3 X rain a week and no sunshine would be nice! Unfortunately, we have mostly sunshine lately...and no rain for a while. I love clouds, the more the better!

Linda, I wish for you some rain and respite from the sun in the way of cloud cover.

I was looking through photos of the garden two and three years ago. The difference is dramatically different from the way it looks today. Even with the unexpected showers we've had, the plants are smaller, lankier, and struggling. I've had maybe 10 hibiscus blooms since spring. No brugs are even budding yet. It's just too hot and not enough rain!

That is surprising the toll it is taking. Those plants are drought tolerant?

Do you mean hibiscus and brugmansias? No, not really. Now we are heading into the 100+ days of summer. I was out at 5:30 this morning hand watering. It was really nice and cool, but this afternoon, we'll hit 100.

I lost quite a few plants because of the really bad winter...some may have also been stressed from neglect, too, since I wasn't always around and a bit tired and preoccupied out when I was. Some succumbed finally well into early spring. If the hard freezes hadn't continued so long, many would have recovered. Then the plants frozen back but surviving took longer to get growing good.

Bubbles said:I was looking through photos of the garden two and three years ago. The difference is dramatically different from the way it looks today. Even with the unexpected showers we've had, the plants are smaller, lankier, and struggling. I've had maybe 10 hibiscus blooms since spring. No brugs are even budding yet. It's just too hot and not enough rain!

Same here

102° at 2 PM today according to Intellicast here in the hills, but we have a chance of rain on the way soon! I still haven't repotted some big plants. Just too hot to stay out too long.

Around 100F earlier here today, but it has gotten muggy and cooler. Tomorrow's high currently predicted at 89F. I hope it has some rain along with the cool temps. That's pretty cool for us in July, but the long term forecast now has a string of triple digit temps in the near future. I just hope 100+ temps set in for days and weeks without a break.

IDK what our temps were but it was humid and hot while I mowed mine and the neighbor's lawn. We got about 10 drops of rain. No lie! I was waiting to super soak my yard and depending on that rain! I turned on the sprinklers at 6 pm for an hour and got no run off at all. It all sucked down into the ground. We are promised more rain tomorrow as some sort of summer Arctic cold front comes through. Never thought I would say "Arctic" and "Summer" in the same sentence!! But the rain will be hit or miss.

When I went out for the paper this morning, I was surprised that I could feel what I thought was the transpiration from the big oaks. It was rain! More like a mist, but rain is expected this afternoon. We can only water with sprinklers one day a week. Rain would be really welcomed here!

We had some damaging straight line winds accompanying the storm last night. Pretty impressive damage with one of our largest water oaks snapping in half. Of course, it had to fall exactly right on my fence!!!

Yes, fences attract falling trees. That must have been quite a storm!

It was actually one of the most impressive I've seen. It came in as a rolling cloud and we watched it approach. The air grew cold and as soon as the roll cloud was over us, the air roared like a highway and the sky was filled with debris. I actually thought we had a tornado coming. I was outside with Jon and witnessed the tree fall. Interestingly, it caused a fireball on the ground when it hit and I don't know what that was about. Jon and I both saw the fireball. There's no power lines or anything like that around it. My only guess it that a large spark was caused by the fence being destroyed.

The rain has been a blessing...1.5 inches between yesterday and today! Just what we needed! The Agalinis plants have just started blooming out on the property!

Whoa! That was one mother-effer that just came through here! Several of my pots were knocked over. All in sacrifice for a cold front.

Austin was on the tail end of the rain. Very little rain this morning, but fierce winds. We had quite a rain Saturday morning. It's 73 and sunny now. I'll be out picking up pots later. Wind is still coming in gusts. Don't want to get hit by a tree limb today!

Wow, sounds like it was a really wild and windy storm.

Margaret, we had a "cold" front blow through this morning. It's down to 70°now, and will be about 65° in the morning. For us, that's bone chilling!

I haven't checked on the plumerias, but I do see a lot of pots blown over in the backyard. I'm not going to worry about them until tomorrow. I'm enjoying the cool weather. Ahh...

Please excuse me for laughing, to us that is shorts weather, today was pretty cool at 52, but we don't consider it bone chilling, that is when the temperature is -35 with a wind blowing.

Sorry about your plants blowing over, I hope they are ok..