I am not a happy camper. My garden did not fare well this summer. With temps over 100 for long stretches and rain a no show, only desert plants seem to thrive. Anyone who doesn't believe in global warming need only come here and see what has happened in Northern Italy. The heat and drought have literally cooked the landscape. Leaves are blackened or have already fallen from trees and bushes, plants that should grow well here have shrivelled up. The soil is like baby powder. I've cleared out the weeds, a grass referred to as couch grass but is like crab grass that is unkillable, and am assessing the damage. What has survived: The lavender in the ground but not in pots, The palms, 1 miserable broom eaten by snails, The virginia creeper because it thrives anywhere, My unfruitful olives, The groundcover referred to as creeping thyme but it's no creeping time I have ever seen. However it's fragrant, prolific and covered in small purple blooms in the spring. A keeper. What died: My clematis, 3 brooms even tho they are weed plants here, covering every hilltop in a profusion of yellow in May and June. An indigenous rose I searched high and low for as it's found only on old farmsteads and along ancient walls. It's almost impossible to kill once it settles in. Huh. Potted everything. And ferns and hellebores in my one deep shady, wet area. So sad. I'm going to the garden center to buy frickin' cactus. Oh and by they way, I had put down beautiful strips of thick grass sod this spring only to return to a patch of brown crab grass. Nope, not a happy camper at all. xxoo me