Thank you, thank you -- all of you. I am going to try to post some pics I took today. I am hoping they will be more revealing. Sorry that last one is so blurry. Berndoodles, thanks for the pics of leaf hopper damage. I think I certainly have that, don't you (referring to the pic with the lovely bugs)? I also found some webbing, so I think maybe I have spider mites. Oh, joy! And I also think I have powdery mildew. I would love anyone's advice. I sure wish I had a flatbed scanner. My daughter has one, but she is out of town. And I wouldn't mind if we had a Bug Man out here in Colorado. However, I took samples to my local nursery and the very nice rose lady there confirmed that I have several separate problems. She thought that the drooping rosebuds were caused by thrips and told me to go home and cut all of those drooping buds off and dispose of them. She thought I had powdery mildew, too, and also spider mites. She advised that I use Bayer All-in-One spray, so I bought that, but after reading the instructions, I decided to try Neem Oil because the instructions said not to use when bees are active, and they are very active on Ballerina, at least during the day, but maybe I could use it at night. I sprayed yesterday very thoroughly with Neem oil and will repeat in 7 days. However, since my roses are so badly infected, and with multiple buggies or whatever, maybe I will have to go toxic. Another problem with me using a toxic spray is I have large pots of herbs close to Ballerina, in fact right beside it. I think I could cover the pots with black trash bags or something. But I also have black raspberries whose vines are kind of intermingled with one of my New Dawn climbers. I'm not sure if I can cover all of them enough. Maybe if I used a hand sprayer rather than a hose-end sprayer it would be easier. So what do you think? Thanks again. Marlene

I think so. It depends on whether they are healthy, on whether you can keep them healthy and happy in our tough weather conditions and on whether you can keep the spider mites off of them. Since the recommended fall planting date range begins July 1st, if I bought them, I'd pot them up into larger containers than they're in now, and since it is hot I'd go with 3 or 5 gallon containers. I'd water them every morning, and then check them every evening to see if they needed to be watered again. I'd feed them every week with a water-soluable plant food diluted to half its usual strength. I'd site them so they'd get morning sun and afternoon shade, or at least so they get shade during the middle of the day. I'd hold them in this situation for a week or two to help them get over being left in their current containers too long since they are 'leftovers' from the spring planting season. I'd start watching the weather during the last week in June and hope for a 'cool' day to come along near early July. Then on the evening before that cool day, I'd transplant them into the garden and water them in well. I'd probably put a cage around them right away, and then use clothespins to clip a sheet or tablecloth or someting over them to give them a break from the sun for the first 3 or 4 days. Some sunlight would be alright, but mostly you want to shade them until they recover from being transplanted. There are plus and minuses to being end-of-season plants, but in the case of the tomatoes, if they are healthy at this point, the pluses outweigh the minuses because they are a little older, a little stronger, have a larger root system and clearly have been well-cared for or they wouldn't still be alive right now. They are likely to adapt well and flower/produce fruit as soon as the temperatures fall back into the proper range. If you're going to go out of town for a couple of weeks on vacation and no one will be around to take care of them, I wouldn't buy them because in our heat, they need daily care. In May, I reached a point where I had to do something with my back-up plants. Nothing had died, so I hadn't had to use them to replace anything and they were getting way too big for the plastic cups in which they were growing, and they needed to either be planted or thrown on the compost pile. Well, clearly, I have a "more is better" attitude, so I squeezed in a new row of tomato plants in between an existing row of tomatoes and a row of pepper plants. I figured the worst that would happen is that they were too rootbound and wouldn't grow and I'd yank them and compost them. For about 2 or 2 & 1/2 weeks, they just sat there. They didn't grow at all, but they didn't go downhill either. I handled them as I described above, except they obviously were in the ground and not in pots, and then they finally started growing. Though still significantly smaller than the tomatoes that were planted at the right time, they neverthe less look good and are blooming, If the weather permits, they'll eventually set fruit. In fact, they look healthier than plants that went into the ground in early April, likely because during a lot of the time they were held in cups, they were shaded from the sun for half of each day. So, while planting them late was a risk, I'm happy with the result and glad I didn't compost them. If nothing else, in July when the adjacent row of pepper plants is getting hot, cranky and tired, this last row of tomato plants will be tall enough to partially shade the peppers, which is a good thing. So, my attitude is 'nothing ventured, nothing gained', and I'd give those plants a chance. dawn

Have to agree with the above - it looks on my monitor that all of the backsplash tiles read green/blue and the countertop reads grey/brown and none of them seem to work together. The fireclay tiles posted by eam44 would look to be a much better match. I disagree above that you need some kind of focal point. I think it's a smallish kitchen and has lovely pendants, and windows and island and a bold backsplash is just competing with that. Keep it simple! In fact, i was the above writer who earlier said they pretty much always dislike the inset backsplash and i think your current BS is a perfect example of how those insets rarely look good. Even when the underlying colors are similar, as yours are, there's just something "off" about them. I think the only exception is when they are using almost the same tile (like, carerra subway tile BS with a carerra herringbone pattern inset). I still think this is busier than i like, but isn't an eyesore as so many other insets are. I think this inset mistake is actually a good opportunity to replace the whole thing!

Last year (2015) I bought a clump of crocata from RFI. it arrived looking like a dead black spider. I should have complained. Everything else was okay though. I wound up getting crocata from another seller. Note that it is a temperamental plant. I ordered again from RFI this year, twice I think (early Spring, then late Summer). While the plants in the later shipment were okay and, I assume, the right ones, when I ordered more than one of the same kind of plant, they would only name tag one (they used to use great-looking tags, but these were white with name written in Sharpie rather than a tag with a picture of the plant; maybe they ran out of those). Also, it looked like they got my order, chose a box, lined it with newspaper, dropped plants in (some tagged, some not), then dumped in enough small bits of paper (not even strips) to fill the box. Seal, label, send. No packing slip (I had saved the email order confirmation though and used that to check the contents were right). The little bits of paper also worked their way into the leaves of some of the plants. Note that this method of packing was even more careless than the previous time. Other sellers will wrap plans (or groups of the same plant, like ionantha) in tissue paper (Plant Oddities), or (CTS) even put them in brown paper bags with, for example, "5 ionantha Guatemala" on the outside of the bag. I can take pics of each plant sitting on the bag to help in future ID. Again, it seemed that the plants RFI sent were mostly okay (then again, I didn't order anything super rare or expensive), but their shipping process is failing fast. I did complain about that in the Spring, to no avail. Coastal Tillandsia Supply (CTS, in California) has a good selection (but poor descriptions), and shipping is fast. I had some trouble with CTS a few years ago (they forgot to send something; I had to email to remind them; they sent it). But this year my orders were filled fast and were exciting to open. As you know, Plant Oddities (in Kentucky) is fast, too, and their selection is vast and fun, but they run out quickly. I prefer to shop at places on line that have a lot of variety, though I suspect some of the smaller sellers (Air Plant Supply, Air Plant City, etc., often in Florida) try harder and also send emails with sales event info. They also answer emails. On the bright side, Rainforest Flora and Barry Landau make good YouTube videos. Oh, edited to add: be careful buying from eBay unless an actual air plant vendor (with a real storefront) is selling. I bought a box "full", sight unseen, from a person who was retiring his/her greenhouse and that was a waste of money.