The Farmers Almanac is predicting a mild, slightly drier than usual winter for the west coast. They say that there could be 1/4 to 1/2 less precipitation for some areas but aren't specific about which areas those are. Hope that helps and that you don't sink, Jerome!

Best,
Sue

I have found the Farmers Almanac to be as accurate if not more so than the local forecasters here :-) We are in a drought too, Jerome, over 12 inches behind normal rain fall for the year. I feel your pain.

Carol

We are now on water restriction. Watering for me is between 10pm and 5am. We are as bad as SC.

Carla

About ten days ago I saw in the paper where we're 17" below normal rainfall, and approaching the lowest ground water level in recorded history here. We've had big black clouds and thunder but no rain. It'll rain two miles away but not here. We lost a dogwood tree but so far nothing else..I am pretty impressed with how well the roses are coping, especially since I have tree roots and big shrubs nearby.
We're on mandatory restrictions also. At least the temps should be coming down later this month and that'll cut down on evaporation.

Linda

Jerome,

We are all hoping that we are not turning a corner to a drought cycle. So my fingers and toes and eyes are crossed.

That said, I've learned not to believe anyone when it comes to weather. The winds, clouds El Ninos and Ninas have their own mind set.

Now what am I doing today to offset carbon emissions?

Carol

Jerome, I'm truly sorry about this. I have heard that droughts go in seven year cycles. We are in a high winter rain area here so that even a bad year is adequate. There are some roses that get by without water in the summer. These would be once bloomers and ramblers. One year one of my beds, on drip irrigation, due to my own inattention, didn't get watered from July to fall. The roses didn't look very good but they did survive and came back beaitifully the next year. I read an article by a lady in Australia where they've had a terrible drought. She disbudded all her roses in an effort to save them with good results.

Jerome, I will hope for the best. Our rain last year was low, but not as bad as yours. I watched the online rainfall monitor for southern California with dismay last year. Unfortunately Mendocino Rose is right and it is true that droughts tend to last several years in a row. Best of luck. If it comes to the worst, perhaps you can gather the very best roses into one well-mulched bed and water with drip, letting the rest go.

Thanks everyone! Once again, great replies with lots of insight. I thought there were precipitation problems in the east, but you all confirmed it for me. Frankly, I believe in this global warming...or if that's too politically charged for some...I believe that our climactic conditions are changing.

Plants here are not at risk from lack of water, because we are able to irrigate the small areas with plantings. The problem is: all the countryside around us is completely parched. This means that the deer have less to eat in the hills (it never got green last winter) and they come on the property here for the first time since 1986 and eat all the roses.

I might stop doing the roses and move over to sages and lavenders...other Mediterranean aromatics that the deer won't touch and have low water needs. I already have them among the roses...it would just be a matter of expanding them.

The egg solution I put on the plants in 100+ degree heat a few days ago had no results. A baby "Just Joey" got chomped...and I'd bathed it in the stuff.

I can't blame the deer...there's nothing for them to eat. That's what we get for living at the border of the wilderness. But I can't grow stuff that they like to eat anymore.

Also...the cougars have been around. Police up here last week because there was a lion on the property. Watch out on the way to the chapel!

Jerome

If you only plant sages and lavenders, the deer will learn to eat sages and lavenders. There are places around here where the herbs are the first thing the deer will go for because it is what they are used to finding. So long as it isn't poisonous, the deer can develop a taste for it.

Given the amount of money they have spent researching the issue (or as they call it "feeding the deer", I'm very surprised that IES hasn't written a webpage on this issue.

Official drought is a relatively term. It's less than 20% of the normal rainfall. So for us, anything less than 32" of rainfall in a year is a drought condition.

Does the monastry have a cistern? Is it possible to divert laundry and wash water to the garden? Have they converted to organic soaps to make this possible? 12 foot fences at least around the main beds?When are you moving?
la

Hi la! Here are my quick reponses to your questions in order: Cistern, yes. Water for irrigation, not an issue yet; Soaps - don't know...I think so ; 12 foot fences, not a chance at this point...and it would be impossible given our current layout; when are we moving...at the rate my fundraising is going - the 12th of never! :-) I really don't know. Maybe 5-7 years?

Mad Gallica...you're right. And if we ever had 32" of rain...it would be the end of the world...all the buildings would do a conga-line down the mudslide! "Normal" for here would be 12-15" per year, I think...but we haven't had "normal" weather patterns in a long time.

Jerome

IES does have a webpage on deer control-- it's about shooting does.

Here is a link that might be useful: Institute of Ecosystem Studies

Great Michael! :-)

Maybe you need more lions.

Was it just 3 years ago we had the 26" of rain? It was my first year in Orange Co. and the hills were so green with those snow covered San Bernardino mountains were in the distance. If we are in a drought, we might as well grow cactus. Although the roses will survive if they are established. They just won't look that good if we are short on water. What a depressing thought.

Went to the nursery today and bought sages. At least the deer don't eat them (at least they don't touch the ones I have here. Mystic Spires and Indigo Spires...great stuff. And they'll look great against Golden Celebration...if it ever blooms again. ;-)

I'm 99% certain that deer won't eat lavender or sages. They also wouldn't touch rosemary or any dwarf conifers. There is a list of deer resistant plants in The Western Garden Book. Not all of those work, especially if they are hungry. I once lived in a high deer area, in drought conditions, without fencing. Here I have Rugosas out where they play and they don't touch them, but it could be different where you live.

Jerome -- One caution regarding Indigo Spires:

In California, it can easily grow 5 ft or more in a season. Do prepare to whack it down in the winter, and do plant it toward the back, rather than front or side of roses.

That blue color is magnificent with roses.
I don't know Mystic Spires, but oh, you MUST grow Hot Lips!

(Don't be fooled. Hot Lips will make a 3 ft x 3 ft ball in a season.)

Jeri

Here is a link that might be useful: 'Hot Lips' Salvia

I have a 40" high baited electric fence around my garden to deter the deer... and it works and is a relatively economical alternative and something you can install yourself! We have very high deer populations in my neighborhood so it would be impossible to grow roses and hostas and other delicious delicacies without some kind of 8' high fence or electric fence.

We are having a drought too, though there haven't been water restrictions announced yet. Creek beds are drying up, ground is hard as a rock, lawns are turning brown, etc. I hope "normal" weather patterns will return soon for everyone globablly.

Need more "nekid turtle dancers"

One of our Gold Coast HRG members just directed us to this very interesting article.

Jeri

Here is a link that might be useful: Article On Climate Change

Regarding the hunting of does, as repugnant as it seems to most of us, when you think about it it's a form of birth control and that has to happen to stop the abnormal overabundance of deer. It certainly is better than for them to die a slow and miserable death through starvation. If bringing back animals who hunt deer could become a part of this equation it would be all the better for the environment and our own personal enrichment. We have no deer in our area but do have a mother lion with two cubs up the road in a canyon and I hope and pray that they all survive the drought season. I've never lost a cat or dog while living for years in cougar and coyote territory, while constantly hearing from others about the score of pets they've lost, so I know it can be done. And after all, the wild creatures were here long, long before us.....

Ingrid

I have heard that deer do not usually eat eglantines, because they have strong, apple scented foliage. I am going to try out a few in my front yard and see what happens. Perhaps, if you bordered the garden with these, the deer might avoid the other roses? However, as others have stated, if they get hungry enough, they will probably eat them regardless of the smell. Jerome, I would not give up entirely on the egg mix spray. It may be that you have to apply it for a while and gradually the deer might start avoiding the plants. They tend to follow their regular tracks to food, but my house has become off limits to them now. They may return, but so far, since I have been consistently applying the spray, they have not. My neighbor had a plant or two that was 'chomped,' but they avoided my roses. Go figure.

It has been a brutal year here. We are 20+ inches behind in rain which is incredible here. We had a vicious freeze followed by unrelenting drought and heat (3 weeks of triple digits - also a record). There are huge stands of mature hard woods that are dead. It looks like my area was hit with a blow torch. Unless we get some tropical moisture this fall, it will be a very bleak spring. I have a water bill like some people's mortgages.

Jean

Jerome et al . . .

See this:

Here is a link that might be useful: The Perfect Drought

Jeri, thanks for the articles...I am printing them up and will read tonight. "Mystic Spires" is like a dwarf version of Indigo Spires. Yes I did put the Indigo towards the way back... "Hot Lips" I have had for years now...and it gets HUGE here, I prune it very closely twice a season to about 15" and it is soon about 4x4, and could probably be 5x5...but I just don't have the room. It is a wonderful plant and the hummingbirds adore it.

You are all great, and thanks for the help and encouragement, Ingrid, Lori, Pam, jbfoodie...I wouldn't discount the efficacy of the turtle dance rozannadanna!

Jean, I have a friend in Nashville, and her reports on your weather have made my hair stand on end. Lets hope this is over and we get normal weather for the next 100 years. Even if we don't we can hope.

This is good training for the new place though. I think I am going to go indigenous there, and limit my plantings of roses to "accents" of teas and noisettes here and there, to save water. It could be very pretty.

Jerome

Well the new place should have a traditional cloister design around a deer-proof garth, so you can grow roses, the flower of Mary and the actual shape of Heaven according to Dante. It's practically a religious obligation.

How's that for some quality enabling?

Well...Sounds great. Yes, the learning since I started this work in 2004 has been considerable. New place...roses and other "high end" stuff all needs to be behind walls. Outside landscaping needs to be all indigenous speciesÂ.which could be really beautiful.

I live in a place with droughty summers, no irrigation for our garden, and a limited local water supply that went dry during the long summer of 2003. I also believe in resource conservation, also in my garden. So for five years I've been going through the nerve-racking process of seeing my garden through the summers with one hose, that one largely devoted to plants in pots or in their first year in the ground, plus basins of water hauled out from the laundry or washing salad. Buckets in the bathroom. Showers among the potted cuttings. We've had below average rainfall for about a year and a half, and perhaps you could say I'm learning to live with it.

This way of gardening has sharpened my interest in finding the right plant for the right spot: Hybrid Musks where it's cooler, David Austin roses where the soil is deeper, Chinas for the really miserably hot and dry places. I don't worry as much about losing a plant: I try to get a good one and plant it correctly, and if it doesn't work out, or if abnormally bad weather comes along, that's just what happens. My propagating plants (which I think I ought to do a lot more) give me a reservoir. I was never inclined to see plants as bloom machines, but my garden has forced me further away from that attitude: I can't afford it. Most of my roses have gotten perhaps three inches of rain since the start of July (and it was the hottest July in thirty-five years). They mostly look healthy enough, but they're not blooming. The water's not there. So I admire them as plants, admire the few things that are in bloom, and wait for it to rain. What I learn from a summer like this is how different plants take drought, which is useful knowledge. The garden may not look exactly like the Garden of Eden, but as an experimental laboratory it works fine. And large parts of it are in tolerably good shape: if we do get a few inches of rain, we can look forward to some lovely Tea roses in October.

Ahhhh ... Melissa -- I think that's good advice for anyone who lives in a "Land Of Little Rain." Particularly in these times.

I'm sorry to say that it sounds like your part of Italy is almost as bad as my part of California.

Jeri

Jerome, in Southern California we have to wait 'till
December, January or February to see if we break the
drought snd get any substantial rain. So we will see.
The chances of getting good rainfall before December
are slim.

Pay attention to the sky. There is an unacknowledged government spraying program. If you see lots of artificial cirrus clouds (chemtrails) then most likely your drought will continue. This spraying seems to cause a general high pressure area and causes long term drought (and conversely flooding in other areas).

Huh? I am all for conspiracy theories on the weather, but I think this one may be a tba.

Jean

Did you see the photo of the religious leaders praying on the glacier in Greenland?
Something hit me about what they were doing.
Now if they all deeply believe in the power of prayer, and they were all sincerely praying for a cessation of climate change. Well.....if all their prayers were answered instantaneously, then we'd be stuck with the weather of September 7, 2007. Period. Folks in our part of the world would be stuck in a starving year. Trees would mostly be dead. Texas would be a swamp. There wouldn't be any rainfall filling the north Georgia lakes so that Florida could look longingly at that non-existant water to solve their problems.
This is so not a good year for the out of doors.

One good thing: what's left of our Japanese Beetle population has probably lost its larval class of '08, trapped in their clay sarcophagi.

Ann -- I doubt if The Diety is that literal. Of course, one never knows.
They DO say, "Be careful what you wish for. You might get it."

Jeri