummed if they die!

My squash plants bit it, but the tomato and the peppers are doing fine. Eggplants are okay, but not thriving. I'm losing a lot of small avocados. The ground is littered with two inch long shriveled black fruits. Lawns are looking predictably brown too.

I am thankful that I discovered one of the sprinkler systems was malfunctioning two days into this- plants were already pretty badly stressed, but I only lost the annuals and a few acorus. The new baby acanthus came back fine.

I'm miserable, though. I want a house with AC. Doing budget analyses and course updates all day at the computer in 97 degree heat is AWFUL.

Renee

No ac Renee? OMG! No idea how you are coping where you live.
Been 109-112 here every day since past Monday. Only down to 70 at night. So I glad my work has ac, my car has ac and home has ac.
I also had to replace a sprinkler valve last weekend but it was just the small front yard. I haven't noticed anything stressed except my sun fuschia in a pot.
The walls are starting to close in on me I need to get outside so I hope this ends soon, but for my area I hear its at least another 5 days.

No AC for me either, living room thermometer has gone over 85 F a few afternoons, but I'm generally living with 80 inside, 90 out, 70 in my hammock under the pine (where I have spent a few afternoons). I think I need a ceiling fan and to convert a small solid glass window into a transom window if I'm going to be able to avoid getting central air.

Front is hanging in, almost all the perennials are xerics with lots of mulch & pruned back for summer dormancy, the sunflowers are the main annual still going. The crops are a mixed bag, too much fog then scorching moments for the cucurbitae, but the citrus, grapes, peppers and tomatoes are liking this. No irrigation system either, sjust me with a hose, so some plants that don't get priority are struggling.

We've never had AC and that's usually okay, we do just fine with fans...but the occasional spells like this one turn me into a very complaining person and wanting to move....and tired of watering and water bills. I've almost come to hate gardening when it gets like this and I'm vowing to limit the amount I grow and get very selective about it...making choices will be difficult.....

I hate being stuck inside. I went out at 11 last night with a flash light to play with the plants a little. I miss them.

Renee, how about going to the library next time you need to work?

We're in "hunker in the bunker" mode. We have one vastly overworked room air conditioner in the bedroom--and that's where we've pretty much been living. The A/C has been running all day for the past week, with just a couple of hours off in the morning. The worst is that it's not cooling off at night. In the garden, I did manage to get a good layer of mulch down before this struck. Even so, there are a couple of new plantings that are really struggling.
Thanks for your idea about the irises, Renee. I too have newly planted rhizomes that are not really prepared for this. Moving them into the shade sounds like the right thing to do. In terms of the ones that I haven't gotten into the ground yet (iris and daylilies both), is it better to just leave them unplanted, or should I pot them up in a temporary situation in the shade so they don't get too dried out?

K

It's been close to 110 here and with one weenie little window ac unit. The only place it feels cool is right in front of it.

My Crapes love it. They are blooming happily.

My Sycamores also love it since I've been generous and water them deeply every 4 days. They have not yet acquired that bronzy tint every other Sycamore has and are growing literally like weeds. I can't wait for them to be huge and shady. One of them is already quite big but not enough to give significant shade to the yard or the street. My object was to shade part of the street as well to cut down on the heat island effect.

We are used to summers with heat up to 120 degrees. Of course, that is the day the AC breaks, the batteries go dead on the container plants (which you don't realize till they show signs of death), but it's the humidity that is killer!!

When you wake up at 6:00 AM, stroll out to check on things, and it's HOT already, and by 9:00 AM, the pool temp is 92 degrees. Funny thing about that. We discovered if you stand up to your neck in 94 degree water, you start feeling really cold because your body temp is 98.6, so sometimes we drink chilled ice tea while standing in the pool just to cool off.

I am pretty sure I lost a camellia, and I don't know how to save it.
Suzi

Suzi. I covered my camellias with that green shade cloth. I would think you could even use a white sheet or rain umbrella the shade cloth has tiny holes in it so the plant gets some light. Plenty of water of course. Hope yours survives. hose inside the plant as well, stem, trunk, etc.

So cal Edison has posted a flex alert for Tuesday. I'm visiting my son in Orange county where it's not as hot as inland valleys. But warmer than they are used to for sure.

I'm on the coast, so it's not too bad, but I have a HUGE pine tree that is complaining; 2 branches have cracked, and leaked sap on my driveway.Fortunately, not much got on the car. Most of the other plants are faring pretty well with a little extra water.

Normally I'm able to speak calmly about how we do very well with just fans....but when it goes on for this long I start muttering about being sick and tired of everything and vowing to stop gardening and I start pricing property on the coast Of Oregon and Washington. The muttering is reaching a roar lately and I think AC is probably good for one's mental well-being.....

I am, however, contemplating far less gardening as our water bills continue to soar with no end in sight.....

Thanks for the concern, Socks. I need all of the stuff in my office and computer for research, though, so here I sit. I built myself a little pool, so I cool off in it several times a day. Some day, maybe soon, we may build a real roof on this house with an attic and insulation.

Me too, wcgypsy! I mutter about England. Has something to do with my age, I believe...

Kay, I don't know what to do. I have two new ones, one a 2012 Intro, drying out in this heat. I suppose they should be potted up and left in the shade.
Renee

Socks,my little camellia is in a pot, so I brought it in, and cut all the dying brown areas off, leaving only green. It's staying here in AC until this heat wave is over!

Umbrellas are a great idea!

Suzi

Got my unplanted iris and daylilies into some temporary housing--plastic pots filled with some souped up garden soil. And water. Plenty o'water. When I listened carefully, I'm pretty sure I heard them saying, "Thank you. We were getting a little worried!"

Kay

We've been baking in 105+ heat for over a week here in the western San Fernando Valley. We had some Canadian houseguests last week, from Newfoundland and Quebec, and they nearly melted every time they made the hot dash from the AC in the house to the car or the pool.

The garden, with the raised beds and bunnyproof enclosure that we put in this spring, has suffered mightily lately, between the heat and pests. Many of my summer vegetables have died or failed to produce, and I'm just ready to pack it all in for now and get some seeds started for planting out in September. Just frustrating not being able to salvage more of them, I've put up some shade and tried hard to find the right rhythm with watering and feeding them and implementing deterrents to the critters and bugs. Just the other night something ate all the little mustard plants that I started from seed a month or two ago. And I am barely keeping the cabbage worms at bay with BT, hoping to get the tree collards I recently planted to survive them and the heat. Grrr. I felt better after reading my Pat Welsh socal gardening bible last night where she commented that by August many hot inland valley vegetable gardeners admit defeat and focus on starting the fall garden.

I've also been busy with soaker hoses (have not yet replaced or gotten the ancient sprinkler irrigation sorted out at This Old House), watering the fruit trees and the big old trees around our property, also some of the shrubs and flowers and the rose garden. Someone upthread was speaking of irises... I have a patch I fear may have died despite (some) shade and water. I just separated and transplanted them a year ago, and while they grew nice leaves they did not flower this spring. And now they have vanished - leaves and all are just gone. Sigh.

Looking forward to cooler weather...

After 10 days of 109+ was just 105 today.
I'm ready for the cool nights of October thats for sure!!!

Just nasty in central O.C. I was bringing my potted fuschias inside to the fireplace hearth with an evaporative cooler but even so, I still lost about half of them. The roses sulked but this heat fried many little tender plants and the groundcover I tried so hard to establish. What is looking good is crapemyrtles and the hawaiian gingers.
Tropicals looks good in heat as long as the water gets to them. I put up a shade canopy and herded the potted plants in there together. Today seemed bearable so I will probably bring them out again tomorrow.

I spent a couple days with family at the beach. It's even hot there. Many don't have A/C there because most of the time they don't need it.

The rose bushes are doing ok, can't say as much for the actual rose flowers.

Our pet dove normally lives outside in a large cage. We put him in a smaller cage and he's living on the washing machine for now. Probably tired of being "cooped up"--heh heh!

Cooped up on the Maytag sounds like a much better deal than scorching his little birdie feet on the pavement, wouldn't you say?

Kay

PS: Unless, of course, you're trying to do laundry underneath him!

I'm in Oceanside along the coast and we've been too hot here as well,at least for me.We havefans all over the house.I must say my house is doing worse than my plants,as i don't feel like cleaning it,especially vacuuming,and mopping,that sort of thing.I just manage to pick up the house each day then i go sit on the patio with my cross stitch and stitch away.Nice breeze coming off the ocean and across the canyon.

The heat alone wouldn't bother me so much but the Humidity is what pushes me over the edge and it's been in the 70's all week,while the temps are in the 80's.I'm not used to all this.Thought i left that all behind when i left the east coast many years ago.
Kathi

This is just absolutely the worst.....it's never been this bad for this long.....grumble....

I'm definitely weeding out the 'wusses'...plectranthus barbatus in shade doing well, plectranthus ecklonii planted with it in same spot keeps wilting....Off With Their Heads! I'm only keeping the really tough stuff now and those that can't make the grade are being chopped down.
The 'keepers' in some of my beds are the gaura and the completely over-used, very worth over-using Fortnight Lilies.

I'd add lavateras, bouganvillas, and trachelospermum jasminoides to the plecanthrus as winners in dry shade; gaura and dietes are full sun mainstays for me too, along with tagetes lemmonii, leptospermum and the white/purple/black/... native salvias. This is a season that's stress testing the keepers for my yard, for sure.

My Star Jasmines are suffering...the native salvias are getting 'misted' occasionally, but they're suffering also. The tagetes lemmonii is looking pretty ratty, but I did give them water today. My future gardens will definitely reflect the constantly rising water bill which I suspect has more to do with top end salaries than the actual cost of the water or transporting, but that's a subject for another time and place.....
I'm also thinking that a great deal of my gardening in the future will be done in the shade....

The orange tree dropped a couple of fruit. The loquat tree looked a little haggard. I gave all of the trees extra water. We have ac, but I wait as long as possible before I turn it on. It only gets down to 77 at night. I leave the doors and windows open all night and close them when I wake up in the morning. It sure helps. The ac does give me extra water for the vegetable patch. We are only a mile or so from the coast. I see the temp is supposed to drop two degrees each day for the next two days.
Tim

I hate hot weather so much that I know what would happen if I had AC.....I'd have it on the minute it got to 80 degrees and then I'd be using my air when everyone else is and we would have brown-outs or black-outs, so I'm just as well off without it.....and my electric bill doesn't climb....

The water is another issue. I have a lot of large trees and I see how the ash trees by the house are doing well and the outlying trees that have received little supplemental water are dropping leaves. I'm happiest with trees, so most of my water will now go to the trees and I'll let other areas go. I can do that as long as I don't go looking in nurseries or looking at Annie's list......LOL..if you see it, you gotta have it.

Surviving.... but not thriving! Hate these hot temps, can't wait until they're over.

So dry that today I saw a snake slithering out of the birdbath. He would have to have climbed the sword ferns to get in there. I hope he was only there for the water........

After reading all the comments, I really don't have much to complain about either personally or garden-wise. No air conditioning in house or car, but the car causes the most discomfort. And everyone heads for the shady spots.

I think the highest here was low 80s and some plants that normally languish in our cool summer temps have sprung to life. Lots of trimming and pruning to keep the Mediterranean jungle from being too much jungle.

No AC in the car is a tough one....I can remember that and though my Cherokee is reliable with the AC, our Wrangler doesn't always accomodate. Venice without air, however is quite do-able......You're right, I wouldn't complain....lol..we lived there 39 years ago, much has changed, I'm sure, but doubt if the weather has....

After reading the preceding, I have nothing to complain about. We don't have AC, but the highest temperature here in Camarillo during the heat wave was only 85. If I had a whole house fan to take advantage of the overnight lows (our highest minimum temperature was 64 degrees) we'd be set.

Our biggest problem is that our newest addition (born July 14) doesn't care for heat and has been fussy on some of the warmer evenings (the interior of the house has gotten into the low 80's).

Thankfully, I transitioned to a low-water landscape years ago. Anything not edible (or potted) that requires supplemental irrigation is long dead.

Ryan

Today is first day since Aug 3 it didn't get into triple digits! Sure glad I'm not in the desert!

Loving this morning out in Ontario. It was cool and hazy and so far still cool. Such a relief!

Loving today here in Oceanside as well.DH and i washed the kitchen windows today.Glad it cooled off,i couldn't stand looking at those windows another few days.Yesterday was a little cooler also,but today was cooler.I didn't even turn any fans on today,just had all the windows and doors open.

Kathi