Temporary shade helps.

Bleu, we can only water between 5 PM and 8 AM where we are, and I do see the 'water police' driving around checking. However, I've been doing my best with watering after 5 and before 8. We have shade from oak trees but also sections with direct sun. Sounds like your watering 2x daily is the best you can do.

I put a small umbrella over my lettuce. A few tomatoes got sun scorch and my begonia richmondesis got toasted, but not killed. It's in a pot so I moved it to a shadier location.

I bought 50% shade cloth and even I wonder if that's enough protection! I put all my potted plants under a tree to give them some in protection. I also save as much gray water as possible. The heat wave hasn't stopped me from buying more plants but it's added to more worry of protecting them (that Sungold tomato just looked too good to pass up!)

It’s interesting to see what does well and what does not do well.

The Star jasmine, which is in full sun all day, is still looking very good. The Indian Hawthorne is not happy at all, lots of burned leaves. I set up some folding chairs up on top of them to shade them a little. They are small, just been in the ground 6 months or so. I don’t know if they are going to make it even though they still have some green leaves. Eugenia hedge is burned but will be ok. Camellia which normally does well in the sun is burned on top. I set up a patio umbrella over the potted succulents. They get a little sun.

Last weekend i went out of town for a few days and my zucchini and green beans died..I have a swamp cooler that drops water a few times a day so that's how i water my garden.

Interesting to hear about your camellias doing well in the sun normally. I've had the worst luck with the six camellias I planted last November. Supposedly "sun camellias" have been nothing but trouble. I planted them where they'd get five hours of sun, mostly in the morning and they got sun-scorched in February. I gave them more water, no difference. Then they put on their beautiful new leaves and looked so lovely. I made sure that they had the water they needed. Soon enough some leaves started to get scorched again so I moved them to another area where they'd get only two hours of afternoon sun. That was in early June, a month before the first heatwave. They liked their new location and looked very nice. On the second day of the heatwave, 90% of their leaves were completely scorched. I really wanted to cry.

Anyway... What really turned out to be a very tough cookie was the gardenia I planted in May. That plant and the oleanders were the only ones that were not affected at all by the intense heat.

The bay area hasn't had a heatwave yet this year. I think it was like 73f yesterday.

So the year-round 70 degree weather is still true in the Bay Area. So glad to hear that. :)

Well I am technically in the bay area and it's been up to 107 out here! You can always tell folks from the warmer climates of the bay!

Nine Bay Area Counties!

Yeah, Sonoma County has been 80s-90s. Just tolerable. Smokey, though!

Early in the morn I had my jacket on. It was 59f. I think the bay area is seeing a cool ocean waters summer. It might not hit "hot day" here until September.

Stanofh, looks like S.F. will be in the 90s during August.

For SoCal the forecast seems to be always so off. If they say it's going to be 88 F, you can be sure that it will be 93+. It's been like that all July.

Remember when a heatwave used to be three consecutive days of 90+ weather? I want to go back to that!!! Here we've just about had a month-long heatwave.

Just going by climate- nothing else at all- I always think of the bay area as the flats, the SF peninsula and western side of the coastal valley's hills. Like Pleasanton isn't very bay area like with hot summers and winter cold enough to kill Avocado's and brown Citrus leafs. And its just a 18 minute drive from my house.

Anyway's that's just me. The TV people include the bay area as much farther in all the directions!

Actually,Its all relative as I read on one of those Best City web sites someone from Oakland described Hayward as "Hot as he// Hayward". With our 78f Julys.

insert rolling eyes icon here!

High in the 90s for a month now and the tomatoes do not set fruit but the green parts of the tomato plant are growing like something out of an old B movie.

California, you may take your smoke back now. We've enough thank you.

Edited Sat 9:15 am Haze is back, We cannot even see the mountains.

Albert, I'm trying to grow four hot pepper plants and the poor things are struggling. Hot peppers are supposed to be very heat loving plants but these guys would much rather have it cooler. Perhaps I should've waited until September to plant them but why are local nurseries offering the plants in May/June if they know that the plants won't perform well or at all during July and August?

I think I'll start peppers from seed in September and see what happens.

I keep my peppers in part shade in the afternoon, and they do okay, but they really do great in the fall. They are in self watering containers with ten minute drip, twice a day.

My roses, mostly antique varieties, are all doing fine, although the bottom quarter to a third of most of them have been eaten by rabbits. I don't have to worry about my companion plants because the rabbits have eaten them all. My reblooming irises, that were so ornamental because they bloomed much of the year, have been eaten to the ground. There is nothing but dirt between the roses.

74f today after a 70f yesterday..my bay area report. No heatwave yet and its mid August.

nanelle_gw, your peppers look great. Mine are doing much better now that the weather has cooled down a bit. They still wilt a bit in the afternoon but perk right up after I give them a refreshing shower.

Oh, ingrid_vc! Those bunnies are causing so much damage to your garden, that's heartbreaking. Here they are ruining some of the grass areas in the neighborhood and I think that they may be nibbling on some of my succulents but no damage to the roses or irises, at least not so far. Have you tried leaving containers with water next to the plants they've been feeding on? It's been so hot and dry, they might be a lot thirstier than in previous years.

stanofh, that's perfect weather! Nice :).

A huge "Dark Queen" tomato, growing in part shade, in a "self watering planter". This thing is maybe 7 feet tall, and now resting on the redwood behind t. Not setting many fruit though.

A few days ago I saw a young deer, calmly eating flowers in a neighbor's front yard.

It was the warmest July ever in soucal and coastal waters reached 81.2F..warmest ever recorded.

I wonder what water that warm did to the Kelp beds and fauna used to cool waters?

nanelle_gw, that tommy is trying desperately to get some sun. I once planted 10 heirloom tomatoes in part shade, they would get no more than 6 hours of sun. They only produced an average of 17 tommies per plant - I harvested 175 in total; it was a rather wet summer so no fruit damage from critters. How many hours of sun would you say your tomato plant gets in that shady spot?

Some leafs on one African Milk Bush / Synademium scorched, and then c. seven days later, dropped. Bromeliads came through like troopers but had more shade.

Edited to add: Coastal areas were spared the worst of the heat of inland.

@Bleu Thanks!

"How many hours of sun would you say your tomato plant gets in that shady spot?"

I don't know that I would call it "shady", but I would guess about 5 in the morning, maybe 2 in the afternoon. Dappled for the other 5. I would call the picture showing the " dapple" to the left. I have Poblanos in a similar situation that are also huge.

OTOH, when I grow in full sun they seem to suffer as well. Most of our season is 90+ F, and often 100+, and "dry as chip" as my husband would say. FWIW, it has lots of flowers, and the rest of the tomatoes and peppers I position for afternoon sun are "normal" size, and bearing great!

I'm going to count the hours of full sun, and maybe move the plant a bit.

ETA......did you say you had a WET summer? In California? Where?

I'm close enough to the beach that it has not gotten that hot here, but it did reach 88° several days. My pepper plant loved it, but I watered it every day. It had no effect on my bromeliads or orchids, as they tend to like it hot. The rest of my plants are mostly succulents and epiphyllum, and they do not mind the heat either.

I had a difficult time getting pepper seeds started this year - I had to wait until March when I got back from Fiji to start them, but fortunately I have one very good plant, and it now has flowers on it.

I am housebound. The garden did okay. The gardener, aka spouse, gave up.

Not as much sun as I thought! I wonder if the sun strikes a little differently in that spot late August. We have had an unusually pleasant week, and sure is nicer to be out there.

nanelle_gw,

I planted those tomatoes I was telling you about in the North East (some years summers can get very wet there).

Did you move the tomato plant to a sunnier spot?

What are you using to cover the top of your tomato plant containers?

I can't believe the size of that pepper plant. It is huge! What kind of pepper is it?

My chili pepper plants are doing fine. This is their first year in the ground and, even though they've had to cope with two awful heatwaves; showering them up to three times per day during the hottest days was helpful. They have been bearing some really tasty peppers :).

You showed us your huge pepper plant. Here's my mini chili pepper plant:

I didn't think that little guy was going to survive. I saw chili peppers on sale in late May and bought one. It turned out to be two seedlings in one pot. I separated them and one of them took off nicely whereas this one just sat there, doing nothing. Both of them received the same amount of sun and care, still, this one seemed doomed. Then, in early August, it started to become bushier and lots of flowers appeared almost overnight but it only grew two more inches in height. Right now it is only 8" tall; that chili is about 3" long.

This has been a very pleasant week here. Cloudy skies and 72 degrees today. The plants are just as grateful as we are :).

Lars,

You have orchids growing outside? Are they in the shade all day? I would like to grow orchids outside but I have very little, if any, shade here.

albert_135, where are you? Is it still very hot there?

You should be able to grow epidendrum outdoors; here's a current photo of one of mine:

Here's a Dendrobium Nobile (I think), but it does need some shade

None of them like frost, but I think the epidendrums will definitely grow in your zone, but the warmer the winter is, the longer it will bloom. Mine bloom all year.

I have some smaller Phalaenopsis and Cattleya that I grow outdoors most of the year but bring them inside November through March, as they do not like cool temperatures at all. I keep them in deep shade outdoors.

Lars, those are gorgeous plants. I will try to find them. Would love to have a few! I'll google them. I thought orchids would not grow in the ground.

How big are your plants? Or maybe I should ask, How large do they normally get? (I've got a few partial shade spots for them if they don't get too large).

nanelle_gw, those poblanos are beautiful! First time I see red ones. The green ones are pretty mild, do they get milder as they ripen? Love your orchids, too.

Bleu, you should be able to find these orchids at your local nurseries, especially the cymbidiums. I bought mine at Home Depot in Marina Del Rey. They are generally inside, but not all of them need to be.

If you send me a private message with your address, I can send you some epidendrum cuttings, and those should do fine for you. They do best for me in hanging pots, but I have some in the ground in the front yard - it just depends on your soil.

Bleu, this "Tiburon" variety is warmer than many poblanos, and they are described as "mildly hot". I find that true whether green or red, and use the red ones for jelly.

Those Tiburon peppers are still going!

Whew- I thought I would melt in yesterday's 66f Hayward heat. I did pick a Mango.

Live the fantasy!

Hah! Hah! Sure.....now that the fires are controlled and the mud slides haven't started!