De-lurking here to say it's not just you! We had a strange spring with wild weather swings (up to 40F from daytime to night), and I have to say...this is the crappiest rose season I've had in 8 years. Very abundant number of buds--probably the most ever--but the quality of the individual flowers just stinks. Like the worst thrips damage ever, but each and every rose has it. Some roses had stunted/balled/withered buds, others had blackened petal edges, still others didn't bother with blooms. My Queen Elizabeths, easily the most prolific roses in my garden, haven't bloomed yet. There are some old, established bushes that hardly went beyond their pruned size and only spewed a few deformed buds. Thrips are normally a problem on my light colored roses, but this blight is affecting every color. The later developing buds are better--if on the small side. It's the roses that developed first (late April to early May, which is quite late for us) that were the worst. Surprisingly, the roses that seemed to shrug it off best were some of my David Austins--Jude, the Dark Lady, and a few others. But some of the DA's (Abraham Darby) and other shrub roses and climbers (like Sombreuil) were just horrific. My mom came over and said "you know, if you just look at the roses from the house, they're not so bad." Sigh. And we had such a lovely, rainy winter (for us) that I was sure the rose flush was going to be awesome. And the numbers were truly impressive--hundreds of buds on some of my small (3 ft) bushes, which is the best I've seen. But again, the actual quality of the buds was the worst I've ever seen. Some tried and true winners from my garden were hard pruned just because I couldn't bear to look at their browned/blackened/crinkly/balled horrible little blooms. These included: memorial Day, Queen Elizabeth, Sheer Bliss, Peace (sob), Marilyn Monroe, Daybreaker, New Zealand, Just Joey, blue Nile, Evelyn, Abe Darby, Charles Darwin, Autumn Sunset, Golden Something(normally gorgeous downturned sunny yellow blooms, but this time they didn't even open!),Chicago Peace, Tamora, Pink Peace, Mirandy, Mary Rose, Secret (double sob), McCartney Rose, Tiffany....I could go on, but I'm feeling kind of nauseous. To put it in different terms: I have over 160 rose bushes with few repeats, and this year I have only brought six cut blooms into the house. SIX. But who can really blame the poor roses? Last week we hit 100 degrees on Monday, and on Thursday the high was 54 with rain (snow in Flagstaff, poor buggers). What is a plant to do in these conditions? Apparently, they sulk. Now it's getting to be blistering hot again, with humidity in the single digits. Spider Mite season. I won't likely see a good bloom until September, and then the deer and javelinas will be moving in for their Autumn feast. I'm thinking of getting into daffodils. At least the lilies, Shasta daisies, coreopsis, and cannas are doing well. And the glads look like they might actually open this year (last year they were all duds). I'm off to sulk myself. Heather

Callous tissue is the first step to roots, so by cutting that off, you set yourself back several weeks. It wasn't a good idea to add verm. and peat to the supersoil. Supersoil already contains some peat and by adding more along with verm. your mix may be retaining too much water and could rot the cutting. What's done is done. Just don't water again, until you have at least 2 open leaves. You can mist it if you like, but no more water! The lights you have are fine, but bottom heat from a propagation mat or heating pad really help with the rooting process. I am still a fan of 70%perlite or pumice and 30%peat. It works like a charm. Later after it has a nice rootball and leaves, then repot it in a mix of 60% Supersoil and 40% Pumice. Regarding spider mites, yes they can spread and they are difficult to get rid of when the plants are indoors. Air circulation helps and they hate being sprayed with water. Good Luck, Tony

Zinsser makes a great primer. The others are right though, it won't go on evenly like your final coat. You're doing fine. :) I painted a wood desk last summer and when I finished with the primer, I thought the same thing, "oh, what a mess I've made." But then I put on the first finish coat (a black high gloss paint), all of my doubts went away. You may need to put on two coats of your regular paint though since you're covering the wood and primer. I would put one coat on and then see if you even need to fill those corners. A little spackle will work - no mixing needed. When you first apply it it will be pink and then it dries to white. Then you can lightly sand it and paint on your final coat. Also, as others mentioned..use a really good regular paint brush. It will have finer bristles and give you a nice, smooth application. The inexpensive brushes have courser bristles. Believe me, the brush does make a difference. Bottom line is... you're doing great! :)

It's very frustrating Jen. I'm old enough and was brought up in an era where more folks cared about their work. They did it to the best of their abilities whether it was "their job" or not. I remember being called into the managers office once. Many of my coworkers asked me what I did wrong or laughed saying something like "you're in trouble now". I had no fear because I knew I did my job and then some. When I got there, he asked me to sit down and proceeded to tell me he noticed how when walking through other's departments, if I saw something out of place, I stopped long enough to fix it. That impressed him and he wanted to be sure to thank me. His taking the time to tell me really impressed me too. Sadly you don't often hear of that in retail anymore. Or many other service jobs for that matter.