plantingman, ken is not correct about established woody plants never needing to be watered. In times of serious heat and/or drought, it is important to provide your plants with water as it becomes depleted in the soil. Period. The facts do support the fact that plants (even grass) need a lot less water than most people think. I have gone many months without giving anything but my containerized plants a drop of extra water, but never hesitate to get the hoses out when the plants are in trouble. I water the 'woodies' very, very rarely but always in times of duress. I don't have an irrigation system but use a heavy duty walking sprinkler when the plants begin to have a hard time. It puts down quite a bit of water slowly with little to no run-off. It is still important to select plants that are appropriate to one's climate and lifestyle. I'm not sure that I have any plant species that requires babying...even the annuals are pretty darned tough. We planted Wine and Roses in our back yard beds several years ago. Our summers have been very hot and dry...plus I have red clay soil and I've found that these plants are very drought tolerant once established. These plants really weren't babied much at first, either. BUT, that still doesn't mean that you NEVER have to water them. Just make sure that when you do water, that you do so long enough to get water deep into the soil where it can do some good for a long time. 15 minute irrigation cycles just don't cut it. Our watering is always done in the late afternoon/early evening. We set the hose up to where we want the walking lawn tractor to follow, turn on the water, and go back inside where it's cool, lol. "Scooter" (we had to name it) eventually makes it back to the house and we're done for the night. I've never had a disease problem on my plants or lawn by watering in the evening. I have a wide variety of annuals, perennials, woody shrubs and trees. Giving plants that are showing signs of powdery mildew a brief rinse is an excellent method of preventing a serious infection. Choosing plants that are PM resistant is even better. (Spraying water on other diseases is not a good idea, just PM). You have selected some plants that can be disease prone when the conditions are right for those diseases.

I think it should be a regulation to water only during the night/early morning hours. Actually many cities on water rationing already do just that. It irritates me to drive around and see sprinklers spewing in the heat of the day here in La. Most evaporates or is blown away by the wind. That is wasteful. Anything that can't take night watering in my yard gets tossed or just doesn't make it. I even water the St Augustine during the night and it is very disease prone and does just fine. I only water once a week though- mother nature waters at night and doesn't worry about fungus- been doing it for years too!. Watering during the day is just another example of our excessive consumption.

Ah well, from the time we bought the house I wanted this spot for my garden. That's my bedroom window, I wanted to smell the roses when the window is open. My husband neglected to tell my that's the north side of the house! They only get 4 to 6 hours of sun there. They all did ok last fall but this spring the roses in the middle and back half just aren't getting enough sun:( So instead of happily buying all the other roses that I had spent all winter making lists of, I'm finding where I can move all these minis to that will fit in with the plants I've already got in.... I'm majorly bummed about this because then I've got to figure out what to plant in here. I think I'm going to move my azaleas in here and figure out what shade plants that would like it there also and that I'd like it. Thing is I don't have any enthusiasm for it. I hate doing something twice, I sweated buckets last Sept to create this garden rototilling up the clay and amending it and then planting the roses in 100 degree heat and babying them though all that heat. It's just killing me to do this and my mini garden is a total disaster now. All the roses were budded out and so far I haven't lost any. I had 25 bushes in there, those were what I was freaking out on the freeze with. That frosted in the 3 week freeze and the frost built there like snow and never melted. I covered the whole bed with the frost sheets and it worked like a green house. I didn't loose any roses, a couple broke some stems because one of my cats walked on it though. I've still got 10 roses to move. So, I'm open to suggestions what you'd put in there.... Pat, I got the dragon at a nursery, it's really heavy made out of concrete or stone. It'd cost an arm and a leg to ship that. I've seen something similar made out of resin though. Most of what I found in nurseries were alligators. I put a link to one I did find in a catalog that isn't too expensive. This particular catalog has all kinds of dragons. They've got a dragon gazing ball I'd like but it's $125. Can't do that anytime soon. Need too many plants still:) However this lawn dragon similar to mine is only 39.95. Mine cost a little over $100 and was a late birthday/Christmas gift:) If I had found this one first I probably would have gotten it. By the way, the alyssum is spreading nice all around the dragon:) I love calla lillies, I have two dwarf ones. I can't keep the cats from peeing on them and so they don't look very nice, they're a little ragged but they keep blooming:) Thanks for the complements though on the mini bed, not any longer there like that! Here is a link that might be useful: dragon

Sue, Just wanted you to know that a bunch of experts on another forum (where I asked about the ID of the "fuzzy" plant prior to you helping out here) told me that it is definitely not H. cv. Ruthie. It is most likely H. ciliata (another eriostemma). I just wanted to let you (and Shanna) know so that you have the correct label on it. They said that cv. Ruthie is not pubescent ("fuzzy") at all - it's glabrous. Did you get it from a reputable source? Either way, you might want to let this seller (or trader) know. Gabi