Hi Krikit, I'm glad to hear from you. I would love to see pics of your minifloras and shrub roses. Crisp on the edges and balling are symptoms of calcium deficiency. Calcium is known to help plants cope with heat and drought. Calcium makes tissue firmer. Have you ever notice how canned fruits are firmer? They put calcium in canned fruits. Also calcium chloride in pickles to make it crunchy. When the bloom's tissue are mushy, they can't open properly. When the bloom's tissue are firm, it's easier to open even in rainy weather. I would test the pH of the soil 1st to see if it's acidic or alkaline. If the soil is acidic, and your roses are in pots, then use dolomitic lime. If the soil is acidic clay (sticky) and in the ground, then use lime. If the soil is alkaline, they use gypsum. Here's an example of doing pH testing using red-cabbage: http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2134007/red-cabbage-ph-test-of-blood-meal-corn-meal-compost-etc?n=21 Here's the procedure to test soil pH using red-cabbage. Takes only few minutes of doing, plus 30 min. of waiting, and 50 cents of red-cabbage plus $1 of distilled water. http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2132487/cheapest-way-to-test-soil-ph-using-red-cabbage?n=17 If you are not sure what's your soil pH .. the safest bet is to dissolve lime powder in rain water (acidic at pH 5.6) and water your roses with that. Or use gypsum in tap water (most tap are alkaline) and water roses with that. I get the best result with SOLUBLE calcium. Here's a bloom of Stephen Big Purple. Big Purple has lots of petals, but never ball on me. It never crisp in hot sun at 100 degree. Why? it's planted next my limestone-based patio, so it gets calcium whenever it rains.

one flower on R. auriculatum has opened 'early' which is interesting because another bud is not even expanding yet, so will presumably bloom during the normal time for that species of August. This is one of those strange single floral buds where the others aborted. You can see the petals are a bit deformed. Fragrance is root beer-y. Here is the new growth on R. magniflorum. It was much redder a week ago but I kept forgetting to photograph it. This and R. auriculatum are very late to leaf out but very different; the leaves on R. . auriculatum aren't as colorful but have the showiest red leaf bracts of any plant besides 'Babylon'. But that leafs out in April, these two leaf out in June. http://www.rhododendron.dk/magniflorum.html Still a very small plant, it survived down to almost 0F, with snow cover, in the 2nd cold winter.

I hope it's ok for me to add this photo here I am so proud of these little guys my first Obesa from my own seed with this years seed at top of photo. The seeds have sprouted and looks like I will have a nice little group to play with. Try again for sure it is so cool to watch them go through there changes.

Garrett, Looking up Haworthia marginata var mariatii showed two different pictures on Google. One with white tubercles (one side only) and the other like the book describes smooth both sides and whitish skin, while pumila has white tubercles on both sides. Both are in different groupings in Pilbeam's Book on Haworthias. Pilbeam discussed the big trouble ID'ing with so much interbreeding in the hobby. With each other plus with Aloes and Gasteria. You see the almost same plants with just the least little difference and then someone puts in in a new class. I currently have about a dozen Hawothias that need ID'ing. Waiting for them to get some size and age to tell them apart. I am pretty sure now with Conny's help that this is the correct ID but will keep it open for discussion. Conny, I purchased my limifolia variegata from 'Out of Africa'. Cost & trouble of shipping overseas is always a problem. If not, I would try to get you one. We trade a lot here in the States.