I know why it's called the Dog Days of Summer (dominant constellation in the sky right now is Sirius Major, the Dog Star), but I'm so tired of the oppressive heat. And my roses are pretty tired of it too. Mainly because they're tired of not being watered until I get my lazy butt outside as we haven't had any rain almost at all this month. My front yard is doing OK, there's enough mulch to keep the soil moist and cool. The west side of the house, too, is OK as there's the left-over mulch from last winter, so the roses there are doing OK. The east side, however, is about dead. I put in over 40 roses in that area and I honestly do believe that 20 are still alive. And, almost 100% of the deaths are my fault.

One thing that I've learned as a beginning gardener is not to listen to advice from "professionals". They just want you to feed all kinds of expensive additives w/o explaining WHY I need these. I've learned to listen to people who actually HAVE roses. THEY know what is what. And, I guess that with what the advice of keeping the mulch away from the roses so that I don't harbor insects was WRONGO! Based upon my own observation, I don't have insect or mildew/mold problems, I have HEAT and INTENSE heat problems. The top 3" of my soil is a extremely dry dust that you can't dig through, it's like poof! Below that, the next 6-8" is a solid clay that is almost impossible to dig through without watering for an hour. Only when you below 8" (which is where I put the root balls of my roses, below the clayline) is a sand base. The clay is horridly hot all the time, the sand is actually semi-moist and cooler.

I'm going to have to make a map of what I have in the ground, but, I can almost guarantee myself that I've lost so many unusual roses that it's going to be painful to replace them. Simple roses like Mr. Lincoln are ok. Stranger roses like Florescent Fuschia are almost toast. I lost all the roses from Pickering and Chamblees, but, I'm not blaming them at all. I'm blaming myself. In fact, I think I've lost 3-5 from Roses Unlimited as well.

Oh well, there's always next year. And, best of all, a lot of these are HD roses, so I'll just dig 'em up, get my receipts (I've spent over $2000 this year at HD on plants and whatnot), and take 'em all back. *sigh*

I'm with you Toni no rain and a bad personal summer my poor plants are the ones that suffered so now I will pull up my big girl panties and try to save some of them
Gloria

What a shame, Toni and Gloria. I'm so sorry.

We've had an unusually cool summer here, with the exception of a couple of mini-heatwaves lasting only a few days each. Last week we soared to 107 degrees one day with no warning. I swear we'd had high 70s and low 80s for weeks up to that point. Obviously, nothing in the garden was happy about that drastic change in weather, but it luckily did not last more than a few days and now we're back to high 70s and low 80s. Some triple-digit temps are in the forecast for next week as well, but everything here will survive as long as the heat wave doesn't last long.

We've also had no rain in months, but we never have rain in summer, so gardening here necessarily includes some watering every single day. This year I've actually used much less water than at any time in the last decade or so.

Gloria - I don't like wearing my big girl panties.. I've been having to wear those since I was 10 years old. Right now, I'd rather run around in some underoos, but they don't make 'em in my size. LOL!!! And now that the temps are no longer in the 90s (90s aren't bad as long as there's a wind, but when it's stock still, it's oppressive!!), I'm able to get more done.

One good thing about no rain/no water: no skeeters! I haven't been bit by a skeeter in a few weeks, and I've been doing a lot of work at night (between 6pm & 8pm, before it gets too dark to see, but I *did* work until almost 10pm on Sunday night shoveling mulch into buckets for transport). But the mud wasps have been hanging around a LOT due to the ponds & my birdbath. Yuck. :(

I'll try to get pics of the west side of my house tonight so everyone can see a before/after.

I was just out a few minets ago its still so muggy you fell like your breathing water !! I did get some watering done the roses and other plants are showing some signes of new life !! they droped the lake level 4 feet so they could fix the damn and oh Lord dose it smell some times and tonight is one of them so I hope it dose rain tomorrow keep smiling this is supposed to be relaxing LOL it usualy is but right now I'm trying to play catch up be for we go on vacation I can do it ! ;0)
Gloria

I'm sorry to hear about your losses, Toni. I've been watering my roses four to six times a week here. When I plant them, I try to form the soil so that there is a 20" wide, 2" deep saucer to hold the water, and I try to fill it up each time I water. I am pretty sure I have been under-watering because growth is really slow, and because the roses rarely bloom, except for the one or two times a season when I forget to turn off the hose overnight!

I've lost about eight of the forty or fifty roses I planted this spring, mostly to drought, I believe, though some never did leaf out despite daily watering.

Good news is that the sky is blue, the air is dry, and the monsoons brought some moisture from afternoon showers during July and August. There is not a touch of fungus on any roses. It's now in the mid eighties during the day, low sixties at night.

A small shipment of roses for fall planting is on its way. Getting ready to do the last foliar feeding of the season. Hoping I'll have the energy to mulch for the winter.

Steve - Mulching for winter will have to happen much earlier for me than I expected. Tonight's low is supposed to be 39 degs. I'm not ready. I'm so not ready for a frost already. There's been freeze warnings in the high country (above 9000 ft), but nothing for us "low landers" (anyone below 7000 ft). Walked out to the car this morning, definitely a chill in the air. I want to get a new jacket this year, guess I'll go jacket shopping on Saturday night.

Wish I could do the fall planting of roses.. but they just don't make it (found out the hard way). I'm done w/planting for the year, no more things can I put into the ground. Now all the nurseries are having chile festivals.. yay!

Oh what I would give for some good rain...

Our summer has been unusually wet - a nice change from the relentless drought of last year! It has also been hotter and even more humid than usual as a result it seldom dropped below 80 at night. Black spot has been worse than usual and a number of my roses are nearly leafless. I am looking forward to fall - our best season. I envy Steve's funguslessness (how's that for a word?) but not his arid climate. Toni, I don't think I could survive your short growing season. I admire your persistence. So I guess I've got it pretty good.

PPal - I love the funguslessness.. makes 100% perfect sense. And I don't think I can survive my short growing season either.. probably within 5-10 years we'll be moving to someplace a little more south (Home: NM). I hate Colorado.. I really really do.

On the plus side, some of my roses are really starting to blossom in the front. Well, the ones that I deadheaded a few weeks ago. All my Perfume Tigers have blooms on it, my poor little bitty Moonstone, which is less than 8" tall has 1 massive bloom on it (blossom's almost bigger than the entire bush), Picante has given me a perfect orange blossom, Intrigue smells like heaven finally, Blue Bayou is giving me a second round of drop-dead gorgeous blue roses (these are bluer than Blue Girl, IMO), and Midnight Blue is finally happy and is blossoming in almost 100% shade. I had her in the front getting way too much sun and it was getting crisped. I moved it to my shaded corner right next to the house and the blossoms are to die for. I'll have to get some pictures of them tomorrow.

Nights are still in the fifties here. It's probably three or four or even five weeks before hard frost. With highs in the high eighties, I'm hoping to get some good root growth on my roses before winter. I know mulching is in order. Not sure if I'm up for it.

I like funguslessness better than fungi-free zone FFZ. Several weeks ago we had DW's great nephews here for a week that we called camp B&B - four boys between seven and twelve. One wore a tee shirt with a smiling mushroom that said "I'm a fun guy." If this were a fun-guy free zone, it would be a little boring, I suppose.