There's a thread on Mons tiller fries in the sun, see below: "Mine fried after an hour or two in the sun, more so than my other tea roses so it's no longer with me in my hot garden. Clementina Carbonieri did the same thing. A pity, since both are beautiful roses. Ingrid." ***** From Straw: I'm adding own-root Yves Piaget on my rose-order for next year, along with Young Lycidas and Romantica "The McCartney" rose. I researched again on Yves Piaget: the person who grows Yves both as own-root vs. grafted reported wimpiness for both. Someone from PNW (rainy & cool) climate also reported Yves being wimpy. Robert Rippetoe in his Rancho Mirage climate of exreme heat, drought, and alkaline sandy soil .... grows Yves Piaget and uses it in his breeding program ... so it must be very good for him. I figured out what makes Romanticas works: fluffy potting soil for the roots to get big, then transfer to fertile clay. I have Yves Piaget's children bred by Robert Neil, I put gypsum in the pots, and they went beserk with growth. Ingrid in this forum once grew Yves, but it didn't do well in the heat ... she has loose de-composed granite soil high in potassium. That's different from Ingrid in Thousand Oaks, who has clay. According to Wikipedia, high potassium or high nitrogen drives down calcium. The Romanticas have a higher demand for calcium than other roses, they are very sensitive to salt, so saline soil is not suitable. Calcium in gypsum is used to de-salt saline soil. That explains why Mons.Tillier works for Jaspermplants in Arizona, but didn't work for Ingrid with high-potassium soil. Arizona is alkaline clay high in calcium like my Chicagoland clay ... I'm next to a limestone quarry. Calcium is known to firm up tissue of plants, and helps with drought-tolerance, which explains for the success of Romanticas in my limestone clay. Here's an excerpt on calcium from the site http://www.oxyfertil.com/royaume-uni/role-ca-mg-plante.html · increases the plant tissues' resistance and allows for more erect stems · contributes to normal root system development · increases resistance to outside attack Here is a link that might be useful: Does your Mons. Tillier fry in the sun? This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Fri, Jul 12, 13 at 10:58

Unfortunately, we don't have a choice to just stay inside many days. We both have things that need done, so we do them, regardless of weather. In my dreams, though, we lead a life of luxury and lounge in the a/c all summer. LOL Temp is now 102 and heat index is only 111. That's an improvement. I think? We just got a/c in the house last year, partway through the summer, when our then 4 year old got heat exhaustion. It's nothing but a little window unit but it helps keep it under 90 in here most days (and quadruples our electric bill!!). Before that, we just really enjoyed a breeze in the shade when we needed to cool off. LOL Now, if we could just get a/c in our van. We all dread going anywhere in the summer. Blech. Anyway, that's life. It seems most of the US just assumes that everyone has a/c in home and vehicles and have the option to just stay in and stay cool when it gets too hot. Reality is somewhat different for some people. (If any of the above sounds snarky, I sure don't mean it to be. I've been sick and the heat is making less than perky so I'm a bit... brainless at the moment and having trouble wording things. Is it winter yet??) Diane

Dawn, If I really thought you had the power to jinx the weather by your words, I'd figure you also had the ability to shift some of the overabundance of rain down there to where some of y'all are hurting for it... Two nights ago, near hurricane winds here may be only a slight overstatement, but let's just say they were REALLY scary. This accompanied by an hour long torrential downpour. Of course you can imagine what the humidity was the next day. Mosquitos as well. I was sick all day yesterday from the fungus in the air, even though I didn't step a foot outside. DS is complaining about all my "stuff" in the yard and garden he has to weedeat around because I haven't been able to keep up with it. So... It's only approaching July. I am NOT looking forward to July and August. I'm trying to think of weeds as a form of mulch. Barbara

Mari, I've been hoping for the same thing and think it is the humidity streaming up into OK from TX that has brought us the heat advisory (higher humidity = a higher heat index) and the slim chance of rain. Yesterday, Kristine and I were watching the storm on the news and were thinking it'd be nice to be down at the coast watching it rain (not necessarily in the eye of the storm, you know, but from a reasonable distance). This week, I have neglected the house and garden terribly, as we've been helping some friends up the road tear off the old roof and put a new roof on their house AND build a roof over a lovely wooden deck. We've worked outside from roughly 6:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., come inside during the hottest part of the day, and then been back out from about 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The roof is done, so I'm home today and trying to catch up on housework and yard work. I mowed some earlier, but didn't finish. After I cool off a bit, I'm going to run back out and try to finish the acre nearest the house. The flowers and garden are holding their own although the week of 100+ temps. has been hard on them. I think the green beans are "done" and am going to yank them out, put some compost in that bed, and then plant fall tomatoes and a new row of beans there. Celaena, All my outside dogs are short-haired, but I still am careful with them in this heat. We do keep a fan going on them all the times in the barn/garage. My two old longer-haired dogs have "retired" and stay inside almost all the time. The dogs are my "babies" and all are a little spoiled. Mick, Hey, we COULD have a party....there's a fridge in the garage that is full of bottled water, Gatorade, iced tea, juice, bottles of cold Starbucks drinks, juice and beer. How's that for starters????? We spend so much time outside, either working in the yard or at fires, that we make a really serious effort to stay hydrated! (DH has made it his own personal responsibility to see if beer rehydrates a body!) Susan, Our DS tolerates the sun and heat about as well as you do. From the time he was a small child, he clearly had less heat tolerance than just about anyone else. If he gets too hot or dehydrated, he is just sick, sick, sick. So, you know, it makes no sense to me that he chose professional firefighting as a career! (He's good at it, and he loves it, but the fact that he does it in spite of his lack of heat tolerance just amazes me.) Y'all, it is miserably hot here. I need to go back out and mow....but I'd rather be sitting in the shade with a tall glass of iced tea....or a margarita.....in my hand. Dawn