It's almost winter clean-up time. I'm starting to prune a few of my roses that have grown too rangy for comfort. Most of my late September blooms were fried in the 94-95 degree weather we've had in the last week. I'm not complaining, though. I know it will turn cold in another month and I'll do my complaining then.

This is Mu Lan, a hybrid tea. I love ruffled petals.

Many of mine fried with yesterday's 100 degree heat! Looks like another hot one today, 96 already. My in-laws from Canada should be here today, she hates heat. For them, a hot day is anything 80 on up. She's not going to be happy showing up on the hottest day of the year! At least the rest of the week is supposed to be back to normal, high 70's to low 80's.

Four days ago, I had to transplant four roses because a gopher had invaded their bed and I've been watering the poor plants like crazy since then. The absolute worst time of year to plant a rose! I probably should have immersed them in a barrel of water until the heat wave broke instead. There are eight more rose bushes to move out of that bed someday soon. I can't replant them in cages in the same bed because this particular bed isn't deep enough to accommodate cages.

Years ago, the back of my driveway was converted into a group of flower beds. I have no car, so the driveway was useless to me, and It seemed to be the ideal spot for gopher-proof planting. Five beds were created by dumping large mounds of dirt onto the concrete driveway and surrounding them with concrete blocks. Absolutely gopher proof, right? Theoretically, one of the beds should have been doubly safe because it's adjacent to the house, so there's no way to dig a tunnel anywhere near it. Well, this particular gopher obviously traveled overland across the driveway and then dove in, and now he's wreaking havoc in the "doubly safe" bed.

You have some determined and ingenious gophers! I have been planning to bury a sidewalk to enlarge a flower bed. How deep does the soil need to be to plant roses - without cages?

The concrete blocks around the beds are only 7 inches tall, so the soil can't go above that height. In spite of that, some of the roses are quite large. Grandmother's Hat, for instance, is at least 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide. All the rose bushes were small when I planted them in the beds, and the roots spread horizontally instead of working their way down. Although it's possible, I suppose, that the roots of some have burrowed into the concrete and may have broken it up to reach the soil below. The beds do dry out quickly in hot weather, so they have to be watered on the same schedule as container plants.

We finally got a triple-digit temperature, the first this year. It's 101 degrees now, at 4:30 in the afternoon on an October day. Humidity's only 10%, however, and the projected low tonight is 51 degrees. That's a difference of 50 degrees!

Those are pretty amazing weather conditions. No wonder the plants are stressed. We have temperatures over 100 fairly often but here the temperature creeps up over time, and the nights cool only slightly as the humidity is high. The roses seem to tolerate our sort of heat quite well. Right now we are having fall weather: low 80s, sunny and dry - except today at noon we had a surprise rain/hail storm!

The nighttime temps are our air conditioning, Porkpal. No one here has A/C. The cool nights keep our homes cool in the daytime, no matter how hot it gets outside.

Well, tomorrow's high is predicted to be 84, tomorrow night after midnight possible snow. Got a lot of mulching done this evening. Guess that's about it for me as far as warm weather. If it does snow, it'll just be a mushy snow.. the best kind.

This morning was a crisp 50 degrees, perfect hot tub weather. My favorite local nursery has carpet roses on sale for $10 today only, so I ran over and bought 2 more Scarlet carpets. The red blossoms hold up well in the sun and heat, so I'm doing a hedge of them. They were nice sized 2 gallons. The Amber carpet is my favorite, and I just realized it is great match with an orange/yellow mum so I may move some plants around. Hmm it would be easier to just buy new ones and place them near other plants with fall color.
The nursery had purple asters in 1 gallon pots marked down to $1 so I will plant a few of them in front of the red roses. It will be pretty next year. I have ornamental grasses behind the roses, so maybe in a few years, it will block the view of the street.
Toni, did you get your Santa Rosa order yet? They have the best grass selection of anyone. I was so tempted to order more, but I have a shade house full of plants I need to get into the ground, and more coming in the next month. I fractured two bones in my ankle, so I may not be doing a whole lot of digging in the next few weeks. I've sprained this ankle many times over the years, and the break probably happened for the first time years ago but was missed on the xray. Now it's clearly visible and painful. The worst part is I had to cancel a three day rose tour in Texas with my friends from the Rose Society. Guess this wasn't my year to do rose tours.

Cindi - Tomorrow's the day it's supposed to be here. I won't be able to put them into the ground until Sunday due to the weather, but I was expecting this. I figure I'll put them in the ground as quickly as I can (with a lot of my bluebeards sold, I have a LOT of space now open for smaller things!!) And all next week is supposed to be in the 60s/upper 30s, so no chance of freezing. In fact, the following Monday's supposed to be 70 again! Right now, it's a balmy 75degs. Tomorrow's gonna be much cooler w/ the high of only about 53. Saturday I'm going up to Estes Park.. now that's gonna be a cold day as the high up there is only supposed to be 32 w/fog, and the low's supposed to be +1. That time of year!! I wish I could find asters for only a buck.. everyone still have them full price. And I don't like grasses.. too boring IMO. I want flowers!! Can't you do the tour in a walking boot?

Well we dodged a cold front this time. Forecast was for mid 20's, but the official low was 33, according to the weather service, not necessarily what happened in my yard. It's 34 now at 8:30 and my coleus and vinca appear to have survived. We did bring in the tropicals I want to keep and some of the nicer pots of annuals. Many years we have an early freeze that kills off annuals then we get another month of warm weather. If we can just bring those plants in, then we enjoy them for another month. I was worried about the new roses, iris and daylilies I just planted. They are mulched and watered well. This is the earliest frost we've had for many years. Everyone I talked to was hoping for the deep freeze for one night to kill the insects because they've been horrible. I was standing in a line buying citronella candle torches and a guy laughed at me, saying you won't need those after tonight! We're having an outdoor party in 2 weeks...we don't have mosquito problems normally because the wind is too strong I just like the look of torches burning at a fall party.

My mums are only starting to open, but they are going to be gorgeous. i have some orange and yellow mums at the foot of orange and yellow climbing roses. The grasses are beautiful this time of year, too. I have some ruby red grasses in front of red roses, and red salvia greggii and oh they are nice.

The lumber store (menards) that had the torches is new to our area, so sometimes they carry things we don't normally see, stuff that is more for upper midwest. (snowshoes, for example!) Yesterday they had a huge selection of rose cones. Styrafoam, recycled paper, several sizes. A lady commented to me that they must be expecting a bad winter. No..I think it's a matter of someone in Wisconsin doing the ordering. Or should I buy some for insurance? Last winter I mulched like crazy and everything stayed green and leafed out all winter. How do you anchor the cones? We have wicked winds all winter, and hardly any snow.

Had gone to Estes Park, CO on Saturday. It was a cold, foggy, snowy day. Got some nice shots, though.

Estes Park: http://imgur.com/a/ELvBr (mostly of the stream that runs through, but one pic of DH)
Saint Malo's Retreat between Estes Park & Allenspark: http://imgur.com/a/DAOCM
Elk in rut. Super foggy (actually, low-lying clouds as we were sitting at about 8,000+ ft). Sun had gone down. There was 4 massive bulls and about 60 cows in this herd. http://imgur.com/a/uGu5U

Outside of Lyons, I stopped 'cuz there was a beautiful mountain saddle that my friend wanted pictures of. I got a picture of this wild flower. You can see the frozen rain on it. I have no idea what kind of flower it is.

Great pictures of the elk!

A bouquet for everyone, consisting of what I think has become my favorite rose in my garden, Brothers Grimm, along with a couple of apricot blooms in the center of Lady Emma Hamilton. Certainly a bright bouquet for the house!

Absolutely wonderful!

What a gorgeous bouquet!

Can almost smell it from here! *sigh* my roses are toast.. so I'll have to live vicariously through y'all for a few months.. like 7-8...

Lots still blooming here, all taken yesterday between our first rain showers of the season:

Cinco de Mayo and Adobe Sunrise


Jacob's Robe and Lady Emma Hamilton


Graham Thomas and rebloom on delphiniums


Penstemon and 3rd rebloom on this unknown yellow iris


Honeysuckle 'Blanche Sandman' and Tropicana Canna


Osteospemum 'Elena' and my favorite salvia, Salvia coerulea 'Costa Rica Blue'


Joseph's Coat and abutilon leaves & bloom

very nice Sue alls I have is brown right now and its rained every day for a month I'm getting prunie (sp) hoping for a nice November