When full sun really is full sun

It was abundantly clear that our backyard got lots of sun before this week's mini-heat wave. When I first put the containers of juvenile plants out for hardening this spring they ended up looking like I'd put them into the solar wind. Fortunately, they all bounced back and what we have is mature enough now to take the 100-degree heat just fine with enough water.

Short of being on the roof, or in the Arizona desert, our garden could not get more sun. For the vegetables we've planted, that's generally been fine. Look at this lettuce patch

Keep in mind we've had salad four nights in a row so we've cut several plants to the nub.

Finding shrubs that will tolerate this environment has been a bit tricky, though. If you have a similar situation in your yard, I can recommend the stuff we selected. As vertical-growing plants, the Japanese pencil sky holly and the euonymus have done quite well.

The first six inches of the holly is new growth (the lighter green).

We also planted, as I mentioned before, a ninebark. It's native to the East Coast, but I've never seen one before. It will wilt in weather like this but perks up with a nice soaking.

This picture does not do the complexity of the colors in this plant's leaves justice. In the evening it's very nice.