One that really didn't "make it" for me is Spirit of Freedom. It hangs on, and it gives a few blooms a year, that flop, and often ball (people say it likes warm climates), and it is in a rose hedge in NE exposure. But in the sunnier spot, I didn't get one viable bloom. I also couldn't get my two own-root Othellos to take off for anything, but they seem so pretty, I may try again (you can still find them under their secondary name "Auslo"). But I now know that it was "my fault" some of my Austins that didn't make it . Like, for example, thanks to this forum, I learned that it takes a few years (at least 3 years) for many to get going, so I maybe I SP them too soon. When I first started gardening, I put things in the ground, never watered them, and if they made it, they made it, and surprisingly, quite a few of them did, including Lady Emma Hamilton and Claire Austin, which are both 16 years old, and survived a move. But they definitely were not giving the "best" of themselves. When I got a bigger garden, and tried some new Austins, I was really disappointed because I had so few blooms and a few croaked, so I started planting other things, but now am going back to them. Here are a couple of things I have learned from that experience (and thank you to the experts on this forum, among others like the Rose Geek and Darren Harwood, as my roses have never looked better or had buds so early!): 1) Soak bareroot roses longer and harder than most basic websites say (I even resurrected a few that seemed dry and dead in the box by leaving them soaking for days, and wow, did they hit the ground running compared to the ones from years past and has less die back) 2) in my opinon, it's better to get bareroots early in the season, when it's still warm, and plant before winter because the ones at the end of planting season can be dried-out conkers and they may freeze as they begin 3) plant them with good commercial dirt and feed if you have bad dirt in the ground (which I do) 4) and if potted, totally plant them with their dirt 5) to get the best of roses, it really is essential to feed or compost on the schedule experts like the Rose Geek give (In my "worst" exposure, I thought my lack of blooms, at first was due to not enough sun, but if I feed, I even get blooms in late fall, when they only get like an hour or two, and the healthier they are, the fewer diseases they get (like people) 6) DA roses and "baby" (new) roses do need more water than one thinks--this was my worst rookie mistake 7) many DA roses like cool and humid better than hot and dry 8) and, if struggling, don't hesitate to move them from hot to cooler, more or less sun, pot or ground, sometimes they come back in a new spot but sometimes they don't 9) Don't hesitate to put in the compost (or SP) a disease or pest magnet, as, when it's gone, the disease goes, and like jobs and partners, some are just a "bad fit" for one, even if good for others 10) giving roses a "haircut" ( remove leaves and prune) seems to help if massive infestation or disease attack, they will come back, and especially, get rid of leaves during winter prune, and that is how I got rid of nasty fungal attack due to bad experience with Baron Girod d'Ain. Also, in Europe, the DA roses I have are either on Laxa, own-root, or occasionally multi-flora, and they seem to perform quite differently than their US counterparts. Like my own-root Princes are healthy, continuous blooming stars. And my own-root Abes are a real toughies, too. These may be the basics for many people on this forum, but some DA roses are super tricky, and I almost gave up, so here is everything I have learned for those who are as frustrated as I was when I started! (And I am still learning so please take this advice as the imperfect, work in progress, it is! And thanks again to the experts here!)

Carol, I bet it did grow well there in spite of the short growing season. I'm assuming they started their transplants indoors to get them large enough to plant out once the temps were in the appropriate range. And it is the exposure to sunlight that made the celery so green. Most commercially-raised celery is that whitish-green because the celery is blanched. I think the blanching is intended to keep the stalks tender as too much sunlight/heat gives you tougher stalks. Seedmama, Here's how Jeff Cox grows celery: GROWING CELERY: Several years ago I purchased a book by Jeff Cox called "Jeff Cox's 100 Greatest Garden Ideas". It is a terific book and I love it. One of his ideas is a way to grow celery even if you can't give it the marshy conditions it prefers. If I ever tried to grow celery here, I'd try Jeff's method. To start his seeds, he sows them 10 weeks before his last frost. He soaks his seed overnight before sowing them in peat pots and setting them on top of the fridge so the heat can help them sprout, which can take 2 weeks or longer. He digs a below-grade trench about a foot wide and 14" deep although he says you can do the same process with a raised bed if you'd rather build up than dig down. If growing in a raised bed, he recommends a minimum height of 6" and cautions anything raised any higher may get too hot for the celery. You still need 14" of depth, but with the 6" tall raised bed, you only have to dig down 8" instead of the whole 14". You remove the soil to a depth of 14" for the trench or 8" beneath the eventual raised bed and remove all the soil. Add compost and other organic amendments to create an enriched growing mix that will hold lots of moisure and refill the trench or, for the raised bed, refill the dug-out area and build the 6" tall raised bed above it. By the way, he recommends six celery plants per person. If you want, you can add tin cans with the tops and bottoms both removed or pieces of PVC pipe inserted vertically into the ground about to the same depth that your celery is planted, or a couple of inches deeper than that. To water, fill each can or piece of pipe with water and let the pipe carry the water down to the root level of the celery plants. In the illustration in the book, he has one vertical can or PVC pipe in between two celery plants in a sort of checkerboard pattern. (Texas tomato plant growers use this method to water tomatoes, only they use large flower pots or huge, instituitional-sized cans, to water the tomato plants...it is called the Texas Pot method.) After you harden off your seedlings, transplant them into the enriched soil which you've pre-moistened so it it nice and damp. He waters his transplants with an organic fertilizer consisting of 1 T. fish emulsion and 2 T. seaweed extract per one gallon of water. Mulch the top of the bed with leaves. As the plans grow keep adding leaves so the stalks are blanched. Blanching celery stalks (but not their topgrowth leaves which need sunlight to grow) helps improve their flavor and keep them tender. This is especially important in a hotter climate where heat stress can cause the stalks to get woody and tough. He recommends feeding monthly and watering as often as needed to keep the bed moist and damp but not soaking wet. His recommendation is that you harvest the plants roots and all before frost arrives in the fall. Store them in a box in a cool basement or similar area. If the storage area stays cool enough, celery will store for months. You also could store them in an extra fridge in your garage or laundry room or whatever. If you ever run across Jeff's book, it is a wonderful book with projects grouped by the season. Dawn

After many, many trials and errors I no longer use Jiffy Peat Pots. They are a marketing gimmick and a waste of my hard earned dollars. After soaking in water over night I start all my seeds in a homemade mixture of coconut coir, perlite and mycorrhizal inoculant (for root development). The most important time in any living things life is when it is just born. So the more focus on the seedlings health in early development the better chance of success later on. Yours look a bit 'leggie' and I would suggest replacing if you can. If not then you can separate them and plant them deep, about a half inch till the top of the seedling. That way they will develop a very nice root structure. I would highly recommend a florescent light three inches from the tops of them. Just curious, what type of tomato's are these? Eric This post was edited by LeafEricson on Sat, Jan 26, 13 at 21:24

There's no basement (we're in a So. Cal. split level built alongside a hill). We don't have a mudroom or a laundry room to borrow storage space from. The laundry is in a closet off of the family room. We're currently storing paper towels and bulk items in the wetbar that we don't use (also in the Family Room -- but it's going to get the boot one of these days). The wall between the dining room and family room is only 4" thick -- total, although I'm probably going to beef this up slightly because the family room is currently covered in paneling (it's been painted, but as long as I'm remodeling, we might as well fix that) and there's no insulation in the walls. Other thought I had was to do a partial half wall with support columns there to open the family room up to the dining/kitchen area. I would have to keep part of the wall so I have something to set my barrister's bookcase against, but a half wall would let the cook see the TV. I could move the message center/backpack storage into the closet in the Family Room with a bit of an interior closet remodel (it's currently our games/toys/crafts/office supply closet). That wouldn't be too inconvenient since it is just around the corner from the front entry at the top of the stairs. Here's my floor plan again to help with visualization. The master bedroom is missing from this drawing (it's on the other side of the kitchen) and the kids' rooms/bathroom/linen closet on the third level are not quite to scale (they were sleeping when I was trying to draw it out). Here is a link that might be useful: Floorplan