It's A Heat Wave

Heat. It's a fact of summer life here in the Tri-Cities, WA.

Heat zaps your energy, whether you're a human, or a rose bush. The roses are making an effort to bloom for me again, but most blooms are small and the color is paler than that first gorgeous flush of blooms in the spring. Some of those blooms open, and by the end of the day are dessicated and falling apart. Yes, we have heat and low, low humidity.

Water is the answer to keeping everything alive and we're blessed to have it available this summer thanks to a good snow pack in the mountains last winter. That snow pack/irrigation water, and air conditioning, make life here in the summer bearable. It also allows us to keep our lawns green when our Seattle friends have brown lawns. And it keeps our main industry, agriculture, going and growing.
 

Since Sunday we've had a break from the two-week-long heat wave. Relief, blessed relief! Even Saturday was a much nicer 95*! Don't worry, this weekend is the Water Follies when it's almost guaranteed to be back up to 100*. But this break has allowed me to finally plant a couple of new roses in the garden.

In between Apricot Impressionist and Sky's the Limit I've planted Jayne Austin, a soft yellow climber.

And in the narrow border next to our outdoor eating area, I've planted Angel Face.

When the heat returns, Angel Face is in a nicely protected spot. Jayne, however, will have to be helped along. Usually that means placing a plastic lawn chair over it for shade - which works nicely by the way!

Since it's pleasant out, I have lots of weeding to catch up on. See ya out there!