For a reddish rain barrel on Amazon, see link below. One of the reviewer described well on how to use a rain-barrel: http://www.amazon.com/Upcycle-Gallon-Terra-Cotta-Rain-Barrel/dp/B005U6EU1Y "Kenneth L. Willitts says: It has three outlets, two of them one at the top and the other at the bottom are for hose connection. The other outlet is at the bottom and is fitted with a spigot, which can be shut or open and also has the ability to be connected to a hose. I keep the very top outlet connected to a soaker hose that goes into my garden, so if there is an overflow, it will go into the garden. I have three of theses and they are very easy to connect to any gutter system. The other important thing to consider and it is a good and bad problem, it has a nice screen on the top to keep dirty and trash out of the tank, but if you have heavy foliage the trash can block the screen, so about one a month, I just brush off the top and that solve that problem. Hope this helps. PS by the way if you were to connect two or more, use the top outlet connected with a standard hose with two female adapters, if you need help let me know. Ken" See below link for a reddish rain-barrel different from Amazon, it's 50 gallon Terra Cotta Snap Lid Rain Barrel, sold for $79.95, free shipping. Here is a link that might be useful: 50 gallon Terra Cotta Snap Lid Rain Barrel This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Mon, Jun 2, 14 at 11:28

My neighbor works for Ball International Nursery. They grew some of Yves Piaget's seeds in a 45% composted pine fines, peat moss, vermiculite, perlite, and gypsum. the pot was 1/2 gallon, but the rose had at least a dozen blooms, very impressive. That's the same way when I bought a gallon-rose from Home Depot. I pulled that rose out, and the soil was coarse pine barks mixed with peat moss, and osmocote fertilizer. There was at least a dozen blooms on that rose bush, way more blooms than leaves. The growing medium has an effect on flowering. The Russian Grower Gerda who posted the most-blooms roses in HMF told me she applied humus. Pine Fines break down into humus, and roses love that stuff. In my garden, there's a poor drainage clay spot, so I put tons of fresh pine mulch... the two roses Firefighter and Romantica Sweet Promise, both gave me 80 to 90 blooms as 1st year gallon-own-root. There's another spot which I fixed clay with peatmoss, thinking that would hold more moisture. However, Sonia Rykiel and Crimson Glory did bad, despite tons of rain, like 5 blooms for 1st year. I dug those up and found the soil was rock-hard like cement. Pine mulch (pH 4.5) works better than peat moss (pH 4) because it's a larger particle, which aerated my heavy clay. Roots need oxygen. Both Sonia Rykiel and Crimson glory were yellowish, due to soil compaction and less oxygen with dense peatmoss glue-up with clay. In contrast, peat moss worked great for Columbus Rose Park in Ohio ... they fixed their sandy soil with peat moss, with tons of blooms on Graham Thomas & others. Here's a horticulture research entitled "Rose-cultivation with coco-soil versus pumice". Here's the result: "As far as flower production was concerned, more flowers were harvested from plants grown on coco-soil than on pumice, independently of the planting density. On the other hand, stem length and weight were the same in rose flowers produced on both substrates. " See link below: Here is a link that might be useful: Comparative study of coco-coil vs. pumice soil This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Mon, Nov 25, 13 at 17:33

Don't have what to do with your garden? Plant some Pumpkins and grow them and compete! like/share/comment http://www.4seasonsmagazine.com/index.php/2016/10/17/gardening-tips-october/

how bad has heat and drought been this summer ... and do you think the previous watering schedule was sufficient??? it doesnt look like it ... that said.. i cant imagine a couple minutes twice a week is good enough for anything ... i would probably give them a long deep drink for fall ... and hope for the best ... and to be clear.. none of that is going to go away .. and you will probably have to go out with some scissors and cut off the uglies .. just an angle cut into green ... not the whole leaf for now .... one trick is to dig a few small holes.. around each plant ... with a hand trowel.. or tablespoon.. and FIND out about moisture at depth ... and then water enough to get moisture down into the root mass .. and once you do.. then you can cut back ... since it is fall ... frankly.. they arent dying.. and they dont look all that bad.. for what was.. im guessing.. a hellish summer ... do get them watered.. clean them up.. and hope for the best ... they dont look like your typical foo foo finicky plants .. but i dont do CA gardening ... welcome to the forums ... ken