Cindi - yes, I have central. That was not an option when we were buying a house - had to have either air or a swamp cooler.
Steve - mothers day is our official safe-to-plant day. But I have seen a hard frost & snow in the middle-late May. This year spring sprang way too early and many of the roses I purchased suffered horribly with the heat & lack of rain. I've leaned the expensive way to plant them as fast as I humanly can and to make sure I mulch everything heavily. I still ended up losing about 4 freshly bought roses due to the heat & transplant shock & everyone's blooming odd or wrong. Even my old faithful, Mardi Gras is blooming off.. Blooming almost pure pink. Oranges & Lemons is blooming these tiny button sized roses that almost all Oranges & no Lemons. Henry Fonda is blooming tiny roses, and even my wonder Golden Masterpiece is blooming strange roses that look more like an English than a hybrid tea. Very few of my roses seem to be tolerating this heat.. I don't blame them because I'm not tolerating it either. Today it's only about 103deg, and our normal high is like 83. Plus our humidity today is only 5%...an extremely low humidity.
PPal - I grow roses here because everyone told me I couldn't, they wouldn't survive. To me, it's far more beautiful than a blah yard with just grass like everyone else.
