I have posted about Jerusalem artichokes in the past. I have them taking over a concrete block box so they can't take over my tiny backyard. They are a stately looking, tall plant. It also cracks me up about their flatulent nature. Gerard's Herbal, printed in 1621, quotes the English planter John Goodyear on Jerusalem artichokes: "which way soever they be dressed and eaten, they stir and cause a filthy loathsome stinking wind within the body, thereby causing the belly to be pained and tormented, and are a meat more fit for swine than men." The culprit as someone mentioned is inulin to which some people have a high sensitivity and they are not able to digest. Inulin is a polysaccharide (grouping of simple sugars). I wonder if Beano would be helpful or cooking it with epazote? Epazote helps reduce the noxious flatulent effects beans have on some people. Plants that use inulin do not store starches so as someone mentioned this is most helpful to diabetics. I can relate to the flatulence problems. I can eat beans with gusto and have very few if any major side effects. My mother would get cramps if she ate too many beans. Some folks get horrible gas from cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. It just depends upon how one's system digests foods. The same method someone mentioned about double boiling JAs works with beans too. If you soak the dry beans over night and then pour the water off, cook in new water and pour that water off, the complex starches which are on the bean coating will be greatly diminished which results in less gas problems. I just thought I'd throw that in. I swear I'm going to eat these JAs in my backyard some day but like someone else pointed out, if you dig them up and leave them out on the counter for more than a day, they shrivel up and go bad. I enjoyed this thread on JAs. I'll need to pay more attention to the jungle of them I have in my backyard.

I am in a moist climate. I could understand that they might be better behaved in NMexico or Colorado. I have posted elsewhere that I have inadvertently produced bags and bags of them. More than half will be wasted. They need cold weather for storage, and things are heating up fast. If you put them in any soil, you will get tubers. The yield increases according to the quality of soil, sun, and water, of course. I got good results from grow bags filled with unfinished compost, chicken manure, sand, some wood ash, and well, sawdust and grass. Kind of mixed up.. Just... whatever... really. I got fair results from builder's sand with a cup of compost per plant. If you like watching things grow, they are great entertainment. They are good raw. Their texture is water chestnut or jicama-ish. Cooking is a little tricky. I recommend pressure cookers for use with them. Use them as you might rutabagas, or carrots?, or potatoes. Half and half mashed with potatoes is good. Curries with them are better than stews with them. Finding recipes is more difficult than growing them. In northern Asia, they are pickled, which seems to me to be a great thing to do with them. They would be awesome in a sweet pickle brine. The stalks they produce are also awesome. I have grown them to three meters. The stalks are about as hard as okra stalks. After you grow a stand of JA, you have enough supports for your spring peas, no problem. I have used them for kindling too.

To post your photos, you just want to click in the box marked "HTML Code", it copies automatically, then paste it here. My $0.02. Many roses sold in the US are grafted onto another rose used as rootstock. The rose most commonly used is Dr. Huey, which is a once-blooming (in the spring), dark red, climber. I think your climber is Dr. Huey. It blooms on last year's growth, when you "cut back those tips", there went this year's blooms, you won't get any this year. I think your Mr. Lincoln is "suckering", which is the term we use when Dr. Huey starts to grow. You can tell because Huey's canes are a lot thinner than Mr. Lincoln's, and grow fast. If Dr. Huey's canes are allowed to grow a lot, the grafted variety, Mr. Lincoln, weakens, and you end up with an entire plant of Dr. Huey. If you regularly cut back this plant in the spring, you've cut off the part that will bloom this year. You can try to dig down and find the start of the Dr. Huey canes and rip them off. I agree with Len511, I think the plant was too dry when it was sprayed. The first and third photos definitely look like spray burn to me. The second photo could be a fungal disease, could just be old leaves dying off (if they were at the bottom of the plant). I would water them well and leave them for a week. You may need a fungicide. Fungal diseases are around all of the time. A rose that has been weakened will show symptoms quickly. Here is a link that might be useful: Anatomy of a Bareroot from Regan Nursery

Hi Ann, I just bought a Lacunosa yesterday and for what its worth, I also just repotted(removed 90% of the old very wet EA Peat soil). I repotted it in the original 8" pot that it came in...I have done this with all the EA hoyas I ever bought. I know we don't live in the same zone, but I don't like the EA soil, and replaced it with a very fast draining soil. It will be living outside under an Oak tree 95% of the time. Our rainy season is in the summer(if we're lucky...I hope we get a lot of rain) we are in severe drought right now! I can't afford to leave it in that wet Peat soil getting rained on often, so I had no choice but to remove and change the soil. You and I will might be in the same boat, as I wasn't aware that Lacunosa's roots are sensitive, so I will be keeping a close eye on my plant also. This was w/out a doubt one of the hardest one to repot, very messy process, LOL... Mine was labeled "Hoya Snow Caps, Lacunosa Alba", its the speckled version of yours...Wally world special for $10. Good luck to both of us and hope we did the right thing? Here's a picture of mine after I repotted...Speckled Lacunosa