TexasRanger gave you a lot of good ideas. I would also suggest nepeta. It does not like to be overly wet. Do you have peonies? They are spring color, but I love them.

annuals-check out: profusion zinnias, melampodium, rose moss, ice plant.

If it helps any, I've had very little luck with dahlias. I suspect they like cooler weather than we have.

Sammy, My watering schedule in hot weather depends on how wet or dry the soil is. I always stick a finger down in the soil 3 to 4" (even if I have to dig a hole with my transplanting trowel to reach down that deeply) to see if there is any moisture in the soil. I don't water until it is dry 3-4" down.

I try to water only once a week at the most in the heat, although in 2011's horrid drought I watered about twice a week until we got so busy with fires that I was gone day and night, and then I didn't water at all for about 6 weeks---roughly from around the beginning of July until mid-August. Some annuals didn't survive that lack of irrigation, but all the perennials did.

I water less often but water more deeply deliberately. That causes the plants to put down roots more deeply into the soil. If you water more often and more shallowly, you are in essence training your plants to keep their roots up in the upper layers of the soil which then means they demand to be watered constantly. And, I am talking about how I water the fenced-in garden, which is a combination of annual and perennial vegetables, flowers, herbs and fruit. I don't water the lawn, trees, shrubs or the rose bushes up by the house at all most summers. In a dry summer, I might water them twice a month.

If you are watering your roses every other day, then none of the drought-tolerant plants that I grow could tolerate that much water and either would die or would get so tall that they'd flop over onto the ground, so I don't know what to suggest if the drought-tolerant plants are going to be grown amidst the roses on the same watering schedule.

I grow a lot of the plants mentioned by both Lisa and TexasRanger, but they have to get by on a maximum of once-a-week watering in dry periods, and no watering at all in wetter years, and I've never given them water every other day, not even in the worst heat and drought. Some of the most drought-tolerant flowers I grow that weren't listed above are nicotiana alata, various forms of daturas, Laura Bush petunia (developed from a native petunia and not at all like the standard petunias that fade away in our summer heat), Mexican hat, cosmos, cleome, Maltese Cross, bachelor buttons (cool season) and tall verbena (verbena bonariensis). Oh, and 4 o'clocks and gomphrena as well. I also grow a lot of members of the hollyhock and mallow family, including regularly hollyhocks, fig-leaved hollyhocks, malva sylvestis 'Zebrina' and 'Mystic Merlin', and various swamp mallows. Despite the use of the word 'swamp' in their name, the swamp mallows are very drought-tolerant and often get by on only a very small amount of supplemental water in dry spells---maybe an inch or two of water once or twice a month if we are in drought, and no irrigation otherwise. Red hot poker also does really well for me with little to no irrigation, as do canna lilies. I only grow the tall types of cannas, and this year's rain has made them get about 8' tall, so they wouldn't work mixed in with roses but could be used at the very back of the rose-growing area, and there are some dwarf forms available. In addition to the herbs TexasRanger mentioned, I grow both tansy and silver tansy with no irrigation. If you do irrigate them, they tend to get too tall and then you have to cut them back almost to the ground or they start falling over onto shorter plants. I grow the common woodworm with no irrigation and comfrey too. So far, fennel and bronze fennel seem to grow exceptionally well without irrigation too, but I grow them as a food source for the larvae of swallowtail butterflies, so they often are eaten back nearly to the ground when there's lots of swallowtail cats. Because of that, I tuck them away in back corners where it won't matter if they are devoured by the cats. I wouldn't put them front and center in an area filled with flowers because they get eaten a lot, and then after they regrow, they get eaten again so they often are not the prettiest plants around although their feathery foliage is beautiful even when they are eaten down within inches of the ground.

For early cool-season color, I grow larkspur in several different colors and also poppies and snapdragons as well. Some years native yarrow springs up in that bed too. I let the yarrow, larkspur, poppies and snapdragons reseed whenever, wherever, and however they choose and just thin them out every year after they sprout and have grown a couple of inches tall. They don't get any irrigation either because their bed is filled with warm-season plants like Laura Bush petunias, zinnias and cosmos that reseed and don't need irrigation either. The snapdragons usually fade and die earlier than the others because they probably would like a little irrigation, but I don't care. Once they die back, other flowers in that bed just take over their area. Dianthus is planted in parts of the garden's raised beds well away from the flower border and they are remarkably drought-tolerant too, though they likely benefit from getting a little more water when I am watering enough in early spring to get the tomato and pepper plants well-established. Long ago, I stopped planting the types of perennials that are finicky and need a lot of water because I don't want to spend my whole summer trying to water enough to keep them alive. Sometimes native perennials like clasping coneflower or Indian blanket sprout in my fenced garden, and when they do, I leave them alone and let them stay (and am delighted to have them). Angelonia is a mainstay in my garden in dry years, but I don't plant it in wet years because it doesn't like to get too much water. The same thing is true of agastache, which does great in our clay soil in dry years, but dies in wet years.

When planting, I try to group plants together with similar watering needs, so that if I am growing something that is a bit more thirsty than other plants I grow, I want all those 'thirsty' plants together so I can water them without having to water everything else. If your roses are what you'd consider 'thirsty' plants that need regular irrigation on a fairly frequent basis, then I wouldn't plant drought-tolerant plants with them that have a different kind of watering need.

I think, though, that it would be possible for you to perhaps modify the rose irrigation routine and get the to go longer in between watering. I have a Graham Thomas rose up by the house that gets by on no supplemental watering most years. It is the sole survivor of a bunch of roses that demanded more time and attention than I have/was willing to give them. I've also got three climbing roses growing on a fence outside my kitchen window and I only irrigated them the first year to get them established. They're in an awkward, hard-to-reach area, so they have to get by on rainfall alone. I think I did water them about twice a month in 2011 because I was watering the nearby chaste tree twice a month that year.

If your soil is sandy soil or sandy loam that drains incredibly fast, then you might look at the website of High Country Gardens, which carries tons of heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant plants that demand perfect drainage. However, even with them, you'd either have to have them on a separate irrigation system than the roses or at least have them growing far enough away from the roses that the rose irrigation water wouldn't kill them. Most drought-tolerant flowers, and especially the ones sold by High Country Gardens, don't need much water and can die if they are getting too much water or if they are in soil that doesn't offer nearly perfect drainage.

Texas Ranger 2, Lisa, and Dawn, thank you so much for your responses.

I have heard the advice you have given me about watering, but when my plants look a little droopy, I want to be sure to water.

I have taken notes on all you have said about watering, and need to change. In the spring when I lose roses, I try to water better in hopes that the water will prevent more loss. I know that the losses are due to either the total lack of water in the winter, or the sudden freezes we get after the roses begin to grow in the spring. I enjoy my roses, but I want to prepare an appropriate garden for me as I get older.

I have 16 crape myrtles and about 10 boxwoods.

Dawn, my roses have small blooms this year. Do you think that is because of all the rain we had?

Also how do any of you handle the seeds or the seedlings that come back in the spring? Do you just know what they are? Unfortunately last year I became so discouraged with the bed that had all the larkspurs that I weeded it carefully and ended up getting rid of all the larkspurs. This year I had about 3 little plants. How do you weed an area yet preserve the seeds?

Like so many in Oklahoma, my soil was all clay. During the 36 years we have been here, wherever I have planted, I have first put in a mixture of top soil and compost. Most of my soil is probably pretty good, but without mulch on top, it feels like crumbled bricks. None of you mentioned mulch. I use bags of pine bark mulch. What is your preference? Do you amend your soil? I only amend it for rose bushes, and the other plants are usually where a rose bush used to grow.

I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your taking the time to give me so much information. All of the responses were highly organized, and very easy to understand.

Recently I planted 5 butterfly bushes, and they are wilting everyday. I wonder if I waited too late in the year to plant them. They each had a good start in a rather large pot. Perhaps they are not the right variety.

Sammy

Sammy, some of your wilting may be from heat not lack of water. The hot sun pulls water from the tops,of the plants faster than the roots can send it up to the top. Watch the plant in late evening, if it perks back up its the heat and not your moisture. I have grown roses for years, shrub and hybrid T, and have never had to water frequently. I water about once a week and give them a good soaking. Some shrub and climbers can go longer than hybrid,T. Giving them a drink every day will make for shallow roots that cannot take the dry and cold Oklahoma winter. Try to lengthen the time between watering and water deeper. Hope this helps.

Stockergal, I am definitely going to change to about twice a week watering. My roses are almost all from the Antique Rose Emporium. They are own root, and many of them are from Rose Rustling, meaning that they are grown from roses that were found growing wild in Texas. They should definitely do better than so many that are hybrids.

My roses' roots have not been shallow, but as I say that I realize that the feeder roots are the ones that count, not the big anchor roots.

I will also watch the plants in the evening to see how they respond after it begins to cool.

Thanks,

Sammy

Sammy, I am so excited to hear you have roses from the Rose Rustling group. These guys should require very little water and go gangbusters in any weather. I had two from them, but the May 20th tornado took them back to Texas or OZ which ever, they are long gone.

Love your roses and don't worry to much about the care, they are not as difficult as thier reputations say. I believe we coddle them because for generations everybody told us how hard they are to grow, but they are not.

Sammy, I'm not sure why your roses are smaller this year. Have the blooms been smaller ever since the plants started blooming this year, or did they start out regular sized and get progressively smaller as the season has gone on? My Graham Thomas blooms were normal-sized in May, but smaller since then, and I believe it is a combination of the constant rainfall, too many clouds and too little sunshine throughout May and part of June, and heavily waterlogged soil. I don't really feed mine either, so maybe if I fertilized them the later flowers would be as big as the earlier ones. I just let the mulch feed them as it decomposes and I pile fresh mulch right on top of older, decomposing mulch. Every now and then I rake back the mulch and drop a banana peel or two underneath it.

I do think that the kind of roses you're growing ought to be incredibly heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant, given that the rose rustlers rescued lots of them from old cemeteries where no one watered them and from old abandoned homesteads where they had to survive on only whatever rainfall occurred after the homesteads were abandoned.

I watered everything a lot more heavily in our earliest years here because our clay was simply horrid. As the soil got better, I watered less and less and I continue to work constantly on soil-building, from the top down, so that I can continue to water less in future years. My goal is to have a garden that needs very little supplemental irrigation after Tim retires because watering a lot can really drive up the water bill here, and water is likely to become more scarce in the future than it is now. (It seems ridiculous to say that when I'm sitting here with almost 49" of rain in the first six months of the year, but this is not a typical weather year.)

Unless you currently are in a very dry spell, I encourage you to try watering less often but more deeply to see how the plants respond to that. Since they are used to more frequently watering, it may take them a while to adjust to the change.

Wilting can be caused by heat, wind or even by roots that are waterlogged, so I never assume that wilting is solely an indicator of a plant needing to be watered. Often plants wilt here during the heat of the day in the summer and immediately recover as soon as the sun starts sinking low in the western sky. I only worry about them if they do not show recovery as the sun starts going down. Most of the time, they look perfectly fine by the next morning.

Dawn

I always cut my roses back earlier than most people I know since it takes so much time to cut them. I am never sure whether to cut back a rose that has damage or to let it have the first bloom, then cut it back. This year I tried to cut back all damage (within reason), so that after the first bloom, the garden would look pretty. I am not sure what is going on, but not only are the blooms small, but many of the canes are also small. It could also be that some of my older roses need to be replaced. A couple of Penelopes (hybrid musk) were here in year 2000, and they just have not put out new growth. Hmm. I just need to think.

I can always call Mike Shoup at the Antique Rose Emporium. They are very helpful, and I have been purchasing from them for many many years. (He came here a couple of months ago to speak to our Rose Society.) I'm rambling. I do understand roses, just haven't figured out the small blooms. I thought they grew too fast in the spring because of all the rain.

Sammy

Maybe the rainfall has clogged the roots and they are so waterlogged they have not been able to take up adequate nutrition. That happens with garden veggies a lot. I am not sure how common it is with roses. With tomatoes and peppers, the leaves do not get their normal green if the roots are clogged, often being more pale and showing some shades of yellow and purple. After the soil dries out and the plants can take up nutrients again, the foliage returns to normal and the plants begin to grow again, bloom and set fruit. So, I think that's one possibility if you've had the kind of rainfall there that could clog up your rose bushes' roots.

I guess they are ok, I just need to take off the spent blooms. The leaves are the regular size. I need to get the rest of the mulch down. I think that protects them from the sun somewhat, and helps with the water.