Oh Janice. How stressful that must be for you. At least you have a way to protect them. It's the rain and heat that can really get to them.
I'm need to get the metal tubing for my new beds so I can put up the shade cloth. We are in for some very hot/dry weather, which poses a different problem for all then newly planted semps. They dehydrate and burn from the intense sun. If I water them they steam cook in full sun. The last time I used the shade cloth we had temps in the 90's up to 101°F. Very dry.
We put the shade cloth up and misted the plants with an overhead sprinkler. It was amazing how cool it was under the shade cloth. It allowed a very fine mist to come through the shade cloth giving the new semps much needed water, without steam cooking them.
