My WH is doing okay but not thriving the way it usually does by now. Only one "daughter" so far and none of them have grown much bigger. However the Fairy Moss (azolla) is going gangbusters!!! I give gallon bags of it away to other ponders in this area and every night I come home and the pond is once again totally covered in it. It is covering my upper little pool, containers in my skippy filter and a couple of tubs I have with water just for the Fairy Moss. I am usually buying more and more all summer because the fish eat it up so fast. This year it is larger and reproduces more quickly than ever. I Love it!! Anne

What about planting the lilies in pots until the Spring, and move the roses then? I uses to have lots of bulbous lilies scattered around my gardens. Most of them were planted in buried pots, to keep any baby bulbs from getting mixed up with those of another color. They mostly did fine, the asiatics having to be dug & divided more than the others, as they produced more baby bulbs. Then a few years ago we got hit with a severe invasion of red lily bugs. I was heartbroken and dug up most of the pots, with the intention of getting rid of them. Two years ago I found that my daughter-in-law's area, about 3 hours drive North of me didn't seem to have the problem yet. I took a few pots up to her on the next visit, but kept some close together in a pot ghetto away from the garden beds. It is easier to check for the bugs and slugs when they are close together rather than scattered, so the problem isn't as bad as it has been. When something blooms, I move it to a spot more visible from the road, as I have started doing with the daylilies that were once my addiction. And hostas that are crowding out the neighborhood. These are in gallon or so pots, rather than the larger tubs I grow many of my clematis and some roses in. With the lilies, I found it is essential to keep the pots filled up to the rim with soil so that thawing snow doesn't have as much chance to get in and rot the bulbs. One nursery I had visited a few years ago tipped their potted lilies on their sides for Winter protection, but I haven't had to do that. You probably would want to unpot the lilies and plant in the ground after you move the roses in the early Spring.

I feel your pain! We had a spell of about 7 weeks without a single drop here. There has been some rain recently, but the ground is so dry that most of it just runs down the street to the storm drains. None of the rains has been long enough to provide moisture below about 2". When you water, it should be enough that it is not necessary to do again for at least 3-4 days afterward. Nearby trees can make it impossible to go longer. Finding this balance is a matter of experience and trial/error. Eventually, you'll be able to know/see when plants are "about to wilt." Mid-day wilt can be misleading. If plants are still wilted at sunrise, you know they are genuinely thirsty. There's virtually zero chance of overwatering in drought conditions, so err on the side of too much, but do it less often. The kind of spray coming out of the sprinkler can be a big factor, too. If there is a lot of mist, much of the water will evaporate, not soak into the ground. Water needs to be applied slowly enough that it does not just flow away to some other area. A slow dribble will provide water much more deeply than a brief deluge of water. Knowing how far to turn the knob on the faucet to achieve this takes practice. (That's where the advice from donnabaskets about the jugs comes from. I just wanted to add that if you put a rock in the jugs, they won't blow away while they're empty.) Keep trying, you'll get it!

sorry i'm so late responding......i only have roses from arbor gate and from antique rose emporium at independence i can't say either have done better than the other i've had only one to die and it was the most recent purchase and looked peaked from the start but it was the only sdlm i've seen in two years so i bought it anyway.... my previous garden was just south of Arbor Gate in Cypress, which is how i got acquainted with AG, about 17 years ago at any rate the soil in that garden was extremely sandy and i mean sand 4 ft down so i used lots and lots of the leaf mulch compost and some worm castings and the arbor gate blend "fertilizer" it was great gardening there except for the massive amounts of 4 o'clocks and trumpet vine and wisteria that already existed when we bought the place i only had roses from arbor gate and antique rose emporium there, i had many more roses and can't say where they came from made a difference there either regarding the two year old leaf mulch, i treat it almost as if it were mulch or any other compost and i've never come across any pieces of wood but i've always bought the finely screened leaf mulch and spreading any amount around the plants would be good i plant only in raised beds, so the entire plant root is in rose soil i do occasionally use medina hasta grow on my plants and i think it causes organic materials in the soil to hold more water as time goes on