Wow, Harryshoe, that photo is just terrific! Ok, I think I'm sold on Folklore...but can you tell me if it is FRAGRANTt? Helpmefind.com says it is very fragrant, but the person who commented on it there says they can't detect any fragrance at all. :0( Maybe it's just one of those things....like I can smell Veteran's Honor very well, and my husband can't! It totally frustrates him! Thanks for warning me about Stephen's Big Purple and Paradise guys. I am still considering Touch of Class and maybe Tournament of Roses. :0) Phyl

Jodik says: The coir might look dry on top, but down in the center of the pot, it could be quite moisture-laden! I have found it helpful to insert little wooden skewers carefully into the soil to about root level, and leave them there... I take them out and press them against my cheek to test for dampness... if they feel at all damp, I wait to water... but if the skewer comes out dry, it's time to water. My coir is 4" deep in a closed pot. I put the skewer to the bottom of the pot. When I take it out how many inches of bone dry top "soil" should there be before it's time to water again? Is it 1", 2" or 4"? I just went 10 days without water and only 1" of the top was dry so am I supposed to water this direct sun pot once every two weeks or so to avoid over watering, really? And how much water for my 6" closed pot? I had been watering 1 1/2 cup or so once a week and my plant was fine but I'm now worried that was too much so I'm re-evaluating. I know what conventional wisdom says (water deep, not shallow) but that advice doesn't seem to apply to my situation. Also how long should it be before I see new leaf growth in the summer time (first season outside)? My 18 month old Red Lion so far has only grown new leaves once a year. At potting and at dormancy end.

Hi NWROSE and all. I live in UP and I am a facilitator for an organic gardening group in UP called UPOG, we meet once a month, the third Thursday of the month at Adriana Hess at 7:00 pm. If you look at our website: www.gardenoforganicdelights.org, We hope to teach about organic and natural gardening for food crops as an adjunct to native plant landscaping as birds and beneficials help. Everyone is welcome, please join us. You will see we promote both Tagro and Sound Gro. In the organic farming and ag world bio-solids are not used on food crops due to Organic standards usually due to a history of problems with heavy metals. However, now the products like Tagro and Sound Gro have pretty high standards. We might receive some hate mail about this but here is what we believe. "Use The Poop...Close The Loop" with over 7 billion people on the planet there is alot of this stuff and we have to find ways to use it either by putting it back into the soil, or for fuel. We firmly support high standards in organic ag/food production but the home gardener can get very good results with these two products. We are personally using the bio-solids on landscape/ornamentals, including edible berries but will be experimenting with vegatative crops too. It does come down to personal preference but technically the use of bio-solids is not allowed in the industry in organic food production. We used both Tagro and Sound Gro to recondition a lawn that was just weeds, we did not even dig anything. It was pretty amazing to get a new lawn by overseeding and the use of Tagro and Sound Gro. Currently We are planting landscape plants using a combo of fir bark, compost and soundgro. In University Place we have to contend with arsenic. In food crops you should probably remove the soil or use raised beds if you plant things like carrots and potatoes and plants that pick up the arsenic. I am experimenting with adding in organic amendments and compost teas and manures to bring back microbes and worms. We have typical glacier till in UP and with the arsenic we have experienced stunting of plants. There is a study from WSU online that shows how arsenic affects corn. Trish thanks for continuing your offer and we think the folks at SoundGro are pretty great, John Wells at Tagro can give you a tour and answer any questions you may have. The bio-solids industry is pretty interesting and as owners of a plumbing company we are intrigued by new technology on the horizon. Tagro has a sludge smell that goes away after its use. Sound Gro is almost like a dessicant but it does have a smell when it gets wet that goes away. However this is pretty minor. If you want to read an interesting article about the history of poop and manure in gardening, check out "Fecaphobia" online. It talks about this subject in depth, including the fact that in China they use "night soil" which is raw product on their crops. This is a practice of course we do not recommend because of the issue of e-coli on food crops but animal manures and even human manure have been used for thousands of years. We think soil testing every year is pretty excessive for the average gardener. We are testing for experimental reasons but for your lawn and landscaping there are good averages to use to avoid over feeding. For your lawn We would recommend also putting down compost as well. Tagro is great. It brings back worms in abundance. We do recommend getting your soil tested in UP to find out about the arsenic and lead levels. Sometimes placement of your house and trees prevented leaching into the soils. Check out "Dirt Alert" with Pierce County Public Health. Mr. Rollins is the person to talk to. Good Gardening to you! We love a buggy wormy world! Here is a link that might be useful: UPOG - University Place Organic Garden Club Info.

This thing about "when in rose season does a given variety start to bloom" is a big deal for me. As I've mentioned before, I don't much care for roses that open very late,because of the bad summer weather. Another reason is that, with so many roses, I don't really dead-head,so after the main flush is over, the whole garden tends to have a pretty tatty,messy appearence, so the late blooms can make me feel guilty that I don't give them a nice setting. But then there's this other thing about orchestrating garden areas to obtain certain colour harmonies. Right now, I have this kind of luscious little bouquet of Burgundy Iceberg, Mme. Ligier, and Azubis : burgundy, violet-pink, and lavender-I just LOVE it. So I'd love it if I could get this one particular plant of Rosengarten Z, in this one particular spot, to bloom earlier, because it is that special,rare dark purple,maintaining the colour in heat pretty well. Also, being a climber,it's vigorous enough to be pretty easy in my tough conditions-I just recently have started with floribundas, for example,and am finding that many of them are harder to get going,and don't really accept being watered only in their first year. It's funny, because if you look on the Lens Roses site http://www.lens-roses.be/en_US/shop/page/13?ecom_main_cat=4&ecom_cat=25&ppg=12 ,you'll see that they offer both Rosengarten Z and Roville,but they say that RZ blooms from June-October,whereas Roville blooms July-Oct.Instead, in my garden, Roville starts early, in main rose season..(.and,I might add is still going strong and looking great now in mid-July!!! What a rose! This is the first year it's done this; previously I never thought that much of it) Instead, Super Dorothy starts late as they say it does on the site, as does Super Excelsa, though this latter is a little earlier than SD.