Melissa, you are experiencing much the same weather patterns that we have in Southern California.

Of course drought has always been a recurring theme here.
This, though feels more significant, surrounded as we are by other weather changes, in other parts of the country.

Teas do seem to stand up well to our climate and its oddities.
So do Chinas, and most of the Noisettes.
It's no co-incidence that these are the most common survivors in deserted 19th-Century cemeteries and gardens.
They have survived from old California, because they are able to survive periods of drought.
This year, with more drought facing us, and water rationing almost certain, we're removing our thirstiest roses.
Where three are removed, we plant one Tea or China (or found Noisette).
A greywater system may also be in our future.

Jeri

Melissa,
I would guess I'm older than you are and I can see a time in about a decade where I won't have the energy to garden intensively. That includes tending irrigation systems, dragging hoses (which I hate to do) and other muscle intensive activity. So I'm looking to make a rose garden that can take care of itself.
And this quest of mine happily coincides with Google's putting huge quantities of information on line from the 1800's, rose books from different continents, when irrigation wasn't an option and when chemicals were limited. And when these roses moved into gardens (and some were more green/glass house roses and probably should have stayed indoors, tended and pampered for sale to the rich and famous), others proved that over time they could survive as garden plants.

I am also seeing that growing roses "dry" may reduce some susceptibility to Rose Rosette Disease. When roses are semi-dormant in the times of the year when the RRD vector mites are most active, the roses are less likely to be suitable long term habitat for the vector mites. On my roses, I see (with a binoc microscope) that I have really interesting biotic communities that feed on new coming mites. Mite carcasses are a good thing.

So many roses may have originated as edge of the forest plants. Stiff competition for moisture may be in their history. This works for trees, for grasses and for some roses.

Had you described gallicas as being wild in your part of the world, and growing in gulleys and drainage areas?
There's a reference in Joyeaux' La Rose Un Passion Francais that talks about why certain roses grow in different parts of France. I really wish that chapter could be translated by someone competant in French (I stumble through it and may be missing some n'.....pas's.)

I do think there are some very bad ways to grow roses. The cultural conditions that require Methyl Bromide to sanitize the growing fields. Fertilization schemes that so poison soil at a person's home that the soil has to be excavated and replaced with 'fresh' newly formulated rose soil. But those two are my own prejudices.

Jeri,

We're already on our household water rationing plan, which involves a good deal of lugging around of buckets and basins. I think a formal graywater system is a very promising idea.

I had trouble formulating the idea lurking at the edge of my mind when I wrote my piece here, and it's still not clear to me. I was thinking not so much of drought specifically, as of the difference between a garden that is allowed to grow with less human intervention and one that has more. There is 'bad' intervention, let's say improper pruning or mindless use of insecticide or fertilizer. But 'good' intervention, let's say wisely used soil amendments, optimum watering, is still intervention. I suppose just about everyone who grows roses wants a garden full of big shapely roses with luxurious foliage, dripping with blooms, from beginning to end of the growing season; and so they cultivate their roses with that end firmly in mind. BUT is that the only kind of beauty to be had from one's garden? How about the garden where you watch the roses go into summer dormancy (along with the gardener, I might add) during the blazing month of July, then come into growth if there's the good luck of rain in late summer, producing the loveliest flowers of the year in October? Is there possibly something to be said (and this is an honest question: I wanted to know what others thought) for a garden more at the mercy of nature and its chances? Is this a particular kind of beauty, not inferior, because more changeable and uncertain? And does a more detached attitude towards one's garden encourage a different kind of pleasure in that garden? I think all these are somewhat different from the question of what one learns from growing roses this way.

Okay, I think I came closer this time. And you're totally right about the Teas and Chinas, the Noisettes I don't know as well. My handful of Bourbons also appear quite drought tolerant. I know you've had very bad drought problems in your area the last few years. The western world needs to learn how to use its water more carefully, in the garden as well.

Melissa

Melissa: Harvest the rain when it comes:

http://www.greenbuilder.com/sourcebook/RainwaterGuide3.html#Components

Also forget about the small barrels. My friends who have bigger green houses have a few 500 gallon tanks to collect the rainwater. They are not as fancy as these, but it just shows that tanks for collecting rainwater bigger than 1000 gallons is available

http://www.infolink.com.au/Showcases/New-Water/240193

or Even 3000 gallon plus:

http://www.mpccontainment.com/commercial-tank-application.shtml?gclid=CMDSqqqSqZICFQ9eQgod_XR_Qw

http://www.supatank.com.au/range.html

Perhaps it would be possible for you to build some kind of big pond? Diggerdave could come help you dig?

Or for smaller gardens...

http://www.pondsonlinecanada.com/rain.htm

there is also a drought forum here on GardenWeb:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/drought/

I sometimes wonder why we always drink Italian San Pellegrino Water at the fancy Tuscan Slowfood Restaurant I love. No wonder the ground water level is so low since you sell all the water on bottles abroad.

Here is a link that might be useful: One of the best Italian restaurants in the world: Era Ora

While irrigation as a form of human intervention has been around about as long as agriculture, the idea of heating the entire garden is still generally considered loony tunes. Since that is about what it would take for me to have the same style of rose garden that is relatively common further south, that has never been part of my objectives. Roses bloom mostly in May and June, and other plants bloom in August and September. Since most of those other plants like what passes for heat and drought here, I tend to think this works out well. To the point where the cold, wet summers offer the performance problems.

What brought home quite clearly the wisdom of this style of garden for us, is that everything clicks along quite comfortably without us when we are on vacation. We have come home to a better flower show than we left on more than on occassion.

Being an arboretum person, I think of tree rings telling the story of years of rapid growth and years when the tree has stood still. Many older roses "know what to do" if we can just refrain from pushing them with fertilizer and extra water when what they want, and NEED to do, is rest. Drought patterns are cyclical and we are in one here. No reason to believe that this summer will be much different than last, which was very dry. I believe there are roses that can co-exist with trees, and ...being an arboretum person I prefer them!

Melissa and then Barbara make the point that there are probably situations in which pushing growth through the hot summer is just not a good idea.
In the end, everyone has to make the garden that is right for them --
but sometimes, they have to consider making the garden that is a good fit for the conditions in which the garden must live.

For many of us, those conditions appear to be changing
We'll probably be happier in the long run if we change our goals to encompass that. (Or move?)

BTW, ANN -- We know all about Methyl Bromide here.
The fields on the Oxnard Plain produce a huge % of the country's strawberries.
For sure most of the winter berries.
So yeah. We know Methyl Bromide. And we rarely eat strawberries. :-(

Jeri

My thinking on this subject is just a little bit different. Most of our one and two thirds acres is rocky and hilly, and wildlife habitat for quail, rabbits, squirrels, coyotes, roadrunners and who knows what else. I don't consider this an area that would be improved by roses. The roses I have are clustered mostly on the flat area around the house. I never use poisons or artificial fertilizer. It's alfalfa meal, rabbit droppings from the wild rabbits, compost, coffee grounds, banana peels, compost and leaf mulch. These areas do get watered, especially since many of my roses are young bands. I plan to water less and less as the roses get older. I've chosen mostly teas, chinas and noisettes, with some Austins, and hope that most of them will do well on this regimen. I feel peaceful and comfortable in my little paradise, and now see more birds and butterflies than when I moved in, when everything was lawn, all of which is gone now. I think what I'm trying to say, and perhaps what you mean to say also, is that working with nature is a wonderful and special kind of happiness. It just feels right.

Ingrid

Melissa,

Isn't it interesting, that everyone who responded to your thread, seems to garden organically. There is a relationship between understanding environmental problems and shifts and our attempts at gardening on our little plots of land. I am no scientist and not nearly as informed as Ann, but I remember rain patterns and how my garden performs for a few years back.

Australians have been dealing with water crisis for years and they are way ahead in their knowledge of watersaving tools and products. Southeasterns USers who have been experiencing a severe lack of rain, still don't seem to want to enact laws and guidelines for watersaving.

Not quite as bad as Jeri in Southern California, we who live in Northern CA do worry about lack of rain from year to year. Even though we had sufficent rain this year, the ground like yours is already dry and I am watering a month earlier than usual.

I try to water well and water less. I have plans in place for drought, but I sincerely hope that I never have use them. If we have a drought in Northern California, I'm sure I will loose plants, and that will hurt.

In the meantime, for you mulching is probably key. It will help keep the water from evaporating and the roots moist.

The publication I work for did a special issue on water and energy. If you would like to view it online, contact me privately. It may give you ideas for saving.

Carol

My ramblers get no water in the summer. Their display in the spring is wonderous. If our water situation looked like it was going to be permanantly bad I would plant more and more of them and enjoy the spring bloom. I would plant drought proof natives as companions. Gardeners are resilient and persistent. I can see that you are. I understand what you mean by less intervention. It's a philosophy for our whole environment passed the garden too.

Living in a surburban California neighborhood, I see overwatering is the norm. The water resource is not even an issue.(It should be).Most lawns are on auto sprinklers and on everyday, water goes down the gutters and into the delta. Our city has been in violation of the law for its filter and dumping practices for pollution into a fresh water source. Water is wasted in a big way here in Tracy, CA.

More people need to see Water as a precious resource and reduce and protect it.

I live on the prairie, wet spring,cold winter, no reliable snow cover,dry summers,wind. It's rather strange to me to find so many plants that i have or would like to have but aren't suitable here that come from or require a mediterranean type of climate. Hot and dry?? my summers would fill the bill but not the cold wet winters.I think everyone seems to think that they have the most inhospitable growing conditions. I've just decided to enjoy and not stress, because it doesn't seem to matter if i high culture or not, they grow when and if they want, i've never saved a plant. I fertilize occasionally cause it makes me feel good. if the plant wants it, it uses it, otherwise it saves it until the fall when you're not suppose to fertilize.

For the past couple of years I have fertilized only once, in the spring, and with organics which are low in NPK. This isn't prudence; it is laziness. Isn't it a gift when one's natural inclination turns out to be prudent? My practice has been to water my garden in the dry season twice a week and three times when it gets very hot. This year for the first time I put a wood chip mulch over the compost mulch. I'm planning to experiment with watering only once a week, though I reserve the option to do a second watering once in while when some of the plants look especially stressed. Plants in pots get watered as needed, though I cut back a bit on plants in pots this year as well.

We have no lawn. I do have a vast weedy expanse between planted areas that I am trying to turn into a meadow with native grasses. It has been a several-years-long project. Unfortunately the exotic weeds are tough and persistent and the seed bank is rich, but I do keep working at it. I have ten pounds of native grass seed. Let's see what I can do with it this year! Of course some of it is intended for the slope where we cleared off some poison oak. I'm going to do some drought tolerant planting out there with local native plants, provided I can keep the dreaded poison oak from returning. RoundUp is my chief non-organic indulgence. I hate poison oak, and get it easily.

We aren't permitted to have a well. In fact, were forced to sign away our water rights when we remodeled the house. That still burns me ten years later. I have been giving some thought to capturing roof water into a tank during the rainy season for use on the garden. I'm sure the city won't like that either, but I don't think it is actually illegal.

Rosefolly

I guess I fit in with the organic gardening camp. I don't spray even in blackspot heaven, I don't do supplemental watering except for newly planted shrubs and vegetables during long dry stretches, and I only fertilize once in spring with organics. I've noticed in years where we have summer rains I get more blooms than years where don't. But when I've watered my roses and pushed the blooms, the japanese beetles got more blooms to enjoy than I did, so it didn't seem especially worth the while. I find the old European roses especially do fine if left to go dormant during the summer -- and in fact there is less of a summer pruning chore if you don't give them extra water and fertilizer. In my zone it's the old roses that are really carefree -- the gallicas, albas, damasks, and moss roses.

Back again. I wanted to chime in after all these interesting responses, but was busy for a while weeding and mulching the shade garden, which after years of intermittent labor is finally beginning to look like a garden. I've begun chopping out elms--we may be able to defeat them without herbicide--and have been pausing frequently to enjoy vignettes of the spring garden: a block of noble, nameless pink tulips, which I fear may have acquired virus since a few this year are beautifully flamed and marked; 'Treasure Trove', twenty feet up a black locust and cascading over the rebar pergola we built to keep it off our heads. Things like that. Beauty can't be commanded; you can plan and execute all you want, but it appears when it pleases, for a week or for an hour.

First, Niels's reservoir. People here build them, and I've certainly thought about it. Unfortunately, beyond our chronically modest budget, worsened lately by the feeble health of the dollar, we have large practical difficulties. Our land is all sloping, and is connected by roads that can only be accessed by tractor, and are steep even for them. Finding a place for a reservoir would be difficult, and building it would be harder. Then, all the roofs are at the top of the property, and conduits to the reservoir would have to cross public roads (those same tractor roads). We live in a slide zone, and construction with a new foundation is forbidden. A reservoir would have to hold thousands of gallons to be useful, I'm guessing; one year we had a 500 liter rain barrel, and when full it didn't even water the modest vegetable garden. And, most of all, for a rainwater reservoir to be useful, you have to have rain. The last time it rained more than 1 1/2" here was last November (since then we've averaged about one inch a month). I haven't totally written off the rainwater reservoir, but I doubt it would justify the investment.

len511, lori elf, and others: I think that if more people planted carefree gardens, we might have more varied and beautiful, as well as healthier gardens, as people would be growing what was adapted to their environment, and you wouldn't see the same plants in every garden across the continent. Such gardens would also consume fewer resources, which everyone who contributed to this thread is sensitive to. As far as Maurizio's and Ingrid's oases are concerned, I think they make far better use of scarce water than the lawns in Daun's California subdivision. Lawns are nice when there's rainfall to support them, but they don't deserve irrigation in times of scarce water.

Rosefolly, I started with land that was simply brushy or weedy, or a dump, or, where we were lucky, with meadow. I intend to keep the grass paths in our garden as plain meadow grass, with its natural complement of native plants. You might say we started out with an advantage, that no one every tried to grow anything here but native plants, so we don't have exotic weeds to worry about. Or better, they're probably present, but naturalized, and not a recognizable problem. (I just read that cereals were introduced in Roman times, bringing with them poppies and cornflowers. I rejoice in the poppies in spring, but the cornflowers are gone; I want to reintroduce them.) The hay we use as mulch comes from down the road, and its seeds are the same seeds our own land produces.
After years of working on our land, I know its little herbaceous plants, know how pretty many of them are in spring when everything's green and fresh. They have a place in the garden. They're pretty, and they're adapted. I know how I want my garden to be, but don't know how to put it into words. It's going to be wild looking, though, in a sense. When nature around it is lush and green, the garden will be lush and green. When nature around it is tan and dusty silvery green and deep green, so will the garden be also. It's not an oasis, but part of the landscape, though with architecture (structure) and with exotic, though adapted plants.

I want to respond to what others have written--people said so much worth saying!--but the sun is shining and my brain is fried. Back later.

Melissa

I am really enjoying all the comments on this post-----Due to many health problems I've been saying for quite a while that my garden is a "survivor of the fittest" garden---

I agree with Ann----I can no longer garden like I used to so it will be interesting to see which roses survive--

Pam-----I too have found the Ramblers do survive with very little care and still have a beautiful flush of bloom in the spring----
Florence

Zeffy, I grew up in Pennsylvania myself, and I wanted to mention that most of the "survivor" roses I remember from my childhood and young adult years -- older roses I saw growing in country gardens as opposed to suburban plans -- were ramblers. Small ramblers, large ramblers, but usually ramblers of some sort or another. Most often they were some shade of pink. I just had a Eureka! moment. It may be that my love of climbing roses comes from this fact.

Rosefolly

Melissa's posts always fascinate me because of her philosophy and minimal watering technique. A rose garden so suited to the microclime strikes me as a remarkable achievement and one so close to nature is full of its own beauty. (I wish she would post pix.)

My goal is to fill my garden with a collection of roses that thrive in this particular spot without much coddling--just lots of mulch, organic amendment in the spring, removal of dead wood etc. Being located in California makes this a much simpler task than it would be in many other parts of the country/world where disease pressure is high, weather is hostile etc.

I sadly, but ruthlessly, SP those who don't seem to care for the neighborhood. The one thing I haven't gotten up the nerve to try is cutting off supplemental water to established plants. That would clearly indication who the true stayers are. I would love to know the identity of those Jeri is 3-1 removing in favor of hardier, less thirsty, types.

Colleen

I don't spray, but I did water last summer. Fertilizer is from the 2 horses I keep on my farm. As much as I'd like to I haven't been able to take my hands off the wheel, although I really need to do it. I need to adopt the mantra voiced in the immortal words of my neighbor, if it dies, it dies.