Toni........ I am only at 2200 feet. You are right in that the higher elevations make the light stronger. My problem is that my rose garden is located between the back slope on my property and the house, so it traps heat ... and, yes, cold. In my climate, once it hits the 90s, it stays in the 90s and low 100s all summer. Not just periods of high heat, it's a long period of high heat.
Once the roses are more mature, they seem to handle the heat better. Firefighter was pure ugly this summer, but I only planted it this spring, so it's a young plant.
It's the heat that is hardest on my roses. Even when the temps get down to around 10 degrees F in winter, I have no die back. I think, it's harder on them when we don't have snow that sticks.
With the heat, I really have to make sure they are well hydrated and that I select roses with thick petal substance and dense foliage because everything else fries quickly. I can't buy mulch up here, so I have to go out to the forest to collect forest duff, or to a friend's to collect oak leaves and I go to the utility company's chipping pile for wood chips to top everything off. It's a lot of hard labor because I have to haul everything up from the street level. Without mulch, the top few inches of my glacier slurry soil dries out very, very quickly and that's where the feeder roots are located that take up moisture to the plants.
Next week I am getting an irrigation system installed, so I will be able to get everything watered on a more consistent basis. I garden on four levels, so that will really make my gardening life a lot easier.
The good news is that I have a rose garden
I don't think I'll be adding a lot more roses and am learning about other plants.
Smiles,
Lyn
