We've now been living for several weeks with daily highs in the high nineties, low in the seventies, and no rain. The days are blessedly perceptibly shorter, and the weather forecast says that we can expect--finally--a return to more moderate temperatures shortly after the middle of the month, though it only hints at scattered showers, and no serious rain. So how's the garden doing?

It's not doing too badly, as far as I can tell. My helper has watered last fall's plantings twice, though I must admit I haven't checked the results carefully: what I've seen looked reasonable. Some plants are suffering, of course. A portion of the unloved elms always keels over in drought, one of the reasons I'm slowly eliminating them from our property; maples, too, are yellowing, though not dying. The native oaks are fine, thriving, even, as are the olives and Italian cypresses, which are more widely grown further south, though they have a long and honored presence in our part of the country. My laburnums in the front yard have yellow leaves, some of the flowering ash have burned foliage, though I'm not sure whether this is drought or disease; some of my sarcococcas are wilted. Of the roses around the house, the only one I see looking seriously stressed is climber 'Brenda Colvin', which in any case has short-lived canes, and her younger growth is sound. Well, and 'La Mortola', which suffers dieback every year. But the roses growing on the long pergola, 'Crépuscule', 'Papa Gontier' (not sure about this ID), Rosa moschata, and 'Souv. de Mme. Leonie Viennot' (of commerce) are all looking perfectly happy, many of them putting out new growth. My overall impression of the garden is that plants are dry, yes, but generally getting along fairly well. I certainly feel smug for my practice of only watering plants their first year, then letting them get by on what water Nature offers. It's not as reliable a strategy for growth and blooms as irrigation, but the plants are really hard to kill. And we don't have unlimited water here.

This morning DH and I were out in the Small Orto building a little pergola. Rebar, of course, just two arches., for a space about 2m x 1.5m. Years ago I set cuttings of 'Lamarque' to root here; one survived, which I left there because I had no good place to put it. Well, in the last year or two it has taken hold, and this year it has been growing. It's at about two meters now, and, in spite of heat, drought, and no irrigation, has been putting out new growth and blooming a bit all summer. I don't know how large it will get. The Small Orto, originally a parking area, is on a shelf of sedimentary rock, which I remember very well digging out years ago with the help of a pick and backfilling with sand and organic matter; since then I've mulched steadily with all the organic matter I could find. This shallow soil might result in a dwarf 'Lamarque'; on the other hand, 'Crépuscule', growing not far from it and in the same kind of soil, is five or six meters across and thriving, so never say never. If it does get big I can always extend the pergola, and provide more of the Small Orto with the shade which is much of my reason for doing this. I don't know whether a hypothetical huge 'Lamarque' roofing all the Small Orto would provide too much shade for vegetables growing beneath it, but my impression these days is that no plant, of those I'm familiar with, loves full sun.