woodstea I use that same reasoning, the challenge is to find xeric or drought tolerant plants that will take the wet periods, many have proved to be tolerant, others not. I rarely irrigate anymore but the street is lined with fescue lawns and water sucking plants so its a drop in the bucket on the waste issue. They started fining people for illegal watering here and the lines paying were long. One thing is for sure, we will always have those hot dry summers even if this one isn't. Jaedite, I checked last night and it looks like NM is getting rain in areas, does the mountain, altitude etc play into why you don't get any when Albuquerque does? It looked like Albuquerque is forecasting some chances and even had some nuisance flooding recently. If its raining that close and I wasn't getting any, I think I'd start crying. A couple years ago we were in a kind of doughnut hell-hole where it would rain all around us and we got missed every time all summer long. I keep checking the maps on the drought to see the large scale picture, Texas is getting some relief and so is Colorado. Our lakes are in much better shape than they were but parts of Okla are still in the drought zone in varying degrees, especially the west part. One of the best parts of the drought relief is wantanamara is able to take regular showers again without feeling like a guilty water glutton because her tanks are finally full again.

I'm in zone 5 Nebraska with cold winters (as low as -20) and hot dry summers (late August to September was mostly 90-100+ with no rain). I'm with Kim on the daily, weekly, and monthly temperature extremes of 50 degrees or more. This week, we had 90 degrees in eastern Nebraska while western Nebraska got three feet of snow. Inevitably, the next day was when the tornadoes started sweeping through the area with the crazy weather extremes. The ground is mostly loamy clay and on the alkaline side, so rugosas will grow OK but better with a little supplemental sulfur. As with Lori Elf and Kate, we can grow most classes of roses reasonably well, except for the teas, chinas, and noisettes, and I have a few of each in my warm spot. Some modern and early HTs and floribundas won't survive our winters even with pampering, but there's little way to know this without trying. The rose classes that I recommend as "bullet proof" ones that thrive to new rose growers in our zone include Hybrid musks, polyanthas, modern shrubs (particularly Lim), large flowered climbers, and Austins. I'm sure the gallicas, albas, and centrifolias also do well, but I haven't learned to appreciate the once-bloomers in my yard. We tend to be on the dry side so blackspot isn't as bad as it is out east, but we're not free of it as Diane reports in Idaho. It's not bad enough to slow things down here much. Cynthia

Yes, it is very sandy. I feel good about the run off soaking in far from the home.

That is not allowed in that township. They are diverting the roof and concrete driveway run off but the road run off is bad since this property is a low spot for an adjoining road, 3 neighboring properties and the home across the street. I feel the 'double' catch system should take care of it. The berm along the road will stop a good portion of run off.