Here is Love and Peace. Magnificent in spring and fall, pathetic now.

I wouod replace almost all the roses shown in the first photo: Sexy Rexy, Dream Come True, Chicago Peace, and Love and Peace. There is a Camille Pisarro in there (the shortest plant) — just went in there from a pot this spring. I’d probably take it out and repot it. At the far end I have a Kordes Winter Sun, which is quite healthy — I might keep that.

How about replacing the roses above with two or three teas— Rosette d’Lizy, say, Monsieur Tillier, or Madame Joseph Schwartz? Or Gilbert Nabonnand? Everything in that bed now is a blend, mostly pink with some yellow. I would try to keep the teas low, just grazing the top of the wall,but let them grow as wide as they want. My existing teas have been ”trained” to climb, more or less:

Dr. Grill on right, in a teeny-tiny piece of dirt. Love Song in the barrels. Gen Gen. Schablikine on left.

Is this midsummer boredom, or a good idea? Rosette dLizy did well for me in 10a. I’d like more white, hence MJS.

Open to ideas!

Based in the things that bother you, I would urge you to go slow with it.

I suggest that one of the reasons normally-healthy roses might be mildewy is that they need more water. And I assume that you, like us, are on water-use restrictions. And that your temperatures have been very high.

Sylvia - in what conditions are your tea roses planted? Any partial shade part of the day? next to a wall like that, or not? Could you post a picture of the two tea roses? In general, I agree that heat stress and lack of water stress are what is causing the horribleness of those roses right up against that wall.

Tea roses and old china roses generally love warm conditions and sun, but no roses like to be baked. After we see where your two tea roses are growing, folks on here will have more ideas about where you might plant more of those, or even some chinas. In my experience, china roses are even more healthy in high heat conditions, so you might consider some of those.

Jackie

Jeri, they should be getting enough water on drip.. perhaps they’re not. I’ll I’ll review the settings.

Roseseek, I can‘t move those roses — no room. Is there something I could put between the roses and the slumpstone? Some kind of heat-absorbing material?

Jackie, I did post a picture of my teas. The patio where they are gets much more shade — that must help.

i’m stuck with these walls as long as I live here — and I’m not moving.😏I want to learn what I can do to offset their heat-magnifying effects.

Sylvia, you would need to build some sort of shade structure to prevent the sun from shining directly against the blocks. Painting them white will reflect too much heat and light. It is a constant, old issue. I dealt with it all the time when people wanted climbers to cover hot walls. The only sure way for success is to obtain a mature plant in a huge container that will cover enough of the wall to prevent it from absorbing enough heat to cook the plant. Perhaps if you can grow the plants large enough to shade the wall it may work. Otherwise....

Maybe consider changing the layout of your garden so that your paths are along the perimeters, maybe some cut through the center, with islands of plantings in the middle instead. That way your plants are showcased and, most importantly, off of the super hot wall.

Large Tea roses will shade your wall some. We are cooking here too. Hosing the roses down in extreme heat could help too if rules allow that.

"Large Teas" can help shade the wall. The problem is the heat from the wall will cook them, inhibiting their growth until they are large enough to shade it. Nothing will be happier against that wall until something shades it preventing the sun from heating it.

I have absolutely no idea if this would work, but could it be helpful to hang a sheet of shade cloth between the wall and the roses? Could that reduce the amount of heat absorbed by the wall and reflected back on to the roses?

Or is it a crazy idea?

That sounds good, plantlover. Putting an actual shade over the plants like nurseries do during extreme heat could help too.

We put latticework panels against our wall, and they did a reasonable job of breaking the heat until the two roses there grew large and dense enough to fend for themselves.

I really can’t move these roses, or create new beds. I’d need a new husband first..😁 and this one’s still working well after 37 years.

We do need some scraps of lawn for the dogs.

Jeri, I’m going for your lattice idea. With the shade cloth. Easy, fast, DUI in an afternoon (I hope). This is a 4x8 lattice sheet? Posts on the bottom, or nit? Thanks.

Sylvia,

Roseseek makes a strong point about unexpected but damaging heat buildup.

My little garden is a rose bed, 8' x 18', and a winter hardy cactus bed of the same size, opposite each other with a 3' walk between them. Patio and car pad completes my outdoor property. I pray for rain for the roses and pray it doesn't rain for the cacti! 😁

The rose bed is heavily mulched with pine bark...keeps the roses' roots as cool and hydrated as is possible, as well as pretty weed free. The roses are doing pretty good.

The cactus bed is mostly smooth shot gravel, very attractive and needed for quick and mandatory thorough drainage or the cacti rot. The cacti appreciate the considerable heat buildup the gravel generates and revel in it. Not so the Sempervivum, Hen and Chicks, which abundantly edged the cacti bed's front border during the bed's first years.

As the years passed and the bed matured, the fast spreading, and abundant, lovely looking Sempervivums slowly died out from the intense heat, heat that also increased significantly during that time. I had some 30 odd choice varieties of Sempervivums, some so large, that at first glance one thought they were small agaves. They blended harmoniously with the cacti.

Today, there is hardly 2 sq. ft. of Sempervivums total, left in the bed, some here, and some there; they look very unhappy, heat stressed to their limits. Of course, the short cacti filled in the spaces left empty as the Sempervivums disappeared.

You would think Sempervivums would be unaffected by the heat, but being Alpine succulents, heat tolerance is poor, but drought tolerance is not. Had I used a fine organic mulch like milled cypress mulch, a light colored mulch, I may still have an abundance of Sempervivums today, but the moisture retention cypress mulch would create, could have been the end of the cacti!

Too much heat can be a deal breaker.

Moses

I think you mean DIY, not DUI, lol. Don't get one of those.

Maggie, whoops! I thought it didn't look right …

Moses, sorry about your succulents going bust. Now I’m definitely putting up a protective layer.