It was about 8:30am, and the roses were still in the shade at that point. I'll do it in the evening from now on. The fertilizer wasn't a foliar feed, it was a liquid feed applied to the soil. Now that all the leaves are either suffering from blackspot or fungicide burn, what are my plants' prognosis? I'm assuming they'll lose all their damaged leaves, be naked, and then what? I'm starting to miss the days when I only had Knockouts and I ignored them the majority of the time, and they were fine. Deanna

I would definately take more QMs! It is a good year for them and I have raised a bunch already. I was working like a dog to feed them elm and hops (my poor hops vine is looking poor)and running out (my elms are babies). They were last instar but still eating. Then I remembered, "they eat hackberry!" My hubby about fell over (since I sent him out numerous time to try to find something). We have a 60 foot hackberry in the yard and numerous seedlings! So, I have plenty of food. I saw a gorgeous female QM looking sadly at our denuded vine. So, I wont be able to get anymore eggs for awhile! Cheers, Elisabeth

Snookums - I read a bunch of responses then just jumped ahead to put in my .02 cents. I've learned a few things having been married once before my current husband. #1 - You may have a spouse that is never satisfied. #1 was like that and it's part of their demoralizing way of controlling the situation and getting you to jump through hoops. LESSON LEARNED - No one spouse can carry the burden of making the relationship work, making it happy etc. Refuse to be the burden carrier if this is the case. Couple of suggestions: You could say, or have the attitude that his level of satisfaction regarding decorating, home improvement is level A but since you like it at level C that you will bring it up there as you see fit. You're not asking him to agree to it, you're just telling him. What about the next time something needs doing, he hasn't done it after 2 askings that you just go ahead, hire a handyman and have it done? When he squawks tell him, hey you had your chance to do it, you obviously didn't deem it important so "I took care of it for you. Aren't you glad honey, I took that load off your plate." One of two things will happen, especially if you do this every time, he'll either begin to do it himself if he doesn't like spending the money or he'll be fine with it as you've handled it. If he's not fine, then he has to do it by deadline A or again, you'll take care of it. As many have said, when throwing his fits, walk out of the room or refuse to respond telling him when he wants to have calm, rational, nonacusatory conversation, he can find you, until then, you've got other things to do. With DH #2 of 13 yrs, he has a higher standard when it comes to some cleaning issues that bug him and don't bug me. He's a busy body and I just tell him, hey, I'm willing to bring it to this level, if you want it better than this or whatever, then you can take it from there. Yes, at times I do feel a twinge of guilt but that is my own fault for even feeling it. Luckily I have a very DIY DH, mostly because he'd rather do it than spend the $$ and he's very talented in many areas and can do it. So I'm grateful. Plus nobody could accuse him of being lazy. Does your DH have a high level of frustration when he can't figure things out, get them done etc.? Maybe this is his throwing smoke so he doesn't have to deal with that issue (thre real fire). Better to not do task, than feel frustration or inadequacy over not being able to do it. You follow? Again, you doing it or better yet handyman could be an answer here. My house is my haven from the outside world and I'll be D&^@ed if anyone is NOT going to let me make it that way. Keep doing what you're doing girl!!!! We're with you. :)

pattiem93, Thank you for the advice and the kind words. lyban's mock up confirms it (Thank you lyban!) It really does look so much better. Who knew? (oh, the experts!) ;-) I do promise to post pictures when we are in. We are VERY close now. Just dealing with some plumbing fixture snafus, grrr... and then I'm sure it will take a while to pull things together. The first pics will be fairly undecorated, but we'll get there eventually. Right now, I'm resisting buying anything else. I think I need to live there to get a feel for the house to figure out how exactly I want to accessorzie everything. We are definitely a work in progress. tracey_b, I agree I might need a richer green. This color is SW Recycled Glass. I was also looking at the SW Artichoke color strip when choosing. Maybe something from that strip would be richer. I have to admit, I was out there again today and it didn't seem as bad. Not great, but hey, it is the spare, spare bedroom. I have my whole life to perfect it. Kitchen first, then my bedroom and bath and then onto the rest of the house. Thanks again to everyone. No one else is interested in listening to my house talk anymore. Y'all are my saving grace!