well, Shelly, one of these days since I'm an organics gardener and don't spray save for hot pepper spray, I'm going to make...rose petal jelly out of my spent rose petals... Rose petals have a very strong cinnamon taste to them... but lol! mine will taste a tiny bit spicy, I suppose...Someone gave me this absolutely! delicious! sweet homemade jalapeno jelly, so hopefully I'm not! going to have a clash of flavors should the hot pepper spray not be completely washed out tee-hee! the Iron Chef of Rose-Jelly making. hahahahaha! I've been meaning to do this as soon as I get the air-conditioning of my house fixed. It's too hot to be baking and doing anything but light cooking since my house has very few open-windows (most of the windows are glassed over with no screens). I will let you all know how my rose jelly turns out. So, wanna share the medicine recipe with us, Shelly... How about it!

Patti, the tetnus shots you get in the ER uaully only last 5 or less years. They are not at good as the TD or TDaP shots you get at your MD or the health department. You need to find out if you got a tetnus, TD, or TDap. Let your MD know which on so you can get the correct ones whent he time comes. (the P in the TDaP is protection against whooping cough, it is on the ride in adults). Good luck!!!! Janie

google rejuvenation pruning of flowering shrubs.. to get a general feel for what you are doing ... done right.. its a 3 year process .. of which.. you already did year one.. and the result are those new suckers ... and yes.. it can be a bit ugly during the process ... but keep in mind.. the leaves are the food making machines.. and if you take out the whole big chunk left.. you will be relying on ONLY those leaves from the suckers .. and thats not a lot ... i think i would take one half of that Y .. after it flowers ... and probably that last old hunk... late next spring ... you CAN NOT KILL A LILAC BY PRUNING... i do it year around.. whenever the darn thing tees me off ... never heard the winter part before.. unless its specific to where ever you are????? in the alternative.. again.. noting you cant kill them.. and you dont care if you miss the flowers.. take it all out .... been there.. done that ... it really boils down to whether you might want to do it 'right' ... and look at a heapin mess for 2 more years... or just want to be done with it.. knowing you cant kill it anyway ... no theory necessary.. as to determining your state of mind.. flip a coin ... ken

Don't get me wrong-I myself have long participated in reforesting of our city following the elm event. Of course there's still some great streets and neighborhoods-even whole communities. What I am saying though is that in the aggregate, summing the whole kit and kaboodle up, we have a lesser resource today than we did yesteryear. For one example, even in my city the forester or others like to tout the fact that each year, we plant more trees than we remove. Yes, of course we do, I say, but the new trees are almost all going into new streets, new subdivisions that didn't even exist back whenever the comparative year was. If one was to somehow mount a camera over a city, perfectly stationary, and take time-lapse photos of the older parts of town, they're in a shambles so far as tree cover compared to where they were years ago, before all the elms died, before all the big old silver maples started falling apart, etc. I'm sure it seems overly bleak how I worded that post, but I'm certain there's a kernel of truth to it, even as I and you folks and a bunch of others go on with our daily lives, much of which involves trees and other greenery. I'm not pointing my finger at anyone or anything...just telling it like it is, as I see it. And one other facet: The power companies, long having spent considerable dollars on line clearance, so we can all plug in our toasters, has finally prevailed on urban forestry managers all across the nation to plant little mini-trees under power lines. Now from that one single perspective, I get it. But from every other perspective, it's been a disaster for the look, feel, and design elements of our city streets. Does anyone really get anything from a street lined with 'Ivory Silk' tree lilacs, themselves spaced far and wide? They will never coalesce, they will never create a canopy, they will never do any of the key things I listed above that street trees can and should be doing. This as much as anything has diminished the value of our urban forests. I once put this idea down as one for further discussion at the arborist's meetings. Well-and this has happened a lot-they took me up on it and this subject was one of the main ones at the following year's conference. I didn't get to go to that one but from what I heard, there was much scowling and wailing and gnashing of teeth at this talk and the idea behind it. It was actively rejected by the majority of city foresters and others in attendance. That's how far things have fallen-we can't even talk about it!