Global Gardener

Hello there,

I am a Scandinavian who finds my self in the Middle East.
And as a new humble gardener,that is a challange :)
I read a lot of gardening books, and im quit often on internet looking for advise how to take care of my plants and flowers.
Heres the question.
When it says in a book or on internet,that a sertan flower should be planted in "Full sun" is the ment "World wide" ?
I know for example that in Scandinavia,its seldom that a flower can get "Too much sun" but here..Puff..and they can be gone in a day or two..
We have day were it can be up to 35-40 Celsius..

that's a great question kickan. Are you talking about potting plants or actually planting in the ground? I would imagine that the soil is just as important as the amount of sun. I think if the soil is rich and the plant gets plenty of water maybe more water than you're use to giving a plant it should be fine.

I've always defined "full sun" as more than 6 hours of sun per day. 6 hours of sun here (on the banks of Lake Erie) may be very very different than 6 hours of sun there. Are the plants exposed to other drying conditions...wind for example?

Here where I live, temps typically get between 95 and 100 degrees during the summer. I've found that some plants can take "full sun" (at least 6 hours per day) while others that have a tag saying it needs full sun can't take that much because of the intensity of our heat. I've planted quite a few plants that had to be moved later because they couldn't handle the hot sun. Those I usually put on the east facing side of our house and they do great (they get about 4 hours there).

It depends on what plants you have--can you tell us some names of the things you're trying to grow, and then hopefully some of the people who live in other hot summer climates can comment on whether they can take full sun or not. There are some "full sun" plants that can take full blazing sun in any climate you stick them in, but there are others that are labeled "full sun" that would prefer afternoon shade in hotter climates.

Thank you all,

This is such a great forum :)

I live in a flatt with a garden going 180 degrees around the house.
And now i see that i might have to re arange things.
You step into my garden true a bigg glass doore conected to my livingroom,offcourse this is the spot in the garden that i would like to look nice since its seen from inside and also the "sitting area" in the garden,BUT its facing south,it has sun from 6 a clock in the morning untill 5 in the eavning,and no wind
Well well, looks like i have to start respecting the powerfull sun here, a little bit more :)

Now i start to realize that i have managed to do the "exact wrong thing" he he...
In the flower bed, wich is facing south, i have Petunias,Cosmos,Morning Gloory and Lobelia they are alive but not doing well...
In al the different pots i have Portulaca,Celosia, Cuphea,Delosperma and Kalanchoe they are doing great,but now i start to see that, these are the flowers that shoud have gone in the south facing flower beds and the ones who are in the flower bed now ,are the one that should be in potts so they can be moved. Am i right?

If you have some suggestion of flowers that can take "full sun" almoust 12 hours, pleas tell me.
Meen while im in the garden starting to "move things around" looks like the sides facing West and North will be the new place to be :)
But as i sed, i still have to sort out this problematic south facing flower bed..hmmm.

Thank you all :)

I would try going to www.highcountrygardens.com and look at some of their plants. They sell things that are native to or grow well in the American west, where summers are frequently very hot and very dry. I'm guessing this is fairly similar to your climate, although your winters are probably warmer. So if they say a plant can take full sun, it should be OK for you in full sun. They're a mail order nursery and I don't think they'd be able to ship plants to Israel, but it should give you some ideas of plants to look for. www.yuccado.com is another good nursery in a hot dry climate so they'd have some ideas for you too.

ecrane3 Thank You,

I got loads of information from your suggested high countrygarden,beautifull webbsite!
Now im starting to arrange things in the right way :)
Its very interesting since im now getting accointed to flowers i never heard of, since they would never survive in the cold summers of scandinavia.
Thank you