Viewing post #670270 by Mark619

RoseBlush1 said:Mark ...

OK... that tells me that you get more of the ocean influence than if you were further inland.

You won't have the deep soil moisture issue I described in my post above because you don't get the kind of soaking rains that I normally get up here in the mountains.

However, drought is drought. Your plants are adjusted to growing in your normal climate and with the drought conditions you are experiencing, your plants are still being impacted by the drought, but in a different way than what is happening in my garden. That's the stress they are responding to in your garden.

Toni is right about mulching being one of your best defenses because it does hold moisture in the soil longer. Your plant may still show water stress and possibly go into a kind of dormancy, which I call survival mode, because of the crazy heat you are experiencing even if the root zone is moist and never dries out.

You also have the rose sited in front of a fence and the plant is going to get some reflected heat off of it. If you have a concrete sidewalk in front of your rose, not shown in your photo, the plant can also get reflected heat off of the hardscape.

A friend of mine actually tested this theory by comparing the heat with a thermometer where a rose was sited to the thermometer a few feet away on a patio. There was a 20F difference !

Just something to think about.

Smiles,
Lyn

You're spit on with everything you're saying...for one I've never used mulch on any of my roses..I usually use the dead foliage as my mulch since they are in big containers...the second thing is like you said the white fence and the concrete that you can not see in my picture!! That too is helping along with the heat we've had!!