I am SO glad you got some rain! And thank you for sharing your photos...roses look pretty healthy to me. Particularly SDLM and Romaggi Plot. Is Romaggi Plot fragrant?
Ingrid, this is likely a dumb question, but do you use rain barrels? They are helpful for me.
Susan

No rain here.

I know you won't believe this, Ingrid, but you actually get a lot more rain than we do.

Susan -- Rain barrels are only useful if you get at least SOME rain -- and moreso if your rain is scattered throughout the year.

Here, our only real rain falls between maybe November or December, through some point in April. And in recent years, even those seasonal rains have failed. In the rain year just finished, we received less than 4 inches of rain, total. Less than a third of our paltry "normal."

Graywater may be useful to us, but rain barrels here don't get filled.

Jeri

Jeri, I checked yesterday to see if you were getting rain too and was bummed that the storm didn't go in that direction.

I think our rain total last winter was about the same as yours. On the other side of the hills they get about three times as much rain as we do, so naturally we don't live there. I think your saving grace is the fog, even though it does limit your choice of roses. Overall though I don't think either of us are going to fare too well with the climate changes we're seeing. I desperately hope to be proved wrong, though.

Ingrid

You didn't miss much, Jeri. We only received about a third of an inch in three, "heavy" cells. It wasn't enough to clean the leaves out of the gutter on the street, which says a lot. On this hill, it only takes two or three people leaving their sprinklers on too long to generate a gutter river. I'm glad you received enough rain to make some difference, Ingrid. I wish more had. Kim

Ingrid,

I am glad you received rain. Your garden may not look precisely the way you want, but it looks nice. Your care and planning is evident.

Lynn

Well, here I was thinking that at least Ingrid got something significant out of it. Frankly, now, I'd rather wait 'til late December for rain -- and get a good rain pattern thru April. But, that's if I could put in an order.

Like Ingrid -- I'm still hoping that climate changes won't be as awful as predicted.

Jeri

Gee guys wish I could mail you some...giggling here.
However, our summers, unless it's an ElNino year, are dry as crackers..the ol' hose is an extension of my arm then..
We need to have a chat with Mother Nature.

Ingrid the photos are lovely. To me it looks like a place of solace right now. I'm sorry about the rain problems.

I'm sorry about others' rain troubles, too: the drought conditions I hear about on this forum sound awful.
I think Mother Nature is screaming at US.
Melissa

Ingrid, compared to my garden, yours looks great! I know how it is though to feel like the dryness and heat is destroying your garden. We don't get nearly as much rain here as we used to. The heat island effect here has really screwed us up. It is frightening. The endless building and greed for profits has ruined this place. It seems like many locations in the US are having their version of climatic disasters. Really is a bummer.

Really delighted that you got some rain. When we get a bit of rain up here, I always feel a pang if you don't get some down in the southern part of the state as well.

Susan, I went out to smell Romaggi Plot and to my not too great nose it only had a whiff of a scent. However, a bud of Young Lycidas right next to it was powerfully fragrant to my nose, so it's not just me. I know that some people will grow only fragrant roses, since that quality is obviously essential to them, but I'm a very visual person and don't demand that every rose smells. At the same time, a rose garden without fragrance would seem like a very dead and sterile place.

Thank you Pam. With the cooler temperatures now I believe it will be my haven again, and I'm sure there will be more roses blooming in a short while.

I can see that some of you share my fears about the future. It was 60 degrees in the morning and after a while it was unbearably hot for me in the sun. That just seems crazy to me and not at all what I experienced in the past. Measures could be taken even now but in a political climate where some politicians want to do away with the EPA the outlook is pretty grim. Even with it in place, big business money and power have granted them many dispensations from anti-pollution measures. And the fracking continues....

Ingrid

I was wondering if it rained for you. I stood out in our sprinkle and washed the trees down with the hose so that the smog and dust would be off and then let the little bit of rain that came by give them a soft water rinse. Poor trees, they needed that bath. I even saw a giant rainbow about 3 or 4 in the afternoon in the direction of Corona.

Your garden looks so much better than I thought it might by the way you described it. A long cool season will be good for the plants and I think you will have flowers to enjoy. My poor garden looks thrashed by wind and need trimming. All the long canes came loose out of trellises and trees and swatted their neighbors. There are piles of leaves and sticks everywhere still. I'm just working my way around and doing the parts visible from the street first and leaving the back for last. One good thing was that the Pomegranate tree lost many leaves so I was able to thin it out, harvest the fruits and I put Othello's huge octopus arms right up the middle. Hopefully I'll have some spring flowers hanging out. Who knows but if he will grow there he is welcome to do whatever he wants. This is my experiment with one of my worst octopus DAs ever. He is not taking up garden space from any other rose there in the tree.

I'm glad the roses are getting some water and some rest from a hard summer. I always liked the combination of your garden and the rocks because it looks very peaceful and enduring. I love how you look after the wildlife there as well.

You planted a Crepe Myrtle? Looks good, and should behave itself.

Garden looks good!

We got 0.15", it washed everything off...it was wonderful.

Kitty and hoovb, I wish you could have gotten a little more rain, but any rain at all is cause for celebration. Kitty, of course I edited the pictures to show only the better parts. I've had four crape myrtles for some time now, all in shades of lavender to purple, but the one shown is somewhat stunted because of a palm tree that was fairly close to it, which has been gone for about two years. The tree is now slowly growing taller. Crape myrtles are low-care plants for me here and I'm very fond of them. They blend well with the roses.

Ingrid

Crepe Myrtles are generally very good in our type of climate, Ingrid. They love the high heat and our lack of humidity prevents them from mildewing. They're used extensively as street trees here in the San Fernando Valley and are the canary in the coal mine for humidity and fog zones. When the street trees are gray and moldy, you know everything else is going to mold because of the trapped moisture. It's really rather interesting to follow the mildewy Crepe Myrtles around the Valley to get an idea of air flow and fog zones. Kim

These swamp sunflowers are the only thing I have putting on a show right now. Give me three cheers. This is my first attempt at posting photos. I hope it doesn't appear too large.

floridarose, in spite of the picture being upside down you get three cheers from me because it's a beautiful photo and I love those flowers. I've never heard of swamp sunflowers, but something about the name tells me they're not meant for my hot and dry garden. What a pity.

Ingrid

That's odd, Ingrid. They're right side up on my screen. They're over my head, and it's like walking through a forest of them. Oddly enough, they do well in regular soil, but possibly not in your arid conditions.