SO glad you are getting rain, Melissa! We are too - we have had 2 storms in the last 7 days, and another one is supposed to come in tomorrow. Total rain from them so far is about 2 inches, and I am looking forward to more. This rain every 2 or 3 days is our old NORMAL pattern for 3-4 months in the winter, so I am hoping that is getting re-established. Meanwhile, I will take anything that shows up. It is getting into the freezing range most nights now, so I am happy the garden is getting well watered. It has hunkered down - just like a real winter!

Your planting of hedges and trees sounds amazing - makes me tired just to hear about it, but of course good for you! I am sure we would all love to see more photos, when your DD comes to visit, maybe she can take some.

Jackie

Yay! So glad you're getting rain. It stresses me out when we have just a month or two of less than normal rainfall here. Right now, we're having a bit of monsoon weather, but I shall NOT complain (much).

I'd have already given up if I were gardening in your conditions, Melissa. And my heart goes out to our California friends, too. So it's a joy to hear that your garden is getting "manna" from Heaven.

P.S. I'm almost as glad just see you posting again, lol.

I know just how you feel. I know just how precious that rain is.

Melissa, so wonderful to hear of the rain! I agree that amending terrible "soil" is essential. I have had a Tea rose essentially cook in a baked hot area and it is so sad to see that. I am really pulling for you and agree photos from your daughter or sister will always be welcome.

So happy for you, Melissa, and everyone who is benefiting from that lovely moisture, plants and insects and animals too. I enjoy reading about your general garden schemes, and not just roses, as it all works together to create a harmonious and beneficial whole. Roses by themselves, unless they're large and glorious tea rose bushes, are never very satisfying. (Well, right now to me they would be, but that's another story.)

Jackie, John, Jeri, Sheila, Ingrid, good to hear from you all. Ingrid, especially you, as you'd been absent for a while. I love fall, love it love it love it. Summer gets longer all the time while winter disappears, but for now it's chilly and actually even--dare I say it?--wet. The stream in the bottom of the valley is roaring, first time in a long, long time.

I took a stroll around the garden yesterday afternoon, and I must say that when dripping with water under a December foggy gray sky, it's ugly. Nothing to admire. But the plants got watered, and I hope they'll conquer their conditions and live. With all the work that remains to be done, still, there's a garden there. Trees, shrubs, subshrubs; paths, clearings. It's on its way.

We had a serious (winds in the 50s MPH every once and a while), WET (flooded highways, etc) rainstorm today - started about 6AM, and it is still raining now at 3:30PM. I LOVE it! No complaints whatever. I went to a meeting this morning, was able to park within 15 feet of the front entryway of the hotel where the meeting was, and had trouble getting from my car to the door, because of the driving rain and wind. These conditions used to be normal here in the Wintertime - I remember them, and am looking forward to getting used to them again.

Jackie

The other night it was 48 degrees F and that low a temperature has not happened here in years. I think the rain Jackie mentions might be making its way down here by tomorrow, and it is a godsend in this so far terribly dry year. The rain then apparently will head east and will turn into tons of snow in the colder states, which is rather too early in the winter. I hope everyone will stay safe and warm.

Wonderful for you Californians: I love wind and rain. Ingrid, that's an awfully warm low.

Really nice post, bart; for my part, thanks! I'm glad you've been getting rain at last. It is wonderful.

DD and I took a short walk today before she returned to Milan, and it snowed. Hurray, fall!

bart, that was a lovely comment on Melissa's post and I couldn't agree more. So glad, bart, that you had some badly needed rain. It makes all the difference in the garden and definitely in one's mood. We've also had a nice rain today that I hope will help out my baby roses

Melissa, what I meant was that 48 degrees night-time temperatures have been unusually cold since here with global warming they've been more in the range of middle and high fifties over the last few years.

We have been in the 30s at night for several nights, and last night it actually froze - frost on the cars, etc. when I just went out to get the paper. I know it sounds odd, but that has not happened here for several years. It was the headline on page one of the paper - "COVER YOUR PLANTS"!

Jackie

More snow here, and cold by our wimpy standards: temperatures mainly in the thirties for a few days, then warming. Hey, my plants are getting watered.

Ingrid, I meant that, if 48F is cold for your area, and in December, you must be living through the year with quite high temperatures by the standards of human, plant, and animal comfort and safety.

Melissa, strangely enough and thankfully, the temperature range here has been much less drastic than in many parts of the US which may be due to a moderate but still significant ocean influence (we're about 20 miles inland). When Portland, Oregon was hitting temps of 115 we were in the high nineties. Nothing is predictable now and next year may be completely different, but for the moment I'm grateful for these mercies.

Melissa, I enjoy reading your posts. Your writing style is like reading a good book. The heavy rains we had the other night was wonderful!! First thing I think of it's watering my roses and Redwood trees!! Hopefully we'll get a few more storms passing through.

Patti

I just learned this morning that the entirety of southern California is being put on water restrictions, so I'm really hoping there will be a lot more rain coming our way. However, as it's another drought year I'm only very cautiously optimistic.

I haven't posted in years, so I'm certain no one remembers me. I live in North Dakota, USA and can identify. We were under extreme drought conditions and then suddenly everything changed and we started getting rain again. Last year the rains came, and we are doing better again. We have just finished a week of heavy snow at 20 plus inches and are now in the deep freeze for a week, with the lowest at minus 24 F coming up. Wind chills could top minus 50 F tonight. Our winter has just begun. They are now talking possible flooding next spring...

My point is weather cycles change. I am 72 years old. When I was a child, we had horrible drought so that lakes went dry and the alkali blew in the wind. Ten years later, those same lakes were so full that farmers had to take boats to get to their houses. Weather cycles change. The hard part is getting through them sometimes. I wish you all rain!

Rebecca

My back yard today...

Rebecca, welcome back to the forum. You must be a determined gardener. I hope you have a good Christmas, and I hope for your sake that it doesn't involve going anywhere!

You're right that weather comes in cycles, but currently there are long-term trends brought by climate change, and no one knows really what's happening. Here we've had two unusually prolonged droughts in the last six years. I certainly hope our drought has broken, but unfortunately a month of decent rain won't do it, and currently there's no rain in the forecast (no sun, either: ha). So who knows. I hope to nurse my plants along and get them through the next year: if they survive that long long, likely they'll be good. But I think that's what the future will be: hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Prepare hard.

Yep, it has certainly made me a bit more forward looking. Going for xeriscape all the way...and with my flat and rubbish soil, it isn't too hard to imagine I am living in some mediterranean garrigue (although not at the moment as it is every inch a dreary grey UK winter).

Thank you, Melissa, for the welcome back and good Christmas wishes.

In reference to you 6 year drought, I remember ours was 10 years. We left the farm because of it, and my parents went back to school to become teachers. After they retired, they went back to the farm in the summers and enjoyed it immensely, because it rained.

ND climate is extreme. We get -25F in the winters at intervals, and 101 F in the summers that comes up from Texas. Sometimes summers are 90's every day. Things dry out quickly in those temps. You ask me why we stay? My husband loves to walk and I love to recumbent trike at our State Capitol grounds every day in the Spring, Summer, and Fall, just 6 blocks away. The blue sky never ends...

Although sometimes we get a cloud or two. :)

Merry Christmas to you all.

Rebecca

Always astonished at the fortitude of gardeners in northern climes. -25 is completely unimaginable for this pampered softie...a week of freezy snow and ice, most of which I spent hiding under a duvet.And grief, the whining over the droughty hot summer. I do think the key word is 'prepared' though - which I never am because it is easy to get a little complacent when temperature extremes are more or less unheard of. We register historically cold winters in folk memory - 1947, 1963, 1983...while this is perfectly normal in many parts of the world. Need to build the sort of resilience to survive a ND winter. Respect, Rebecca...and for others who garden against the odds, in challenging conditions.

Thank you, Rosaprimula. I think the resilience comes from growing up in this climate. Your body adapts to each season. My great grandparents homesteaded here, so it's in the genes, so don't be too hard on yourself. Within the next week or so, when the temp hits 35 degrees for a couple of days, I guarantee there will be people out in their shirt sleeves, in spite of the snow, out running or just walking around. It's just how our bodies work.

As I get older, I don't enjoy the winters like I used to. I used to go walking for miles in the snow. Now, I put my recumbent trike on a trainer in my basement, and use BitGym to see the World. And yes, our winters can last 6 months, but we can still grow great gardens. And Spring, Summer, and Fall become that much more special. And we find ways to grow the roses, if we want to go through the effort.

Our vegetable gardens are wonderful. We don't have diseases that are common elsewhere. Tomatoes, hot peppers, cucumbers and squash grow like gangbusters. The sky is vast and blue... I'll be staying here until the Lord takes me home.

It has been very cold here (froze 4 nights in a row - unheard of here), but not a drop of rain since it rained 10 days ago. At least the plants were watered to survive the freeze. However, in this morning's paper they claim that next week we will get 2 inches of rain - I am living in hope that that is true.

Meanwhile, I should not complain about cold - the MidWest and NE coast of the US (and even some Southern states) are having a huge, truly freezing storm (my friend in Southern Indiana said they are expecting 0 degrees F for several nights, and no higher than 20 degrees F in the daytime for the next week).

Jackie

I am in FL (N FL but still, less than an hour from the beach) and our high today is gonna be 34F! Going get down to 17F and possibly 16F, here tonight! That is really crazy. They are saying snow is possible. Our ponds will probably freeze over lol.

I am worried about some new gal sz potted roses from Heirloom, I just got. I will probably bring them in tonight. They came leafless. I guess they must strip leaves before shipping..

One of our crazy goats just had twins so I am going to have to find a warm place for those babies tonight because newborns cant regulate their body temps very well.

Coconut Kisses & her Christmas babies!

What a wonderful Christmas present!!!! I absoulutely love goats! You have your own petting zoo. ADORABLE!! Times like this, I miss the farm. Give them all kisses for me please...

Rebecca

Those two babies are absolutely adorable. I suppose Mamma will try to keep them warm, but perhaps also a blanket or two?

When I saw this thread near the top of the page I had an inkling andI hastened over to the 10-day weather forecast, which until now showed no rain whatsoever, and like Jackie was so thrilled to see some days of rain in the offing next week. That is the best Christmas present ever! The vegetation, especially the trees, is so badly stressed, that this will be manna from the heavens. I'm sitting here full of glee, and so, so grateful. My newly leafing out little rose plants will benefit immensely, and I'm envisioning bowers of roses in the spring. Well, as much of a bower as one can have with 21 roses, but if the squirrels leave these alone for the most part I'm already planning for more, and even now am happily busy planning which varieties they might be.

All you folks in the States, stay safe. And, merry Christmas!

It's still foggy here, no rain, no sun. Also our family Christmas is remarkable, in that, for the first time in my life, Christmas is here and we've taken absolutely no steps to prepare for it. No decorations, no presents under the tree, no tree, no feast, no music. This wasn't planned. We were going to celebrate DD's birthday on Christmas Day: her birthday was the middle of last week, but she was still in school in Milan then and came home only a couple of days ago. I had planned to make the cherry pies and broth, and have DH and DD do the tree and decorations, on Christmas Eve, but I've been feeling poorly the last few days, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. SAD may have something to do with this, as our days are extremely short and, with the fog, quite dark. So we decided to put everything back a day, and make our preparations today.

I do want the lights and the dinner, but as to the rest of it, I've hit a kind of nadir concerning Christmas which was perhaps inevitable. The current commercial form of the holiday is no longer fit for purpose. Let me say that I still love lights and a bit of special food and drink, and perhaps even a present or two, and it's a fine time to think of people who are less fortunate than I and give them a hand. Peace on earth, peace for the earth, love one's neighbor, love God's world: absolutely. But the way we're doing Christmas now, no. It's time for a reboot.

Finally: I hope you Californians get rain! Good luck!

Merry Christmas to all! Melissa, I'm so sorry you're feeling low and unwell. I myself go all-out decorating the house for Christmas, starting at the end of November,with a strong emphasis on indoor Christmas lights, to counter-act the short, dark days. Since we don't "do" any of the commercial stuff (we don't have a TV, either-essential for mental health, IMO),I don't feel bothered by that at all. For me, Christmas is celebrating the birth of Baby Jesus,but for those who aren't fans, it is in any case the time of the year when the Light is reborn-literally (shortest day of the year was the 21st of December.

Peace on earth and good will to all! with love from Eileen

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1137713700217482

O well done, you, Melissa. I think I was in the same state. For various reasons, it has been horrible and stressful. Rallied at the very last moment. Bought a tiny tree yesterday (Xmas Eve) and have just been to the graveyard to cut some foliage to festoon about. And some fairy lights on my solanum and acer, front and back of the house. TBF, it's always last minute for me but this year, spectacularly so. I wish you all the joy of being with your loved ones (always precious) - being safe, warm and loved...with a new garden season to look forward to. Hoping to add to the world total of loveliness by sowing a seed or a root. Being prepared. And determined. Courage and good luck.

Melissa, you have mail. Merry Christmas, my dear friend.

Bart bart, rosaprimula, John, you all are so kind. I think my post was a trifle misleading, in the sense that, while I've been physically depressed, i.e., unable to get myself up off the sofa and do things, I haven't been experiencing mental pain, thank goodness.

I hope you all, and all the forum members, have been enjoying your Christmas, and not finding yourselves gravely inconvenienced by the weather. Here our holiday was perhaps better than I made it sound. I was actually quite relieved to be let off from making the pies yesterday. Today after breakfast DH and DD and I drove up Valchero and took off on a walk. It was foggy, but the temperature was reasonable for the warmly dressed, and we walked through a lovely open oak wood. Later the sun appeared at least as a tarnished silver disk, sometimes even too bright to look straight at, and toward the end we actually saw patches of blue between the clouds! Back home we made hot chocolate, then, energized from the exercise and the light, I made the pies and did my other cooking. I've finished MY tasks for the day (take that, DH and DD!) and may now sit back and relax while my family undertake the decorating. This evening I hope we'll have our old scroungy fake Christmas tree up, but seeded with lights; and tomorrow we'll hold DD's birthday dinner.

Happy holidays to all, and, once they've passed, it will be time for pruning and cleanup while dreaming of the coming spring. I have until the end of the year to finish my planting. Tuesday is forecast to be partly sunny, good conditions for getting plants in the ground! I'm filled with hope for all the fall planting I did; I'm looking forward to seeing them next year.

Take care, everyone. Melissa

@rosaprimula-I love the way the English call them "fairy lights"!!! They are the protagonists of our home decor,along with our big tree (live one. The Celt within me can't do without) . I also have 4 little potted evergreens that come indoors at Christmas.

Melissa, I've done most of my planting: only one more rose, a wisteria and a yucca left to do, The grand total is about 50 large plants (roses, trees a few shrubs and vines) and uncounted perennials. The weather forecast scares me; planting this stuff is an act of hope and a struggle for faith. It sounds like you passed a very nice Christmas day, going on a walk with your family. Keeping it simple ...apart from my wild and gaudy decor!

Melissa - glad you are with family, and that everything worked out well for your Christmas and DD's birthday. Sometimes I get sort of out of sorts in the Winter here lately, but it is because of TOO MUCH sun (b/c of our on-going drought), not a lack of it. In the wintertime, the sun is low in the sky, but that just means it seems that it is usually in my eyes - makes driving harder.

My DH and I have not got children, but we have lots of extended family, all reasonably nearby, so we hosted a Christmas Eve party for 9 relatives and a couple who are good friends of ours, went to a 14 person (also all relatives) Christmas Day dinner nearby, and are looking forward to getting together with MY side of the family (9 more people) when they get back from skiing in the Sierras in the middle of Jan. The dinners were all at homes, and home cooked food, and it was so fun that there were 2 little kids at our house - we made stockings for them. To my astonishment, I found an art supply store in our town (which carries lovely greeting cards, which is why I was there), which had a huge display of well made small toys, etc. which were exactly what my DH and I used to get in our stockings in the mid 1950s! No electronics, let alone anything to do with the internet. The kids were enchanted, which is the point of everything, I think.

We also had some bad weather lately - which made everyone ecstaticly happy! It rained 3 inches a few days ago, and they tell us that will start again tomorrow, for another 3 days. Where I live, most of our water supply is from reservoirs on our local mountain, so if it does not rain, we have a water crisis, which has been going on & on in recent years. In the storm a few days ago, when we got 3 inches of rain, that watershed got 6 inches (which is of course why they put the reservoirs there in the 19th century). Lots and lots of snow fell in the mountains, which is why 9 members of my family, who all ski, decided to spend Christmas up there.

Wishing you and everyone on here a Happy New Year, whatever that means to you -

Jackie

Thanks for my share of your good wishes, Jackie. I heard you folks got a lot of rain, which is, on the whole, fabulous.

Bart, I wanted to say how impressed I am at all the planting you did. Both of us have been busy this fall, but much of mine has been subshrubs that don't require such serious digging compared with the shrubs and trees you've been planting--and having to bring in water, too. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of my work this spring. Also I'm glad I've been working in a part of the garden where some years have passed since I was last busy there. It's starting to bear some resemblance to a garden.

We're still in a state of no rain, no sun, but I went out and worked today in the fog and actually found the conditions acceptable, particularly since it wasn't that cold. I always thought it was impossible--too depressing--to work in fog. I was wrong.

Happy New Year's, everybody! May 2023 be an improvement over this year!!

Jackie, three inches of rain is awesome! I say this somewhat selfishly since rain further up north benefits us too. We've had about half an inch so far but there is more rain forecast over the next seven days or so.

bart, I'm so glad that you seem to be doing much better than when I left the forum, which I guess was about two years ago, when you were feeling more fragile. I was worried about you then and am truly heartened by your major planting exploits these days.

Well, my oven door exploded about 5 minuted after putting the Xmas meat in. Much attenuated dinner and I was spared a heap of baking. I had cooked a ham the day before so we are still basically living off ham, soup and crackers.

On checking my fridge seedlings, was amazed to see a heap of germinations, so spent Xmas night at the kitchen table, with a bucket of soil, clean pots, and a pair of tweezers. New respect for the tenacity of life.

Hope you all survived the bitterly cold weather.

rosaprimula - WHaaat??? How does an oven door explode - inquiring minds would like to know.

Rain report - it started raining at 1AM last night, and still has not stopped (14 hrs later now), although it has lightened up. They say another, stronger storm is coming tomorrow and the next day, and predict that even here in the lowlands, the cumulative rain will be an additional 6 inches to the 3 we got just a few days ago. NO ONE is complaining!

Jackie

The outlook for us seems to be less and less, which has so often been the case in my area. So glad for you, Jackie. I can just imagine your spring bloom; it will be sublime. Still hoping for more here, too, although not until the weekend apparently.

sultry_jasmine - I forgot to mention that your goats are the most beautiful goats I have ever seen! Are they a special breed?

Rain update - we got 1/2 of an inch yesterday, light rain which never stopped. So far it is doing the same thing again today, unstopping. However, tomorrow they claim a new, much stronger storm is coming in, and have been putting out alerts and warnings all day about the risk of flooding. Before all of these successive droughts, I never thought I would be glad to hear warnings about flooding (our house is 6 feet above sea level, about 4 blocks from San Francisco Bay, so it is a material issue).

The REALLY good news to me about rain here is that they are now predicting another strong storm coming in next week - this sort of thing was our "normal" weather pattern (40 inches of rain avg PA, but only falling in 4-5 months of the Winter - never a drop otherwise) most of my life. 2 of the 6 reservoirs on our nearby mountain are spilling already, which means that the ground is well saturated.

In the last election, 100% of the Water Board members who were up for election (2), and one who did not run, were replaced by the voters with water scientists, and public utility experts. The old members had been on the Board for decades, and the only strategy they had come up with for droughts was "use less water" with restrictions and rising prices continuously being touted, year after year. There were additional ideas being suggested, like dredging the reservoirs to hold more water (even in a drought year, our rain tends to come in enormous clumps, and produces point in time excesses, which run out of the full reservoirs and down the storm drains instead of being captured). Also desalinization, as we are on the Pacific coast and our county is surrounded by water on 2 sides. Many other ideas which have been used successfully elsewhere in CA to adapt to drought, but none of them ever used by our Water Dept. So, we are looking forward to what the new Water Board will come up with.

Jackie

Haven't been so excited about rain in a long time so I know just how you feel two weeks of cloudy weather and

Rain has me out planting every day Indeed I feel renewed Still can't solve the Problem of words disappearing so no punctuation sorry for that I think about your garden and hope for rain for your plants and to brighten your spirits hope it's a lovely springtime where you are and peace and prosperity for

Ooh, kittymoonbeam, Houzz is such a drag! but I appreciate your sentiments, and hope the problem can be solved soon. I join you in wishing to all peace and prosperity in the new year that is soon to begin,and Melissa in hoping that 2023 will be an huge improvement over 2022.

Thanks, too, to all who have thought of me and wished me well! let us hope that my planting efforts will not be rendered vain by another year of bad weather. Note well: to me. "bad weather" means heat and drought. I LOVE RAIN,and fortuneately we've been getting drizzle on a pretty regular basis up to now. The only bad thing is that it's way too warm-I think about 10 degrees at least more than is normal. Now, to those of you who are freezing your nerdies off in the USA, that may not sound so bad, but it is bad-very bad-for wildlife, plants and us humans.

Jackie, I hope that the change in the Water Board members will benefit everyone concerned...