I do hope you get some of those showers predicted for next week! I know just a shower or two could make such a difference in getting your plants by just a little longer. At least we can see the end of summer coming. Is fall typically cooler and wet for you, or hot, dry, and windy, as is it often is in So CA? I'm wishing you my wettest best! Lisa

We had a tiny remnant of the tropical storm from Baja come to us, with negligible rain but a welcome respite from the unprecedented heat of this summer. The lower leaves of most of the roses are brown in spite of copious watering, something I haven't seen before. I can actually see through SdlM which has always been a sturdy bush, although it does have flowers, as does Potter and Moore and a few other roses, but the garden as a whole is far from a pleasing sight, except for the square that is planted with shrubs. The sea lavender that was so beautiful in the spring is a mass of mostly dead leaves with dead flower stalks. Tea Rose Row is a sad sight with one dead rose, an unidentified climber with an evergrowing and non-blooming cane (this should have been Marie van Houtte) and yet another Mme. Lambard instead of the expected Triomphe de Luxembourg. Further along is yet another Mme. Lambard instead of Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux. On a brighter note Charles Darwin, Marie Pavie and International Herald Tribune are doing nicely, and in October I have new roses coming to replace dead and misidentified roses, so at least there is always some wellspring of hope that keeps me gardening, forever chasing the carrot of a better, more perfect garden, even though that goal continues be seem ever more elusive. Still, it's that hope that somehow makes it all seem worthwhile to keep going, even though for many of us it becomes ever more challenging.

I just planted more Teas, that I had in pots, and a motley crew they are. They looked so good at the end of June, and the subsequent two months of heat have taken their toll. I hope they can survive the pot challenge. I think pot culture here might best be limited to early spring and into the ground before the heat hits. I have some toasted leaves and some burned leaves. It is possible I got some fertilizer burn from Osmocote releasing too fast in the heat. Maybe non rain water can build up salts in pots too. I didn't have a new section ready to plant before now because we had too many family obligations this summer. Hopefully, I can get it together.

Melissa, I hope you get through with your drought soon, but let me say that the rain you have had this summer was much much more than we have had (almost zero). Of course, this is usual for us but unusual for you and your garden.

Ingrid, have you tried the small flowered red chinas, like 'Cramoisi Superior'? They are doing the best in my garden right now - they really love heat and sun. Their small leaves seem to hold up better to the heat, too (it was 109 and 106 here 4 and 3 days ago). These pics are not from today, but this same rose is blooming happily. Bush and close up pics below.

Jackie

Melissa and all struggling with increasing heat and drought, I appreciate the updates and send both sympathy and empathy! Our roses are serving as canaries in the coal mines, yes? I hope fall comes soon for all of us (minus California's Devil Winds and other forms of meteorological torture). Drought is a running theme around the PNW this summer. Fortunately for Portland, Mt. Hood held a good snow pack from a wet winter and spring preceding the roasting stretch of summer.

However, wildfires are igniting all around the PNW. The Eagle Creek fire is swallowing a large area of the Columbia Gorge. Smoke is blanketing Portland and beyond. A niece on my husband's side and her family have evacuated. My husband's brother and sister-in-law are on alert and may be evacuating soon. The fire jumped the gorge and is now burning in Washington. Melissa, I remember you lived in WA prior to your move to Italy, so I thought I'd pass along this news in case you still have friends and family near this fire or others. Sheila, I hope you're faring well down the state with the southern OR fires!

Tapping my foot and impatiently awaiting autumn's arrival here and there, Melissa! Carol

Jackie, many people have lauded how well the red Chinas do for them even when everything else seems to be moribund. I'm hampered by my complete dislike of the color red in roses which is why you'll never see that color in my garden. Some roses, like Mrs. B.R. Cant, annoy me because here they look pretty much red most of the time, whereas elsewhere they have lovely shades of pink. It may be a combination of my soil and radiant heat, but who knows? The only Mrs. I have left will be gone by autumn when I put the beautiful Florence Bowers in its place.

Sheila, your conditions are different, but a healthy and large tea from ARE nearly died when I planted it about 2 months ago when we had a cool stretch, whereas the rose I kept in its pot (with only slight morning sun) is thriving and sending out buds). I hope the ones you are planting will do well, but you might consider shading them in some way until it's cooler. I don't know whether the rose in the ground will ever recover enough to make a respectable plant; the jury is still out on that.

I really feel for that baked plant, Ingrid. Here, I did have the plants in pots on the north side of our home, but on the patio. They still looked pathetic by the end of August. I think putting the pots on a soil surface or wood pallet (off the hot cement) would have been better. You are right about the new plantings needing shade. I sunburned some of them that are newly in the ground. My sun shading skills are rudimentary and after the fact. This heat is terrible for plants. I think the smoke is reducing the temperature here, which is a blessing for my newbies. Somehow, I think they are all going to make it, and I hope yours does too, Ingrid.

It really makes me sick to know that you all are having to breathe in all of that smoke, not to mention your poor roses! Sending deepest sympathies, hope it ends soon.

Ingrid - I have a baby plant of a rose called 'Arethusa' which is a china (Paul, 1903), and which has small leaves and small blooms like the red ones. Blooms are a pale yellow/peach, fading to white, and the petals do that spindle thing when the blooms are fully open. I will post pictures when mine is blooming - right now it is spending its time putting out new canes and trying to get bigger than 12 by 12 inches. Lots of new growth, despite the heat.

Jackie

Jackie, I'm familiar with Arethusa, and I have a feeling that the petals would be too delicate in my conditions. The roses that do best have thicker petals like Aloha, SdlM and Potter and Moore. At any rate I plan to decrease the number of roses I have so that eventually I'll have 20 to 30 of the ones I love best that can stand the heat and drought. It's not what I envisioned but I have to be realistic, and even that number will satisfy me if they're beautiful plants that do well for me.

Your garden will always be lovely, Ingrid, whatever its incarnation! I've downsized, too, and am continuing to shave off plants that don't thrive on what I can offer. I've duplicated some favorite roses that do thrive, and I receive twice the joy and more flowers for cutting. Carol

I hope the weather this year doesn't turn out to be the new normal. The PNW is burning; my family in Florida is, for the moment, at the edge of Irma's projected path; Houston is recovering from being underwater for a time (Texans, don't shoot me for the inexactitude of that broad statement); here we've seen an extremely hot summer and prolonged drought. When it gets a little wetter I plan on going out and planting some trees. In the local paper yesterday it said this was the worst drought in fifty years, and worse than that locally, I think, which is dry even by regional and provincial standards. Nik, by the way, the summer's rainfall wasn't bad: what was bad was the early summer and very high temperatures, and the abnormally dry fall, winter, and spring that preceded the normally dry summer.

At least the weather is cooler now, and fallish, and there's talk of rain for the weekend. Bart, I hope your garden starts looking up soon.

Yes, Melissa! Quite a year. There is much that is preferable about the "old normal." I am wishing for our global climate to settle down a bit and for humans to increase our worldwide, cooperative, environmental science research efforts, It's high time for urban planners to orient their focus toward the creation of safe, secure, intentional design and construction with access for all. Carol

Please rain on Italy and Greece! We don't need any Grapes of Wrath drought hanging around those lovely gardens.

A rain dance for you from the southwest U.S..

And also I'll share jingle dress dancer Acosia Red Elk dancing on Supaman's Why video.

I love jingle dancing and Acosia Red Elk dances so beautifully. Jingle dancing is a dance for healing/ a prayer for healing.

I hope it rains this weekend for you and brings some healing to your garden and your spirit.

Thank you so much, Kittymoonbeam!

Kittymoonbeam, thanks for the videos. Perhaps they're the reason we have a forecast for rain tonight, though I'll believe it when it happens.

The videos made me realize that I know nothing about Native American cultures, not as they historically existed in all their mutltitude of forms, not as they were influenced by contact with Europeans and their imported cultures, not as they exist today. Speaking as an American, this seems to me a lack.

These are awesome,beautiful,and extremely moving. I can't thank you enough,Kittymoonbeam. That one with Acosia Red Elk and Supaman ought to be broadcasted all over the world. We all need it.