Saturday, July 9, 2011

Hot Days in the Garden

We just finished the hottest June in recorded history here in Oklahoma.  Today we hit 110 degrees and our 20th day of triple digit temps.  When it gets this hot there are few roses that can stand up to the heat.
This morning I took a few photos in the garden.  Here is Graham Thomas with a few roses fried by the sun and one that opened over night. Below is the same cluster of roses just eight hours later.

While many of my roses enter a summer semi-dormancy, usually this comes a month later than it has this year.  When you see how the Summer heat affects the flowers you understand why.  Still others seem to flourish in this heat.  Here are a few others that got caught in the sun today. 

 This is Braveheart and it actually holds up somewhat better than many other red roses.

Here is St. Swithun surviving the day.

This flower of Twister made it through unscathed.

The heat turned out to be too much for Tradescant.  I'm praying for rain and cooler days - the forecast has 107 for tomorrow but we will cool off to 101 on Tuesday. 

16 comments:

  1. OK, I stop complaining about our heat immediately. Wow, 20 days of triple digit numbers that is really hot. I am astonished that your roses still continue to produce flowers, even though some of them fry. What is even more astonishing to me that Twister survived 110 degrees. I was thinking that this is not possible for a rose!
    Wishing you some cooler temperatures and some rain!
    Christina

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  2. Thanks Christina,

    110 was the offical temp yesterday but that high is unusual. 20 days of 100 and up over the whole summer with a high of 105 would be typical. The scarry part is that late July thru August is when it usually heats up.

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  3. Rev, that's some fried roses there. Temp here climbing today to 104 so I'll share your pain.

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  4. Rev and Prof. Sounds like a duet. I'm tagging along with you.

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  5. Greggo, What do you play? Seems like you've added your voice. Just have to come up with a name. BTW, Rev works with my profession but I got the nickname when I was serving two church with a 10 mile drive between them. The first church service was at 9:30 and the second church started at 10:45. It was a description of how I drove from the first church to the second one. People from the first church would pull over to let me pass to get to the other one and said you hear my engine Rev.

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  6. The heat is taking it's toll on my roses also. We are seeing some good blooms still despite the heat. "Twister" is a very interesting rose. Mut put it on my list!

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  7. Redneckrosarian, Yeah, this heat has been something else. If I take some blooms early I can enjoy them inside. Twister is under appreciated in my opinion and should be grown more often. I think you will like it.

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  8. Summer can be a bummer in the garden. I hope you get rain and some cool breezes soon.

    I left messages on your Plot at Blotanical. Your feed needs working out -- have you been to Feedburner.com?

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  9. Thanks for the visit NellJean. We used to live in Georgia and our daughter is still there attending school at Emory.

    I'm surprised you could find me through Blotanical because in the time since I signed up I have not been able to get my blog "approved" to be listed on my plot. In fact, I have been trying to get on Blotanical today but it seems like the whole site is down.

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  10. Blotanical is frying under the strain too ;~(

    I pick roses daily in summer, as soon the buds begin to open. In the vase I can enjoy them for days. Left on the bush it is toast for lunch. Sob!

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  11. Wow, your triple digit temps do NOT sound nice at all. Our temps are in the 90's but with the humidity feel like they are in the low 100's. The humidity is horrible. Do you have it there, or do you have a dry heat?

    Hope you get some rain and cooler temps soon.

    FlowerLady

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  12. FlowerLady, It has ben a dry Summer here. Even in a typical Summer we don't have near the humidity we did when we lived in Atlanta. On the other hand we don't have the dry heat of Arizona or New Mexico. Somewhere in between and the dryer ther farther West you go.

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  13. Enjoyed visiting your blog. Love the story of how you got your nickname! Praying for rain right along with you as Austin is about as dry as I've ever seen. It's been a real tough summer on plants and wildlife.

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  14. Cat, thanks for visiting and I hope you come back often. I think it will end up being our hottest summer ever. We are up to 35 days of 100+ degree days now.

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  15. I'll be looking for "Twister" this spring, although of course I hope we don't have such a brutal summer again this year.

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  16. Green Goose, I love Twister. It is one of my must have roses and it certainly holds up to the heat. The only place I know where you can get Twister is from Burlington Roses. Burlington is listed in my links on the right. Rev Roses

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