Kay, how are you? I haven't been around for a while, I had to take a break and get myself together. To everyone I want to tell you that I am so sorry for your loss and sadness, it is the worst pain anyone can have BUT it does get better, I promise. My heart and soul mate died 14 months ago and I wanted to die with him, I was in so much pain and so scared of what was going to happen to me without him; life must go on. I was told that it doesn't get better but it gets different and they were right. I still weep and some days are bad but I have more good days as time goes on. Life won't seem so alien after a while, I just felt like I didn't belong here any more, not in my home, my job or this world but I did finally settle with my feet back on the ground. It's not easy but you have to push youself to live and it eventually gets easier. Please take care of yourselves, get help if you need it and work hard at being strong, we will never forget and we will always love them and happier days are ahead. God Bless all, Mav.

Mary, I too am in Toronto and am so conflicted by all the info out there. We will have our cedar deck installed in about 3 weeks (actually, I'm thinking of putting it off until next spring). You mentioned that your deck was installed in April and that you probably stained it too soon. How soon after installation did you stain it? I do not want the cedar to "grey", instead I want to seal it and stain it so that it remains a nice cedar colour and just protect it from UV rays. We have a southern exposure and no shade, and the sun just eats away at all our wood.

I'm paying about $350/window to have 3 made, with some special features (which raised the cost slightly). Windows are roughly 6 feet tall, shutters will be outside mounted so that I can have wide slats. So I'd say your number is close....maybe.

Thanks for all the responses folks! Mmmm12 I have been grateful that my local rose society values garden growing of roses not just exhibiting, though they tend to emphasize the roses that show well. I'm looking forward to showing them the beauties of OGRs and shrubs and hybrid musks and polys when they visit my yard for a breakfast next June. Berrypie thanks for the encouragement - I consider the humbling experience in other yards as a challenge rather than discouragement. If their roses can look that good so can mine (within reason). Kristine makes that point well that always learning can be a good thing and I want to keep doing so. Carol & Ben - I'll have to check with someone to find out the organic fertilizer recipe they use. They get a local feed shop to mix the ingredients and then they sell it at cost ($25 for 25 pounds which is cheaper than Rose Tone). It's a fine textured powder that smells good and doesn't seem to burn anything. Ben, I appreciate the welcome back and I absolutely love the posts on HMF by Digger Dave and Deb. In my records I keep a one-line summary for each rose about key elements including comments on HMF and here about rose performance. Several of my posts have key Digger Dave comments that I treasure because of their insight and application to my yard. They stopped posting pictures about 2016 as far as I can tell and I'm hoping everything is OK. Sheila - with climate change and more extremes every year I think all of us need to keep learning no matter our location. Things that might have worked 5 years ago might no longer apply and I'm getting much more creative with mulching and watering given our increasingly longer stretches between good rains in the summer. Erasmus, Tututara and Diane - I know that multiflora doesn't like alkaline soils but I find my soil doesn't seem to be too alkaline for it. We have loamy clay so multiflora seems happy enough here, as opposed to places like California (even though it takes an act of God to turn hydrangea blooms from pink to blue here). Dr. Huey seems to fade faster and may be more likely to fail here, but that may be the health of the original plant if I plant body bags. I've had some body bags do fantastic things - World Peace is one I've never seen for sale but the once locally - and it's a terrific rose with stunning colors. Trish - thanks for the good wishes! I've missed posting pictures too and getting the warm responses from people here that help keep me encouraged during the low spots in the gardening year. Moses lovely to hear from you and your comments are gracious as always. I can get away without spraying here because of the "dry" part of "hot and dry Nebraska" in the summer, but I do sympathize with the depth of blackspot problems further east from me. I rather think we're starting to get midge damage out here but it's not bad enough to cause undue grief. Japanese beetles - well, I just don't expect any actual blooms in July any more. As for the equivalence of a 3-4 year old own root to a grafted younger rose, it seems entirely plausible. The robust HTs and flori own roots that I have bloom pretty well and since I have to bury the graft I figure that most of my established grafted roses have gone own root over time. I still love buying own root roses and we have fantastic vendors like Roses Unlimited and Long Ago Roses and Northland and High Country Roses and Burlington and Antique Rose Emporium and ... well you get the picture. I don't hesitate to buy from any of them for any roses that I want that they sell. It's just that I look elsewhere first for the HTs and floris now in grafted form. Even this past two years I've bought some own root HTs that have done fine and I'm sure I'll continue to do so in the future. I just have to temper my expectations and know that I'm zone pushing when I do so. Speaking as a zone 5 person who still grows one long-surviving tea (Maman Cochet) I'm quite familiar with the hazards but potential joys of zone pushing. Cynthia