Hello, Ingrid! I've been meaning for days to add my bit to this discussion, but during these short days I'm really sleepy in the evenings. This evening I had to take a sick cat ten miles to the vet, and I guess it woke me up. Anyway..... First, I agree with everyone else that you need to keep the roots cool, and a good organic mulch is important for that. And I agree that some way to retain water in the soil is important. I'm blessed with clay: while it's sometimes a mixed blessing, it is marvelously water retentive. I don't know how your soil behaves, but you've heard a lot from people who've had to deal with this problem. I always read with wonder when American forumers curse their trees and the shade they produce. This is not a problem here, believe me. I love trees and shrubs: they cool the air, break the wind, and provide organic matter that enriches the soil. I'm busy planting trees and shrubs and expect them to help my roses a lot. Naturally roses need their sun and root space, but in your situation thoughtfully placed shrubs might be useful. Different trees have different kinds of roots. I loathe elms, which behave exactly as Maurizio describes; but flowering ashes and oaks, for example, are deep-rooted trees that don't go wandering about, and they do quite nicely around gardens. This is perhaps more of an academic question in your situation, but I wonder how much water roses can take without rotting, and I think it may be quite a lot. My sister, a garden designer and lifelong gardener, thinks that they're relatively tolerant of flooding, for example. I have some roses in the middle of an intermittent drainage that has stayed moist since May and has flooded twice, and the roses are thriving. However, I lost some Gallicas that were already doing badly that were in very poor, heavy soil, and I think it was the five straight weeks of rain in late spring that did them in completely. A lot of this is just repeating what others have said, and if my comments have any value it comes from the summer we had this year: no rain and very little irrigation for four months; full sun; strong winds for months on end. Our roses almost all lived, and in fact they didn't even suffer terribly. (They didn't flower much, but I didn't expect them to: we get a good fall flowering if we get some rain in August-September.) My guess is that if we can grow roses in those conditions, you can too. The other thing I wanted to say is this. No matter how much you read and study, and no matter how much excellent advice you get, making a garden is very much a trial-and-error business. That's because no one's conditions are exactly like yours and so no one can tell you exactly what will work. This is the glory and the frustration of gardening. You're in that first stage where you've tried a lot of things and found out that a lot of them haven't worked, though some have been successful. Now you'll try different things and will find some more things that don't work, and some more things that DO. In time you'll become the world's greatest expert on your own garden; and your garden will be beautiful. Melissa

Thanks for all the suggestions. I talked about golf ball size hail, actually that same storm had softball size too, not here, but real close by at the airport. Ruined all of Hertz Rental cars that were parked there. I got brave today and planted a few. Now it looks like we might have another storm tonight...hopefully no hail, just rain and strong winds. I guess the worse that could happen would be that they get broken off and I am assuming they would grown another sprout. I do have some heavy duty rebar stakes. I guess that might protect them some, unless, a tornado would hit us. Oh well, I always love a challenge....I may have to wait a few more days now to try and plant the remainders. I have thought about putting some of them in planters...that way I could at least move them out of harms way if there should be more storms. Is there anyplace in these United States that doesn't have some kind of weather issues? I guess that would be called "paradise". I really appreciate all the good advice you guys give on this forum. Don't know what I would do without you...wish me luck...and some good weather!

Hi Wow you are an ambitious gardener!! I ripped most of mine out yet again ."Lush planting" turned into "Unmanageable jungle" again lol There seem to be only two kinds of tropical plants those that eat the house ,those that croak unless kept in a biosphere. Would love to get rid of all the yard plants and concentrate on the "Hanging gardens" as I LOVE epiphytes and there seem to be at least a dozen that I've not grown or killed lol. Doubt seriously it will ever happen ,when i told the wife that what was needed was a MUCH larger shadehouse she said I need a lot less plants lol. Sad that now that I have the time and ambition to manage a garden my back refuses to do any heavy lifting and climbing . Well I can enjoy the pix of yours !!! Anna I counted pic #12,with the statue right above the red brom. One with the divided green leaves right behind the small palm?? Sure looks like a "Snowflake tree" to me?? Junglegal You say thats an Anthrurium.?? i didn't know there were any with divided leaves?? Anthurium clavigerum??? will have to look that up!! Anna had a whole bunch of Trevesia palmata seedlings that were doing fine until the neghbors cat knocked them off the table!!! They all croacked . These were the fabled "variagated "ones also. Have been unable to locate even small ones except at that nursery we can't name. lol gary

The next 5 days we are supposed to get rain, I cant wait,its still been in the high 90's here,a couple days ago a small town in eastern new mexico hit 111 degrees,the state has been breaking records this past week.I did some new landscaping yesterday and that heat killed me,wore me out.