Lynn, Cynthia and Luxrosa, I so appreciate your encouraging and also practically informative posts. The support I've received has been so heartwarming, and with all your encouragement, how could I possibly give up? Lynn, I've been really happy with how well my crape myrtles have handled the heat. They look good all the time and the bright green leaves make the garden at least look cooler. Luxrosa, I have the feeling that even though you may not be getting much rain the fogs carry so much moisture that your environment is actually quite different from mine. If I watered my roses in the summer only twice a week many would not survive. I know that's difficult to believe but the strength of the sun here on the side of a hill with so much open area on which nothing is planted is tremendous. My skin begins to hurt and burn in five minutes. Sometimes I'm amazed that the roses can survive at all. Cynthia, I have no plans to ever leave here, especially since I now believe that, for at least the foreseeable future, I'll have at least some roses. Roses are not all created equal, and I'm finding that some are amazingly resilient while others are weak sisters. It's going to be my job to research which are best and to find the most advantageous places to place them. I'm going to move Souvenir du President Carnot to a shadier position tomorrow. Last year it bloomed beautifully and did well in the heat and this year it's had two blooms and is mildewed, in spite of lots of water and mulch. If that doesn't help it will be gone. It's all going to be a learning process, and I'm happy that I won't have to do it alone. Ingrid

riverrat1 - this is one of the few places where people could understand someone having a jam collection! That is one delicious sounding package. I'm pretty sure no one else here would appreciate the tangerine marmalade as much as I would. Or the blackberry jam. So if you would be so kind, just put them back in the box, stuff a little newspaper in there (you know, to keep them from breaking - wouldn't want them bouncing around like bb's in a boxcar, now would we?) and ship them on over here. Oh, and I tasted pickled watermelon rind for the first time this past June asn LOVED it. You can put that one in there too, just to balance out the box. Thanks.

Mine that I have in the house under grow lights seem to hold their leaves pretty well, but the ones I have outside almost never seem to have leaves on them, or not many. They do flower like crazy though. I'm not sure if it's the heat (I'd assume they're subjected to worse where they naturally grow), but they're not in direct sun so that may also be part of it. As the others had mentioned, a picture would help a lot. Check to make sure the caudex (trunk) isn't squishy at all. if it's firm then it's fine and probably just hasn't decided to grow leaves yet.

Thanks, everybody :-) My cat's name is Muesli. We got her as a rescue kitten from a local rescue shelter and she's a very spoilt princess! She's 7yrs old now. (She's also the feline star in my cozy mystery series - well, the fictional version of her anyway!) Lisa - I must tell you, Lady of Shalott can be a bit "strident" when the blooms first open, which clashes a bit in my garden (which is mostly pink, purple & white - probably like yours! ;-) ) - so I like her better once she fades a bit. The blooms do fade to a very beautiful colour - a soft pinky-orange (more orange than Abraham Darby, who is quite pink for me so far) - and the flowers do have a perfect shape, I think. In every other respect, she seems a fantastic rose - constantly blooming (top to bottom) with upright blooms and bushy, even growth (except for the few octopus arms), no disease and doesn't mind heat and blooms don't fry. If it wasn't for that very lurid orange colour when her blooms first open... I'm planning to move her come winter (at the moment she's planted next to Princess Alexandra of Kent in a very narrow bed and aside from the colour clash, they're both growing bigger than I expected!) She keeps throwing out these LOOOOOOONG octopus arms but unlike the ones on Pat Austin which are stiff & angular and look really odd, hers are very graceful & really flexible. I'm sure I could have cut them down and forced laterals but I like leaving the roses to their natural state a bit - I think it gives them "personality" ;-). Plus, I think she'd make a great climber with those long, bendy arms so I'm going to move her to the opposite side of the garden in winter and train her on the wall there next year. ~ HY