zuzu said:I love July here because the hot weather eliminates some of my garden's problems. The heat of the last several weeks has produced a new flush of blooms and lots of new growth. The foliage previously marred by black spot has been replaced by beautiful spotless leaves. The saw flies have finished their dirty work and the curculio weevils are gone until next spring. The July flush of blooms might not be as magnificent as the one in May, but those blooms were best appreciated from a distance, far enough away not to see the damaged leaves. Now everything looks better up close.
Zuzu ....
My heat is, shall we say more intense than yours, but you are correct, the bugs and disease are gone. The roses have gotten most of their new foliage back and I am getting a lot of bloom because I did dis-bud all of my roses and they are really pushing enough blooms that it is almost like having a second first flush.
Yesterday it was 107F / 41.6C and few of the roses had crispy blooms and none were weeping due to high transpiration rates. I only water deeply once a week with what I call a feeder root watering about three or four days later. Of course, I've selected roses that can handle the heat and have prepared them for the heat. They are also, for the most part, mature plants with good root systems. Drip irrigation doesn't work in glacier slurry ...
... so over time, I've developed a watering method that seems to work in this soil for the roses.
It's too hot to take photos because I need the cool hours, which are few, to be doing garden work, but, I, too, love July.
btw ... the blooms on 'Queen Elizabeth' look as fresh as they did a couple of days ago when I took those photos, so I can recommend that rose for a hot climate ...
