Wild Edric in the front garden

The second bush of Wild Edric in the back; both have bounced back well

Gruss an Aachen showing new growth

A low bush of White Meidiland which had many buds but the rabbits left only these.

Le Vesuve has buds and flowers now near the top

Two bushes of Grewia occidentalis growing ever larger.

Ingrid, I'm so glad you have some good news to share. Also, I may have said this before, but have you thought of cistus? I don't know whether rabbits would like them though, as the rabbits in my garden never ventured as close to the house as the cistus are planted. They will cope with very little water. I have 2 white ones, one is prostrate, and about knee high, and the other grows to around 6'. And I have a pale, silvery pink one I love, which grows to about 4'.

On a different topic, but one relevant to you, I recently bought some roses from a different nursery than I usually buy from. They came with planting instructions, which advised using a plastic sheet below the roses, if planting on rocky or sandy ground. The notes also said to put newspaper under the roses, and below that put any manure and/or compost. If using the plastic, have a layer of your 'soil' below this, and then the plastic. This may be a good idea for anything you plant.

This make me so happy. One would never know the ravages they've been through. I got white Meidiland as a bbag from Menard's it's still in a pot, but I like it when it blooms. How is it for you?

Everything is looking lovely in your photos. I find it amazing sometimes how roses can bide their time and then just start going again when things are better. Thanks for sharing.

Wow, the roses and garden look wonderful. One would never know how hot it has been from your pictures...

The birdbath is a delightful oasis in the garden...

I must admit that I trained the camera away from the not-so-good parts in the garden, of which there are plenty, but I'm still grateful for the nice bits.

Trish, the cistus I've seen in my neighborhood are dying. It may be that they're not being watered, but in our climate they only bloom for a short time.

I'm trying to understand the plastic method. Is that so that any water and good soil will stay near the roots and not run off into the soil around it? It's actually a very interesting idea.

vaporvac, White Meidiland is a very satisfactory rose. It has fairly thick petals and leaves which makes it a good rose for hot climates. Mine gets morning shade and afternoon sun which is not optimal, and it's getting more and more shade because of bushes and trees nearby, but it still seems to do fine.

Absolutely beautiful, Ingrid. So happy to see your onward and upward journey continues. What else can you do? Your garden looks lovely. I'm growing some Limonium Purezii in pots since they aren't hardy here. I think your tall Tea roses idea is great, so the rabbits don't get to eat the whole plant.

Thank you, Sheila. I'm slowly learning to adapt to this new challenge and refuse to give up my beloved roses. Once I've planted companion plants that the rabbits don't like to replace my beautiful irises I hope the situation at ground level will also improve. Growing Limonium in pots is a great idea and I think they would look wonderful grown that way.

Ingrid, I'm glad that at last there is some joy in your garden. Golly, we sure need this to pull us through the bad times.

At the worst of our earlier heatwave, we actually hit 117 here at the coast. Every rose turned to potpourri. The only GOOD news was that we don't have rabbit here. (Just squirrels and coyotes!)

You're a brave lady. I salute you!

The local news said that there were places in town the temps got up to 120. My garden looks rather depressing in places, the roses need dead heading but I am going to leave them as is until next weekend, more heat is called for this week. I have a bunny who is visiting too, but so far it seems to prefer the kale I grow for the hens, maybe that would be a good companion plant for you to try in the fall? The thick leaves seem to not be bothered by the heat and the plants survive for years with just leaves being removed. I can cut them back when getting too leggy as well.....and I hear some people actually eat the stuff

Jeri, you are such a gracious lady. I'm amazed that your temperatures were higher than ours inland. Any conventional logic regarding the weather and climate as a whole is completely out the window. Heat waves near the Arctic Circle and northern Siberia is not something we thought we would ever hear about, not to mention Sweden.

Kippy, I'm so glad you're posting here again; I've missed you. One bunny is not a problem, as long as he doesn't invite his friends. We have at least ten regular visitors but there have been more, especially since I think we are the only people nearby who supply water for the wild creatures. I refuse to not help these guys in their time of need, no matter what. They were here first, and I want our property to be a haven for any bird or animal who comes to visit. These are not normal times, since they left my plants alone for 13 years and now they have no other choice.

Ingrid, I'm surprised to hear that about the cistus, though it could be variety, as my prostrate one only flowers briefly, the tall white one never has a full flush, but spot flowers almost all the time, but the pink one is rarely without a few flowers, and has wonderful flushes too.

As for the plastic - yes, it's to hold the water and nutrients close to the roots. So the layering is rose with soil. newspaper, manures and/or compost, newspaper, soil, plastic sheeting.

Ingrid, it’s a pleasure to see your garden coming back. You do indeed still have some very lovely blooms. I hope your new companion plants do well, and that your friends find them unpalatable. The temps are about to rise again, but hopefully nothing like the last time. Your Wild Edric’s are looking especially good, and I’m very impressed with the one you gave me. It couldn’t have put down its roots very deeply in such a short amount of time, yet it’s doing quite well in the heat. Wild Edric’s blooms are lasting far longer than some more recent DA introductions that have been in the ground for several years.

The wildlife is part of what makes your garden so special, and I know they bring you much pleasure,(as well as some pain.) I’m sure by trial and error you will again have companion plants with your roses. Your garden always looks great to me. Lisa

Your garden looks good considering those conditions Ingrid. Roses are tough.

Heat, smoke and wildfire here in the south Okanagan as well, though not the extreme heat you have in California. I really cannot imagine enduring 115 F. I almost melt at 95.

We did get over 100 F for a couple of days last week, have had a couple of cooler ones just now, down to the mid 80s, but on their way back up over the next week. Possible thunder storms with dry lightning possible this evening. Fingers crossed that it doesn't come to pass. The whole south Okanagan is tinder dry. Fortunately we have the big lakes in the Valley for water close by to fill fire suppression aircraft and for cooling off at the beach.

Lovely roses! And I agree that you are indeed brave. I'm ashamed to be in despair over 92 F temperatures when I learn what you have to suffer and without rain as well.

The BBC homepage published terrible photos of the drought in Britain, the green and pleasant lawns in Windsor park and others parks are scorched a dull beige.

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear about your garden, Ingrid! That must have been so frustrating and heart-breaking. But I'm pleased to hear that the roses are bouncing back. I must say - like the others said - your photos look fantastic and one would never know that your garden was suffering. I hope things will continue to improve for you.

That was interesting about the plastic sheet. I wonder - have you considered adding clay? I've been spending a lot of time in the last few months slowly incorporating a clay product into my garden beds. It contains kaolin clay and supposedly permanently changes the soil structure, so that there isn't that terrible run-off that you get on sandy soils. I've been amending with lots of compost & manure, but in sandy soils, the organic matter just leaches through really quickly (so you have to continually replace it at a crazy rate) and it also gets hydrophobic - so apparently, adding clay is the permanent solution.

It's really hard work as I'm doing it all by hand so I'm going slowly and doing a small patch at a time. It's also not cheap! But it's supposed to be a one-off expense that will make a big difference. I guess I'll find out next summer (Jan/Feb for me) if all the effort was worth it - and see if I notice a difference to my water bill! ;-)

I don't know if that would be viable in a garden as big as yours but maybe you could do a small circle around the base of each bush. Apparently, you only need to mix the clay into the top 10cm of the soil anyway. I HAVE noticed that in the areas I've mixed this product in, when I water afterwards, the water does absorb rapidly, instead of pooling and running off like it normally does.

Anyway, in case you're interested, this is the product I'm using (don't know if they have something similar in the US):

https://www.soilsolver.com.au/

HY

Thank you all for your nice comments. I've been and still am not feeling well and so haven't been on the forum. titian, I'm going to try your method when I receive three new roses in September. I've also ordered something you add to the water that helps it to penetrate the soil more deeply which should help. Lisa, I'm glad your Wild Edric is doing well in the heat. Last night I ventured out for a moment and all the blooms on mine were burned, but yesterday was really hot and dry.

HY, the clay soil application sounds very interesting and I appreciate your mentioning it, but neither my husband nor I have the energy to make this work. Hopefully the plastic method for the new roses and the surfactant agent I've ordered for the others will help enough to keep the garden going. With a long and very hot summer to get through my garden needs all the help it can get.

Sheilah, for such a small rose bearing such large flowers I don't think Jesse is bad at all in the first two pictures of him in the heat. When you get to 100 degrees I wouldn't expect anything else for a young rose. You might want to disbud him when temperatures are high, and it might not be a bad idea to do that until the cooler fall weather begins to encourage this rose to grow rather than bloom, so that by next year it will be much better able to cope with the heat. The other two tea roses you show look really good considering the heat. You seem to be doing everything right!

I will follow your advice Ingrid. The first two good Jesse photos are mid May 2018 and the bad photos are now. It reminded me of your Westside Tea rose story.

Sheila, LOTS of my roses look like that. I’m just currently hiding them from the camera’s view:) I’m taking VERY careful pictures. Sheila and Ingrid, your certainly NOT alone. I’m have more awful and fried looking roses, than not. Both of you still have some gorgeous blooms despite this ferocious heat.

Ingrid, did you manage to get your salvias and the echium planted before this heat hit us? Have the bunnies left them alone, so far? I’m curious about which salvias you chose. I have had a few from Annie’s myself. I’m really liking my latest acquisitions, Salvia farinacea ‘Henry Duelberg’. They were just planted in May, but seem to be very heat tolerant. I’m just curious about your choices, and how they are doing:) I’m going to look up the echium, as I’m unfamiliar. Lisa

Thank you Lisa. I love your photos.

I was away for a few days and what a joy to see that your roses and garden are turning around, Ingrid! I join others in praising you for your courage. You have my admiration for raising these gorgeous roses against all odds (climate, critters, name it) while also doing everything to live in harmony with the surrounding nature.

IMO, dis-budding in extreme heat is an excellent idea for even mature roses, let alone the young'uns.Heat is just so stressful for plants as well as people,so dis-budding helps the plant to take it easy during the bad weather. and the flowers of most roses just don't look good anyway in the heat. What's more, when it's so ugly outside anyway, I don't even much want to LOOK outside, let alone GO there,lol, so it's not like I'd be enjoying the flowers in any case!

Lisa, I planted Echium gentianoides 'Tajinaste' which I swear is made out of sandpaper, because that's how the leaves feel. It is doing fine, but its neighbor, Penstemon 'Blue Springs' seems to be biting the dust in the heat. I'm not sure whether it's even still alive. My two Salvia 'Henry Duelburg' are sitting on the bench in their small pots because I was afraid they would not fare well in the ground this time of the year. It's a good thing that yours had cooler weather in which to get acclimated.

vesfl, I'm touched by your very kind comment. Thanks so much. It's really just that we think of our outside critters as an extension of our family, and of course the children must be fed and given something to drink.

bart, I second every one of your thoughts. I've been out only briefly in the near-dark in the past few days, and that's actually the only time the garden looked good. I try to even avoid looking out the window during the day because the view is so much less than edifying.

Here is a picture my husband took of the ground squirrels. How could anyone resist?

I imagine your beautiful garden is like a much-needed oasis to these little creatures, and you are a very generous soul to care for them so kindly! It’s quite heart-warming! :-)

Perma, it's easy for us to care about them. My husband rescued a tiny baby mouse, and through more years than one would expect she taught us that the smallest animal is capable of big feelings. In her last week of life she wanted nothing more than to be in my husband's hand, and she drew her last breath there. Sammie, the baby ground squirrel, limped toward my husband one evening, alone and motherless. She stayed with us until she told us she needed to be outside, and she has been on our property for at least six years, allowing us to get closer to her than any other ground squirrel ever has. The ground squirrels above are only a few yards from our kitchen window, living out their little lives in this hot and dry summer near us because they know they have food and water here. It is a privilege to share our lives with them.