Ingrid the pics of your roses are beautiful! I especially like your SDLM and your mrs b r can't is gorgeous. I really am going to have to find room for mrs BR Cant in my yard. I admire how you are overcoming the difficult drought conditions and adapting your garden. Thank you for sharing your beautiful roses with us.

I'm envious. How do you get them to bloom so well during the hot August heat? I swear mine mostly go semi-dormant--a stray bloom here, a stray bloom there at best. If I didn't have a large hydrangea paniculata and a couple flaming crepe myrtles dominating the backyard right now, my gardens would look absolutely barren!

Thanks for sharing your August blooming gardens. Lovely!

Kate

Your garden does look great, Ingrid,especially considering that it's AUGUST. Your Ingenious Mr. F looks better than mine (mine is still blooming, though flowers not as nice as yours,but the plant is almost completely defoliated) What is that mauve coloured flower in the picture with Souvenir de la malmaison and The Ingenious Mr. F? Love that colour....bart

That's great Ingrid.

Thank you boncrow, Kate, bart and Pam. I have to say I was almost ready to give up roses this morning when I saw that almost every rose had been scraped bare of mulch and the moats destroyed by what I assume are racoons. The poor creatures are becoming increasingly desperate for food, and I'm considering scattering dog food around the roses to prevent this almost daily destruction of my efforts.

bart, Mr. F. is free of disease so he doesn't lose his leaves but I have to say mine doesn't have many to start with. A very gangly and bare-looking rose so far. I should try fertilizer other than bunny droppings (of which I have none any more since all the wild bunnies are gone), but I don't know if fertilizing in this heat is a good idea.

The mauve plant is what we call an ivy geranium because it tends to trail but it's really a pelargonium of some kind. That's my favorite color, but of course they come in different colors. I should think they would have these in Italy too. The only other color I tolerate in my garden is white, but they're more difficult to raise.

My "secret" is probably that I water every night, mulch the roses and build dirt moats around the roses to hold the water in. The soil in between is parched. If there were severe water restrictions my garden would be toast. I try to save water in every other way to make up for this, but I still feel guilty. On the other hand, my garden is an oasis for the little bit of life still left, birds, butterflies and bees. We need rain so badly.

Ingrid

Lovely photos as always Ingrid, and thanks for celebrating these rose survivors! As everything heats up around all of us, it's good to see evidence of tough roses that can handle anything the summer throws at them!

Cynthia

Amazing roses, Ingrid! Cheers to you for not giving up on your resilient roses. Love your SDLM. Its on my list to order for the next year. Glad to know its a trooper. BRAVO!

ingrid, do you think perhaps the animals are breaking down your moats while getting water? I've been thinking that the drought is probably very hard on the wildlife that has been used to drinking the water left on grass from the sprinklers. I lived in the high desert at one time, and in the very early morning the lawns (what few there were) were covered with rabbits. I admit that this is hearsay, since when I lived there, I was NOT an early riser.
Lovely pics and lovely roses!
Laura

Laura, I have birdbaths and bowls full of water around everywhere just for the animals so I don't think they're thirsty. I hand-water so no sprinklers and not a blade of grass anywhere.

Bayourose, I do hope your SdlM will do as well for you as mine has for me. It's been an awesome rose and I understand it doesn't mind humidity.

Cynthia, it's taken more determination and work to have roses this year than ever before, but the rewards have made it more than worth it. My distress when they weren't doing well and looked awful made me realize how much of my happiness depended on having beautiful roses even in the summer. I'm well aware that being able to water them adequately has played a big part, and in the future that may not be possible. But we live in the now, and it took a while for me to figure out what the roses needed to do well in the heat. Even now they often don't look great during the daytime when it's hot but in the cool of the evening after they've been watered they revive, and what's really exciting is that most of them are actively growing. It will be interesting to see whether they can withstand a few more months of punishing heat and continue to thrive.

Ingrid

Absolutely gorgeous!!! So envious!

Gorgeous!!! I love your roses.

No pix, but doing well in the heat are (in no particular order): 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' (of course), 'Will Scarlet', 'Louisiana Arcadia Tea' (looking especially wonderful), 'Faberge', 'Coral Delight', 'Better Times', 'Tip-Top' ('Baby Doll'), 'General Gallieni' (I have it in semi-shade), 'Lady Roberts', 'Anna Olivier', and a beautiful unknown pink Tea I got decades ago from Heritage Rose Gardens which is another of the many roses I try every year without success to root, and an unknown red Tea I got at the same time from the same source which I think is probably 'General Schablikine'. Someday when I can manage it I'll post a pic of the abovementioned pink Tea, of which even HRG's foundling name I don't have because the label bleached out in the sun. 'Archiduc Charles' is doing quite well, too, though surprisingly in the clutches of a Moon Flower vine which grew from seed spontaneously this year, evidently from seed from a vine I had there some forty or so years ago! The Moon Flower is loving the heat. Me, I don't mind the heat; but I despise the humidity.

Gorgeous Ingrid. I hope one day my Mrs BR Cant will be as beautiful as yours. I'm happy you did not give in to the frustrations. What a beautiful end result.
Here in Texas . Belinda's Dream, burgundy and white iceberg , Duchesse de Brabant, sweet fragrance, Cassie, Ascot, Darcey Bussell, Ducher, Lady Hillingdon, Mollineaux, SDLM , kronprincessin Viktoria ,Ducher and Grandmother's yellow rose along with one or 2 others have been "bloomer tons" for me with once weekly deep watering.

Brent, I've been thinking about Louisiana Arcadia Tea because I must have read something positive about it elsewhere and have also wondered about General Schablikine. I'm extremely interested in what roses do well for others. Because of hurricane Norbert it's been humid here too and I totally share your sentiments.

shops, you have a long list of roses that are doing well for you, actually quite a few more than my roses, now that it's about three weeks since I first posted, and with a lot less watering. By the way if you'd kindly put your zone and approximate location after your name we could instantly tell where you garden. Would love to see pictures of your blooming roses, of course.

Ingrid

Beautiful summer roses, Ingrid! Mrs. BR and La France are two of my favorite roses ever--fragrant, elegant, perfect shades of pink! I hope your latest Duchesse de Brabant experiment is successful. (I believe I read on another thread that you are giving her another try.) I grow her in my own garden and adore her. I can 100% relate to the therapeutic and joy-producing effects of roses all summer. There's just something magical about those fragrant blooms! They lift my spirits and calm my soul. :-) You are a midsummer trooper! Best wishes for continued success--Carol

Thank you Carol, it's so good to hear from you. You haven't often graced us with your presence lately and I've really missed your posts.

La France seems to shrivel less than almost any of my roses, even though one is at the very edge of a large square of concrete.

My Duchesse de Brabant is coming from the Antique Rose Emporium, and they furnish very large plants. I hope with a good start and afternoon shade it will be everything I've dreamed of.

Ingrid

Ingrid, another lovely old thread I bumbled into. I love Mrs. BR Cant in your photos, although I know you didn't. Did you ever try Arcadia Louisiana Tea?

Sheila, it's difficult for me to believe now that I ever had a garden that was so pretty and bloomed like that in August. On the other hand, I'm glad that no roses died and that some are already putting out new shoots. No, I never did buy Arcadia Louisiana Tea although I can't now recall why. I sometimes covet a rose and then find that no one carries it or they did carry it and are now sold out.

Looking at these lush roses it's a sobering thought that fewer than four years can make such a difference. I no longer have most of these roses, and the bushes I do have look nothing like these. Nevertheless, I'm determined to have a beautiful, although quite different, garden again.

All the photos are beautiful, but I especially appreciate Mme Cornelissen since I just bought this rose myself. I need to repot it--like today--since it's still in the band pot. It's been quiet, and I'm hoping the fresh pot and soil will jump start it into growing and blooming. Can't wait for the first flower.

Lovely roses and bouquets... what is the crop growing in the field near your house?

bart, I appreciate the vote of confidence. belle, it's a lovely rose but for me wasn't as vigorous or easy as SdlM, which may in part have been due to its more shady position. It is well worth growing, and I hope yours does well once it's out of its little pot. Krista, that's the vineyard across the street.

WONDERFUL, Ingrid.

Thank you, Jeri. I wonder if anyone had told us, four years ago when these pictures were taken, what shape our gardens, our country and this world would be in if we would even have believed it. It is nice, though, to think that these good times did happen.