Changing to low water plants sounds like a great idea - I have always thought that growing plants where they are happier is smarter than trying to grow roses (or any other plant) where they hate it. Have you looked at the catalogue for High Country Garden? Lots of good ideas.

Jackie

We (DH and I) face the probability that, in our lifetime, we may at the very least lose all of the roses on our hillside. We will keep roses on house level, where we can water them with second-use water, if necessary. At least the Teas and Chinas I favor handle drought better than most.

I've ordered a rose from them, Jackie, but haven't seen their catalog. There is, however, a huge nursery nearby called Waterwise Botanicals which should be a treasure trove of tough plants for our area. I may be visiting there a lot in the future.

Jeri, fortunately your more humid and cooler costal climate does give you an advantage, and hopefully you'll be able to keep a large number of your roses. I can't imagine you without roses! Gray water would never be enough in our situation to keep even the teas and chinas going.

The problem is, Ingrid, we are also far hotter/drier than we have ever been -- and our water supply is far from dependable. Moreover, there is more and more building proposed here, which is NUTS -- when housing needs are already adequate here for years, and out aquifers are threatened.
So, yes, we do worry.

I believe there should be a complete moratorium on building housing tracts in drought-threatened areas. Let's not even talk about fracking....

I think they will be making seawater Into fresh water before long if more years go by without rain. I have given up most of the flowers between my roses and replaced with only mulch. Big rocks and flagstones over the mulch help to cool the roots and hold water in. Has anyone tried growing roses under a light shade cloth in summer? I put a beach umbrella up to shade some of mine from 12 to 2 last year to give the potted roses a break.

Personally I think that this state needs to rethink some policies. It seems those who are aware and work to save water find that it often seems we are saving so others can waste. As an example, communities and home owners associations that require front yard lawns should only be allowed to if they have magic water that falls only on them and does not take from our state or other states water supply. I also think encouraging home owners to try and allow as little rain water to run off their property and instead to sink in to their yards to help recharge ground water is important. And last I think gray water use needs to be encouraged

The local rose society is having a gray water use speaker for March's meeting if anyone is interested

In the lower garden where I am adding the new roses from Kim, most are going where the water used on them is also in the drip zone of they fruit trees as they mature. They are also where there is some shade. I spent part of today creating a couple of new terraces that I hope will help with capturing rain water and keeping where it can soak in and not run off

Thanks Kippy for talking about homeowner associations. I am in one. When I moved in, I was told there were about three different CCR's for homeowner associations throughout the state. When I read mine (yes, I actually did read the thing), it stated it required lawn (grass) in the front yard. Well, I tore mine out about three to four years ago. I have ornimental grasses if anyone wants to get particular about it. So I technically meet the guidelines. My yard was one of five this year awarded in the central valley for water saving features and a sustainable landscape. I am on drip as well, and yes, I do have roses!

What gets me is that we have been on water restrictions for the past several years. I am fine with that. We ship a lot of our water to southern california. I am only allowed to water twice a week from April to December. Then only once a week. I have restrictions on the times I can water as well. Again, I don't mind. I want water to drink and the farmers in my area have it worse than I. Although they use the most water in the state, many of them have been on restricted water to no water for the past several years.

When I speak with my folks and family who live in Southern California about their water restrictions, for the areas where they live, they have NONE! What?????? I am restricting what water I can use so you can waste it? My Mom tells me that they are "thinking about it." When I go down there to visit and see nothing but dead lawns here and nothing but green lawns there, I get rather upset.

Drought is nothing new to California. Long droughts are nothing new. Several have lasted 10--20 years and some over 100 years. Of course, now we have a few more folks living here and many more farms here than in the past. We need to be much better at collecting rain when it comes and storage of water than we are now. We also are at the end of cheap water for CA. It is bound to get much more expensive in the future which will drive up the cost of our food since we feed lots of folks with what we grow. I see farmers pulling out row crops and putting in almonds and other crops that take up less water.

Most of our water is drawn from aqueducts that originate in the transverse mountain ranges. No snow there diminishes the aqueducts. Mind -- it's not GOOD water, but it's what we have for drinking, landscaping and a big agricultural industry. And yes, the oil companies ARE pumping contaminated water back down into the aqueducts. (At the very least, that has to stop.)
Every city in the county is entertaining big new housing projects. That nuts.
Our property starts at street level, and drops down the hillside. We have zero runoff. If it falls on us, it stays here, and sinks in. But there is commonly water running down our Lane, from over irrigation of lawns, and whatever they are doing with swimming pools. That's beyond nuts.
Kippy -- I might just come up for that greywater program! THAT would shock folks, because we rarely go now -- but that's something that might draw me.

Jeri and any others interested here is the info

March 12th, 2015 - Thursday Santa Barbara Rose Society March Meeting, 7:00 pm refreshments, 7:30 pm program:
Barbara Wishingrad from Sweetwater Collaborative, will speak on graywater for gardens
Louise Lowry Davis Center, Victoria and de la Vina, Santa Barbara

We're definitely interested!
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.pdf
BTW -- There is apparently still some thought of a late El Nino effect.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.pdf

That's all true -- but agriculture, particularly here where I live, is important. It's our biggest industry, and employes a LOT of our people here. Beside that, I LIKE locally-grown produce!

I would frankly prefer that the orange orchards and strawberry fields have water than that it be used on sweeping lawns. So, I am quite willing to carry water to pour on my front-yard roses. My great-great grandmother did it, and I can do it, too.

And aside from that willingness, there is the unfortunate fact that even if we wanted to say ". . . Damnitall! We'll use all the water we want!" (and we have neighbors who do) we wouldn't be able to afford it. Because as water becomes scarcer -- the cost is going to skyrocket.

And I'm still very very glad that no water runs off our property.

odinthor, you have a very valid point, and I'm sure a lot more water is needed because they use chemicals to fertilize which has to have the salt content flushed out (I hope I'm right about this). Since the commercial agriculture lobby is a very powerful one, I'm cynical about whether anyone would give a darn about how many people protested to their politicians, who no doubt are being courted and, let us say, treated very nicely, to allow agribusiness to do darn well what it pleases. The power of the people often does not count in a capitalist society where money trumps all. Just think of the Koch brothers with their hands deep in the political pie, and the influence they wield. I no longer believe that we as individuals have much say in anything. Nevertheless, I continue to sign every petition that comes up in my e-mail, and I get dozens, that has to do with the environment, domestic animal welfare (usually the lack of), saving rhinos, tigers, butterflies, bats and even innocent people who are incarcerated. Hope springs eternal and if I can aid any cause or have any influence on something worthwhile, I'll do it. Influencing big business, however, has not been shown to be terribly successful in most cases.

We have restrictions here now and still most people have a lawn they don't use. I am fine with lawns for those who have pets and kids but people who don't actually use a lawn or a shopping center or corporate park that just wants the ground covered .....I wish they would plant something else and let farmers have that water instead.

Me, too Kitty!

From Reimagining the California Lawn: Water-conserving Plants, Practices and Design by Bornstein, Fross, and O'Brien, 2011, page 2: "One of the top industries in California is agriculture, and it utilizes the principal share of the state's water resources and infrastructure. Up to 80% of the state's developed water goes to farmers, with the rest directed to urban and suburban consumption, along with a small amount diverted for the conservation of native fauna and flora. As much as 70% of the water flowing to California's cities and suburbs is used to support our gardens and other outdoor features, such as hot tubs and swimming pools. The typical suburban lawn in California consumes approximately 50% of this water, or about 45,000 gallons per year for a modest-sized front and backyard suburban lawn. Official lawn census data is not available, but it is estimated that up to 300,000 acres of California are covered in residential lawn. Collectively, lawns are irrigated with as much as 1.5 million acre-feet of water per year; this amount equals the household water demands of 3 million suburban homes. Considered another way, California's residential lawns take up the entire annual flow of the Owens and Kern rivers. California is the only mediterranean-climate region of the world in which lawns are the landscape norm, from expansive estates to modest suburban homes. The typical California lawn has become an extravagance, and it clearly cannot be sustained on the scale of its current expression." There is plenty of additional information in this book, including a discussion of the environmental pollutants due to lawn care.

Tessie, I also feel that lawns look ridiculous superimposed on a desert environment. We are not living in England. Countless children have survived and thrived in a lawnless environment so they'll adapt. Many lawns are out front anyway, and are totally useless for recreation. The chemical pollution from maintaining them is another very negative factor. When we moved to our present home we ripped out five separate areas of lawn that the previous owners had put in not too long before they sold the house. I must say the rabbits appreciated the grass, but countless other creatures appreciate our varied garden habitat now, not the least of which is we!

Thanks, Tessiess! Those who read the above too quickly need to stop and consider the matter. 80% of the water goes to agriculture. This leaves 20% for all other uses. Among these "all other uses," one portion represents the water usage of homeowners. The 70% mentioned, then, is not 70% of the total water; the 70% is 70% of that small portion representing the water usage of homeowners.

Are everyone's eyes glazed over yet? Yes, that's part of the problem: Getting at an understanding of the situation means sifting through a lot of not particularly exciting numbers. But if a person makes a pie chart of total water usage and then indicates that wedge of the pie which represents residential water usage, and then subdivides that wedge to show wastage in residential water usage, and thus potential water savings, it will be seen how extraordinarily insignificant this amount is. Meantime, to achieve this insignificant goal, people will have made major changes in their lives, will have been subject to fines, neighbors will be set to spying on neighbors, and--worst of all, in my opinion--the common man will have been misled and manipulated while the significant users and abusers of water will have proceeded on with business as usual. People should be aflame with indignation.

Some feel that the general populace can have no effect on things. No one who lived through the inception of Proposition 13 could have that feeling. The people rose up, and essentially poked government and hardened politicos and cynical special interests in the eye. If folks would stop allowing themselves to be manipulated, would stop allowing themselves to be distracted from the real issues, would let their representatives and their neighbors know their feelings in an unequivocal way, the immense power they showed in passing Proposition 13 could be harnessed again.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make Odinthor. Is it that because one segment of the community wastes water (and more of it) that another segment should have the right to waste as much as it pleases?

Here is another excerpt from Reimagining the California Lawn, page 2: "To what extent is our love affair with the lawn sustainable, if at all? The resources necessary to maintain a luxuriant carpet of turfgrass--especially in a private residential setting--have received increasing scrutiny in recent years. The recognition of resource limits and a concern about toxic lawn-care chemicals have helped spawn an 'anti-lawn' movement. Critics who describe lawns as 'unnatural' or a 'wasteful luxury' point out that American lawns are treated with more pesticides and herbicides per acre than any other crop grown in the country. This trend was recognized as early as 1962 with the publication of Rachel Carson's historic work, Silent Spring. She called attention to the indiscriminate us of pesticides in our front yards with the observation, 'One may get a jar-type attachment for the garden hose, for example, by which such extremely dangerous chemicals as chlordane or dieldrin are applied as one waters the lawn.' Although these specific pesticides are no longer available, others have taken their place, and additional chemicals, including herbicides and synthetic fertilizers, are regularly applied to lawns. Some chemical manufacturers suggest up to five applications of their product a year to achieve a healthy, visually satisfactory lawn. Many of these chemicals do not remain stationary and cycle freely into the surrounding environment. In his book, American Green (2006), Ted Steinberg suggests that the lawn is 'a nationwide chemical experiment with homeowners as the guinea pigs.' "

My point is that the goal is to significantly conserve water; but, rather than to put pressure on those whose wastage of it is significant, the pressure is being put solely on those whose wastage of it is insignificant. The effect that these measures have on the ones whose usage/wastage is insignificant is hugely disproportionate to its value, and is indeed unjustly punitive, while meantime the real abusers get away scot-free. Flushing your toilet only once a day or taking a shower only once a week might make a person feel good about being ecologically engaged; but it's just a meaningless and insignificant sop which distracts attention from reforming the ways of the real abusers of water.

For those who want specifics, here is the response I wrote to an article published several weeks ago by the L.A. Times, an article focusing on water usage in L.A. County:

While the article's title is accurate vis-à-vis the facts
presented, the information is misleading because the water problem is a
statewide one--L.A.'s water sources are principally non-L.A., and, because the
state water sources are statewide (and beyond), they are impacted by statewide
use, not just L.A. use. Yes, just in
L.A., the principal use of water is by single-family households; but this
approaches insignificance when you consider that, statewide, approximately 50%
of the total water used in the state is for environmental uses, 40% of the
total water used is consumed by Agriculture (these figures are given in this
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California). The remaining 10% is for "all other
uses." It is patently unfair that
the residential water user is made the whipping boy during droughts when all
the reasonable savings a committed homeowner could conceivably make would make
no effective difference in relieving the drought. Using figures supplied by the EPA for the nation
as a whole, I've been checking some other figures. The "average household" uses (not
wastes, but uses) 320 gallons of water a day, which is 116,800 gallons per year
(in a 365 day year). They specify that 30% of this represents the household's
"outdoor uses." The late
Sunset Blvd. incident wasted approximately 20 million gallons. That would have
been full water usage by one average household for over 171 years. And yet the water department officials scoff
at the significance of this incident (while still scolding residential water
users about their habits). Considering
outdoor usage by the average household (the 30% mentioned above), the EPA says
"as much as" 50% of this is wasted. That would be 48 gallons a day of
wastage by the average household, which, in a year, would be 17,520. Let's say
that our average householder managed not to waste that 17,520. That's very
nice; but it would take over 1141 householders saving that amount to equal what
was wasted in the Sunset Blvd. incident. To put it another way, the Sunset
Blvd. incident wasted a whole year of strenuous efforts at conservation by over
1141 households. The EPA also supplies
a pie chart, dated 2005, of "freshwater withdrawals." Here are the
percentages of water usage, in descending order:

Thermoelectric power, 41.5%

Irrigation, 37%

Domestic, 8.5%

"Other Publicly Supplied Users," 5.4%

Industrial, 5%

Aquaculture, 2.6%

(They note that mining and livestock account for
1%, which I suppose is part of the Industrial category.) Look at the above, and note that the top two
line-items, Thermoelectric Power and Irrigation, account for no less than 76.5%
of water usage. Even if one would say that the water used by Thermoelectric
Power is then still available afterwards for other uses and so eliminate that
category, Domestic (household) use still trails far behind the
"final" (i.e., not available for other uses afterwards) usages for
combined Irrigation, "Other," Industrial, and Aquaculture. And yet, it is us, "Domestic," with
our little 8.5%, which is made the whipping boy during a drought. The Times article about L.A. water use
perpetuates a false and unfair perception.
Please publish an article presenting a full and more accurate
picture. Thank you.

But agriculture/farmers have been hit very hard with water cutbacks. That is reality. They are making painful cuts in what crops they can grow with limited water. The farmers were first to have to sacrifice. Which seems reasonable considering how much water they use (and some of their crops are/were quite ridiculous choices for many parts of California--think *rice* for one). It is only fair that everyone shares in the sacrifice and behaving responsibly. So I disagree that "pressure is being put solely on those whose wastage of it is insignificant." A single homeowner's usage may be the proverbial drop in the bucket, but taken as a group the water usage of homeowners is very significant. And changing habits is important. I would also not take it to an extreme example by saying individuals only take a shower once per week and only flush the toilet once a day. That is not what is being asked of homeowners. Rather it is to be reasonable and responsible in water use. Don't landscape one's whole yard with water thirsty plants, don't water to the point the water is substantially running down the street on a regular basis. Everyone should do his or her part in using a scarce resource.

Yes, that's it Tessie. I wouldn't ask anyone to shower only weekly, or not flush the toilet.

I have, however, a serious problem with my neighbors who water un-used lawns until the water flows down our Lane in a generous stream.

I have no problem with water used to irrigate citrus trees and fields of vegetables. Remember -- If we don't GROW food, we won't have food to EAT.

I have a problem with water-thirsty crops, such as rice.

But I have an equal-or-greater problem with the acres and acres and acres of thirsty grass lawns, surrounding light industrial buildings -- many of which are untenanted. And THOSE acres of grass are treated regularly with chemicals and are often soaked until the water runs off, down the gutters, to the sea, carrying those chemicals with it.

And, at the very least, we can eat rice, as we can eat oranges, avocados, strawberries, celery, broccoli, and corn (all of which are grown here). We can't eat lawn.

Farmers are being forced to make economic choices. Homeowners, with their comparatively tiny usage, even all together in gross, are not given that privilege. Homeowners' total usage--not wasted usage, but total usage--is only 8.5%. What of that do you call wastage? Let's say 4%. 4% is insignificant by anyone's definition of significance, and the pain disproportionate. I completely agree, "Don't landscape one's whole yard with water thirsty plants, don't water to the point the water is substantially running down the street on a regular basis" (I'd say on any basis at all!). But there has to be an understanding that the strictures on homeowners, the fines, the effort--all are inequitable and unjust considering the impact homeowners could have. You are looking at it in a moral way ("Everyone should do his or her part..."), a view with which I am certainly in much sympathy; but when fellow citizens are being treated inequitably, it is time to set aside moral abstractions and get down to brass tacks.

Getting back to a more personal level(though thanks a lot Odinthor and others for your ideas) Last year when I was worried that our pond wouldn't fill I did a lot of thinking about the garden. I bought Beth Chatto's book about her drought tolerant garden. I prepared myself for change. I didn't want to lose my garden. I found that I was willing to let some things go. I adjusted my attitude. I'm thinking of one area of the garden that is quite beautiful and almost needing no water. I planted succulents, Cistus, and Bottle Brush. In another area my Hybrid Chinas asked for very little. Fortunately last year and this year now too the pond is full and I will be able to keep my roses alive.