Nothing different, and I remain convinced that in my conditions (extreme radiant heat) the only thing that would really benefit the plants and allow more bloom is water from the sky, which is quite a different thing from what comes out of a hose. Anything extra is more than I can handle, other than trying to keep plants mulched, which is vitally important.

I did nothing, the weather did. We just had the coolest and driest summer in 36 years. The roses did very well with longer lasting flowers than ever while all other plants suffered, the grass turned brown, trees started dropping their leaves before their time, many perennials grew to half their normal height and some will not flower at all. I thank my water retaining heavy clay soil for the rose bloom. We've had a few weeks of rain now but it's too late for anything but the grass. Our season is too short for the late perennials to recover and autumn is practically here already with very cold nights. Only 40F last night.

The late Vernon Rickard, of Almost Heaven Roses, once told me that the best rose fertilizer is water. I'm sure part of why my plants had good rebloom this year is due to rain, though it has been dry the past month. You are lucky to have some clay in your soil, Mariannese. Mine is light sandy loam, very nice to dig, but fast draining.

I tried rudbeckia autumn colors, zinnias, and a mixed perinneal and annual seed. I also tried American marigolds which get to about 3ft tall, and so far they only have buds but the plant size is big compared to the common French marigolds. THere's a picture of something like I have on this article http://extension.msstate.edu/news/2017/marigolds-supply-lasting-color-help-for-tomatoes

They're pretty, garden nut. I even like the smell of marigolds. I have invasive rudbeckias but have been appreciating them this year. Those with tall phlox have been so colorful this past month.

I finally, after almost 20 years of gardening here, installed an irrigation system.

My roses look almost as lush and healthy as they did in June!!!

I am so happy we finally did this!!

That's the biggest thing I did differently this year...

Next year I'll (hopefully) be able to say I installed soaker hoses! This year, I'm hand watering more than ever due to extended high temps and no rain. Carol

Wow, Claire! Thank you for the info and photos of your AMAZING garden! Carol

Your garden and setting look lush , Claire. How long do you leave your irrigation system on? I once had soaker hoses but didn't think they did that much good.

Thanks for the kind words Carol and Erasmus!

As far as water, I am a Landscape Architect, so I designed the drip system, and now I fine tune it all the time. During the dry part of our year I run each station from 15 to 30 minutes. The thing to remember is what flow rate your emitters are, then you can determine the run time. Obviously different times if you have 3gph emitters rather than 1gph, soil type and climate also must be considered. A good irrigation controller will give you the necessary options. Other things to remember with drip is it must be run with very clean water (or the emitters will clog up) so you will need a good filtration device, it is designed to work with low pressure, so you need a pressure reducer, and you must protect your water source with a proper back-flow prevention device. Your local library should be able to provide drip irrigation design books, or your county extension office, someplace like that. I also find it very useful to have isolation valves on each bed or area served by a particular irrigation station, but you might not need that. Finally remember the emitters themselves are between the soil and the mulch, so it is prudent to pull back that mulch and see if the soil is as wet as you desire, do this in the spring when you turn the system on, and before you augment the mulch and it is pretty easy even in a big garden.

A good drip system on a timer is really the best way to water, it never forgets, puts on too much, or not enough <g>

cheers

Claire

Thanks for explaining it.

I like the scent of marigolds also, it's different from the usual floral scent most flowers carry

We had a good rain season this year and I mulched like mad. I have continued to downsize the garden, at a slower pace these days since the obvious cutbacks were done in the previous 3-4 years. So, no, not a lot different, just a little more of the same.

As soon as the current heat wave passes I'm going to fertilize. I have not done a late summer fertilization for many years, but I'm interested in seeing what it does. I get very little frost up here on the hill, so I don't have to worry about that hazard. I'm curious to see what my bloom-most-of the-year roses do with more fertilizer than I usually give them.

Rosefolly

It's cheating a bit because I began last year and I am continuing this. Last year I planted dahlias (not supposed to over-winter this far north) against an ENE facing garage wall (unheated). I did start them in the house so that is another factor. They did over-winter, except one, but the winter was mild. I noticed that some of the smaller tubers had rotted from freezing but the large tubers were very healthy. Other dahlias survived in the open garden but have been later flowering by 4-6 weeks and not as lusty. The variety is Thomas Edison (purple). This year I planted the varieties; A very black red, Arabian Night (which, many years ago, survived one winter in the garden) and Lavender Perfection. One Arabian Night is against the garage wall but the rest are in the open garden. The Lavender Perfection is large and beautiful once you get over the shock that it is a blue pink, well maybe lilac if you push it. We'll see what's alive next Spring. I may protect a Lavender Perfection, or not.

I have also come to terms that the apple trees must go. They crowd everything else in the bed and have gotten away from me. Originally they were espaliered in a vertical cordon. The planting advice I read had me planting them too close together so none of them bore well, if at all. Last year I took out the pear trees there and it has been a great improvement. I can get good fruit at the farmer's market. With everything, I have a very lengthy acquisition phase eventually followed by an edit phase. It must have begun. Incidentally "edit" has become my new favorite word, as in "that garden bed needs editing", which means weeding, pruning, transplanting, dividing, fertilizing, watering and mulching. "Edit" is so much tidier.

Cath

Edit is a good word for it. The dahlia's sound interesting. I have an agapanthus in the ground that is not supposed to be hardy but it has come through a lot of prolonged cold.

I had some pleasant surprises with marked down plants this year. Usually I'm not that fond of geraniums but saw some big pots of them at Lowe's marked down to $3 as they were not in bloom and didn't have curb appeal. With some deadheading and a little food they have bloomed all summer.

Last year I bought a big pot of beautiful white and green caladiums. Took the whole pot indoors for the winter and let it die down and go dormant. I put it outside in spring and kept it watered. It took forever but it finally woke up and has been beautiful. So I might try more tender bulbs without bothering to dig them up..just bring them in pot and all. Another good plant this year was a couple of tuberous begonias. They were iffy for awhile, resented being transplanted, but once settled in they have not quit blooming. Really pretty. I guess I'll just bring in the whole pot of those.

I too, have enjoyed my dahlias very much this year. Unfortunately, the gophers have enjoyed some of them as well. I'm lucky in that I can leave them in the ground, allowing them to grow into huge clumps over 5 years time. They make such good cut flowers with roses.

The biggest difference this past year has been that after 5 years of drought, we finally received adequate rainfall. This has made a huge difference. I have heavy clay soil, that holds water well. I saw things come up and bloom that I had planted years ago, and had forgotten about. I had assumed they were long dead, yet they must have been barely alive, just needing that rain. Roses really took off, and bloomed very well. There's just nothing like rain. So, it wasn't something I did differently, but something different that made all the difference in the world. Lisa

I watered and fed much less this year, and with our droughty summer, I had far fewer blooms and much less growth. Now that the weather is cooling, roses are putting out more growth and buds. This year was rather disappointing compared to last.

I attempted to maintain an organic copper fungicide routine, but got busy/tightened budget in August. I had minimal black spot until end of August through now when it really reared its ugly head.

Steven

There were a couple of things I did differently this year. I planted a few hybrid teas (gasp!), mostly because they seem to be the type of rose that my neighbors have and they seemed to take the heat better than my Austins. Dee-lish, Pricess Charlene de Monaco, Savannah, and Grande Dame went in. So far I am underwhelmed. Yes, the flowers can be quite beautiful, but I think that the plants are hideous. Turns out that they are not more heat tolerant than my other roses. I'm debating taking them out, but that's about $150 down the hole. Maybe I'll give them another year...

The other thing I did differently was to fix the watering and pay attention to feeding my roses. Suddenly my underperformers became stars. No doubt, roses love their food and water. Unfortunately that means that the next different thing I will have to do is remove the roses and plant a more environmentally conscious garden.

I didn't mulch the area where the lawn was and instead I let a weed creeper with bright blue flowers cover it all. It's going to seed but I'm doing this for the bees. They love visiting it every day. I also let salvias grow wild for hummingbirds instead of pulling them where i used to plant thirsty annuals.

I was able to put more mulch on the roses instead of trying to keep that former lawn covered. Already in a few months, most of that mulch has broken down.

A store was remodeling and all the organic plant foods were marked down 75 percent so i bought everything but the milorganite. Now I'm ready for a good fall flush. The local habitat for humanity store had the contents from a closed true value hardware and so i bought some lovely blue glazed pots for the strawberry babies and new cabinet knobs for kitchen and bathrooms. That's enough shopping!