Once I figured out the hard way that many rose (and also plant) catalogues were not reliable, I started using a few strategies: 1) Look at the LOCATION of the nursery - I enjoy looking a pictures of plants and roses in all catalogues, but I never order any plant from a catalogue way outside of my climate zone. They can be totally honest and accurate for where they are, and still useless to me re descriptions, etc. 2) The smaller, and more local the nursery, the more usefull, usually. 3) Tried & True: good experience with nurseries of course make me feel more comfortable ordering from them. 4) NEVER rely on statements re the size a rose will grow to, unless the nursery is very local to your garden. Can be off by amazing amounts, including whether or not it is a climber! 5) No matter what the catalogue says, I always look up the rose on HMF and Vintage Gardens web site (which is very local to me and contains tons of info which I have found very reliable in the past). 6) (Of course) - ask about the rose on this forum, and you will hopefully get some responses from your geographic area. 7) If you are lucky enough to have an heirloom rose garden near you, you might be able to see the actual rose growing in your local conditions - this takes more effort, but is the best way of all to see if you like it. Of course, very very local micro climates can still mean it would grow a bit differently. Check out private gardens in your neighborhood - you never know what you will find! Jackie

To NAF: I just highlighted Klondkike_Kate's response, right clicked on it, chose "copy", right clicked on the "Post a follow-up" box and chose "paste". Now I will replace her responses with mine. To Klondike_Kate: I have a couple of friends who are planning to move up to Whitehorse this fall. One of them just got a job as a biologist, although I don't remember for who. I might have to send them your way, because it's nice to have a friendly neighbor when you're new. GW Name - Hykue What does your GW name stand for? It started as a typo. When you type my name with your right hand shifted to the left one key, you get Hykue. I kind of like the play on haiku, and it's always available on any forum. Real Name - Julie Age - 30 Companion - Common-law husband of 10 years (or so) Children? not yet, but planned for soonish Pets? Echo, an 18-year old Husky-Collie cross; Aria, a 9-year old Great Pyrenees-Border Collie cross; Kitty-doo (yeah, I know, very original . . . and I don't know why "doo"), a 13? year old toothless tabby cat. Where do you live or used to live? I live in Meadow Lake, SK. I grew up in northern Alberta, and lived in Texas for two years and Washington state for 1 year. Zone? 1b, but don't tell all my zone 4 plants that. Please. Do you work? I'm a biologist. Sometimes I work from home doing data verification for a biodiversity program in Alberta. In other words, I check things over for pay. Very boring, but I can do it from home. Companion Occupation? Treeplanter . . . although he has a biology degree, treeplanting pays much better. Other hobbies besides gardening? Reading, cross-country skiing, knitting and crochet, walking, drawing (not as much as I should), guitar (ok, almost never, but again, I should). Sometimes computer games, in spates. How long have you been gardening? Right around one year now. I did help a little bit in my parents' garden as a kid, but that mostly consisted of shaking poppy seed-heads and transplanting petunias. Oh yeah, and picking berries. Where is your garden located and what is its size? We live on 40 acres, mostly in pasture. The house and yard are on a hilltop (yes, in SK . . . it's glacial till, which is fun, because it means that the soil can be clay in one spot and sand 10 feet away). The veggie garden is about 50'x100'. When we moved in it was 75% quackgrass, 15% raspberries, with the rest being rhubarb and horseradish. In fact, I have to show it From 27may2009 That's after we round-upped one part. In frustration with that project, I bought some flowers, dug out some sod, and planted a flower bed in mostly native soil. That's how I discovered my flower addiction, and now I have a lasagna bed underway for more flowers next year. Courses in Horticulture? No. What are your specialities in gardening? I have a friend who says I'm very good at seed starting, so maybe that. I'm planning to focus on plants that have low water needs, as our well is a little on the slow side. And I guess I'm good at the planning stage. I love making a plan, on paper, on the computer, or in my head. Best of all is all three. Favorite Flower? My parents inform me that it must be irises, and I think they might be right, but no kind of flower stands on its own in my opinion. Favorite Tree/Shrub? For the garden, weeping birch. Wild, either larch (tamarack) or paperbark birch. All of which like moist conditions unlike our hilltop, sunbaked yard. What has been the best-performing plant/plants in your gardens? Some sort of purple iris that is growing in about 4 different spots around the property, including the orchard and the middle of the lawn. It was here when we arrived, and couldn't have had much care before that. Or maybe caragana, but it's much more of a thug than a success. Most Challenging Plant? I can't say yet. Favorite Gardening Quote? I think that would have to be Marcia's quote, which I will repeat here. "When gardening, irreverence is essential. Were playing in the dirt, for heavens sake!" Favorite Garden Magazines? I'm not much into paying for magazines, but I should check out our library's supply. Favorite Garden Books or resources? Within arm's reach right now, I have: a couple of Lois Hole books, Flowers from seed to bloom and Organic food (both Gardener's A-Z Guides to Growing). A few feet further on the bookshelf, I have Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, and another Lois Hole. Those have proven most useful to me. What is your favorite tool? Probably a treeplanter's shovel. Can be used to weed, plant out new plants, divide perennials, edge a bed, dig a trench. But I also really like my dutch hoe, and my bare hands. What are you most comfortable in when gardening? Whatever I happen to be wearing. I have to make a special effort to change if it's totally inappropriate - yesterday I just barely stopped myself from weeding in a cashmere sweater. I wish I could garden barefoot, but I think about 2% of our soil volume in the veggie garden is either broken glass or rusty nails and metal bits. What has been your best garden purchase or project? So far, round-upping the quack grass. Any projects in the works or planned? Right now I'm layering organic stuff to make a lasagna bed that curves around between our house and the pond (natural, huge, and full of swimmer's itch). I plan to make it into a rainbow bed, with purple at one end and red at the other. We're trying to finish edging the garden with aluminum flashing in the hopes that it will keep out the quack grass. We need to build a more dog-proof chicken coop, because my MIL's dog is an instigator and we now only have 3 chickens left. Raised beds in the veggie garden, more fruit trees, okay I have to stop. Oh, one more thing, a greenhouse. And a new deck, before someone falls through and breaks a leg. Ack! If you had an unlimited budget, what would you do with your gardens? Firstly, see above list of projects. Secondly, hire a weeder, who would leave me only the occasional easy-to-pull annual weed. Thirdly, terrace our hillside and make it into a potager-type garden. Most importantly, spend more time with my hubby outside in the garden (and elsewhere), since he won't have to work anymore. If you could invent a plant, what would it look like? Oh, it would be a climbing vine with flowers like a large brown iris with cobalt-blue circular spots running in a line down each petal (I dreamed this iris once), and a scent like a wild rose. It would, of course, bloom all season. And be very hardy. And LOVE drought. Describe an experience with a garden pest that had you ready to throw in the trowel? None yet, although if you count caragana as a garden pest, you could say that it makes me want to cry. It's absolutely everywhere, hundreds of feet from the original hedge, and it's the spiky kind. Waah! What advice do you have for the novice gardener? Nothing except to ask people lots of questions. Also, know whether you need a reality check or a cheerleader, and choose who you ask accordingly. I have my "realistic" friends and my "cheerleader" friends, and I greatly appreciate both kinds. What is your motivation for gardening? I can't seem to help it. The veggie garden is because we want to be as self-sustaining as possible, and the flowers simply make me feel happy and satisfied. Although I didn't help my parents garden very much when I was growing up, maybe their lovely gardens had a big effect on me. It makes my house feel like a home to have live things that I've nurtured around it. Lastly, when we do have kids (or kid) I want them to learn about life and nature and gardening, and I'm hoping the gardens will help achieve that. Kind of funny that my name is a play on such a concise poem form, and I'm so long-winded. It is funny, right? And not just annoying?

The greasy sticky coating on tomatillos is easily removed by rinsing them. It's not like a gum. You don't notice any of it when making something from them, just when peeling back the husk. The pineapple tomatillo does not have an overly pineapple flavor, more of a citrus tang. Tomatillos of any color are great in any salsa recipe instead of or with tomatoes. Purple tomatillos are easiest to pick since they are the "right" color to see amongst the green leaves and splitting tan husks and are a lot bigger (for me) than a blueberry but I live in the warm South where they like the intense heat of summer. The green ones are by far the most prolific and reseed the same way - prolifically. But, it is free food after all and my garden is not the most tidy so in the walkway they are a weed, growing under my pepper plant, they are treasures. I do not grow ground cherries anymore because I don't like the taste and took more than three years to eradicate from the garden. Please note that all tomatillos and ground cherries are poisonous when unripe, as are the leaves. Ground cherries are ripe when they fall to the ground - meaning you have to harvest several times a day to keep them in check from reseeding and taking over the world. The tomatillos are ripe when they swell enough to split their husks - the fatter they are the sweeter they are - some of my green ones get to billiard ball size. If you live with short summers I'd suggest you grow them in black pots sitting on concrete with a south facing wall behind them to maximize the heat and sun they need, and don't over water them. Nancy

LADYBUGS: Y'all, the reason lady bugs seem tardy has a biological basis that makes sense when you think about it, particularly earlier in the season. Mama lady bug does not lay eggs until an adequate food source already exists. Otherwise, she'd lay eggs, the little ones would hatch out, and there wouldn't be enough food for them to survive. If I see aphids at all, and I seldom do, I usually seee them early in the season. Usually, mama lady bug shows up about 5 to 7 days after I notice the aphids and the babies magically appear a few days later. After the baby lady bugs get busy eating, the aphids are gone very quickly. CATALOGS: I agree that those catalogs cause greenhouse madness and I love looking at them. I could look at them endlessly. Today in my mailbox I had catalogs from NE Seed and Seed Savers Exchange. Dawn