Wow - thanks for reviving this, Sara Ann. You've been so good at posting to give us all chances to show off our roses by colors this year that we got plenty of rose eye candy already this year. I appreciate your warm comments as always, everyone - Trish, Kate, Molly, Diane, Sara Ann, Ingrid, and it's both fun and discouraging to look back at how wonderful the roses were in 2013. Coincidentally, I'd also give a major body part (OK, maybe just a major amount of blood loss) to have any single rose bush whatsoever look that good in my yard this year. Not that this was such a bad year overall, but the rose stars were few and far between. Everything (virtually) got pruned to the ground after winter and it really strikes me how much difference it makes to have surviving cane vs. no surviving cane. The rose puts all its energy into regrowing cane, and forgets to bloom, except for spots of isolated blooms here and there on scattered bushes. For the most part, my better bloomers were the newly planted roses that didn't have to regrow anything and still had the flush of youth. They say it'll be a relatively milder winter in these parts with plenty of snow, so I'm hoping for another year like that one in 2016. Now for the questions - Diane, I still like Ascot and it tends to hover in the 4-5' range for me. It's a reliably healthy bush, but it seems to be one that appreciates some surviving cane, like most of my roses. Here is a closeup from 2013 of Ascot showing those luscious big fat reddish blooms: In contrast, here's the one solitary bloom cycle I caught for Ascot this year (and I went out faithfully every week all summer). Pretty meh - washed out hot pink with more like semi-double blooms. Still rock-solid healthy leaves, just in recovery mode like most of my roses. Nevertheless, it's still a keeper in my world for the sake of the photo above: Ingrid - sorry for being confusing in labeling the medium pink rose in the first picture. Petal Pushers has small mum-sized blooms in regular profusion (it was one of my more reliable bloomers this year) but it's toward the back near the grey shed, obscured by other roses. The prominent one falling over the fence is one I forgot to label - the Delbard rose Dames de Chenonceau. It's a totally reliable rose for me and not bad for blooms this year. I'm sure with your warmer climate it would do more blooming, though I'm not sure if the multiple petals would make it more vulnerable to drought or not. I dearly love this rose, as well as the Champagne Moment/Lions Fairy Tale to its left in that first photo in this thread. Here's a closeup from July this year of Dames de Chenonceau. I think Roses Unlimited carries it if you're tempted, Ingrid (smile) - this looks like your style of lovely subtle colors. It does tend to flop though - I had to lie on the ground to look up for this shot. For comparison, here's Petal Pushers from June of this year. This is what I usually see when I catch this rose, as it's a notorious droopy rose and doesn't climb very high. When I'm motivated to lie on the ground for a photo (not all that often, considering all the stray rose thorns also on the ground), this is what Petal Pushers looks like, also from this year. Yep, this one makes me dizzy and I can't exactly tell which way is up: Anyway, thanks for your comments on this blast from the past, and may our next rose years be good ones this time! Cynthia

poolguynj and other PB's thanks again for the quick follow ups and feedback on my questions and concerns. currently the PB still has his maintenance guy coming over daily to check the chemicals, brushing etc. and adding chemicals as needed. PB said that he would do that for about a month before turning it over completely to us for maintenance. natural one, thanks for your comments on the pool build. the PB was actually there for all of the stages and on site a quite often so we felt that he was on top of everything from beginning to end. as fari as the drains, personally it doesn't bother me and kinda like the contrast but that just me. what actually bothered me more was the color of the pool cleaner, it's white with a white hose and when i asked about it our PB said that to get the black one, it would be about 300 bucks more. uh, i decided the white one didn't look bad after all! also, we had a landscaper come out last week and give us a bid for some landscaping behind the pool. it was over 6800 for landscaping that i was not even going to be able to see since the back beam is raised.....i nearly swallowed my gum when he told us the price. so we are thinking now that we will reduce the size of the bed directly behind the pool, but add perhaps some windmill palms on each end to give it some character and instead, add some beds on each end of the pool so at least we can visually enjoy some of our expenses! the sun came out today so hopefully i can post some pictures this afternoon. Thanks again everyone!!!!

Wonderful chairs! If you haven't done upholstery before, I think these are not the place to start. A big part of their charm is the curves - top, bottom and sides - and you can see that there is seaming in several places that needs to be pretty much perfect. Even as nicely done as these are, you can see that there are some lumps across the front edge, and that the check pattern is pulled askew across the front and seat. And I second the comment that button tufting and double welting are not the simplest thing to do. You would be soooo unhappy if the result looked amateurish, not to mention the waste of fabric. As to fabric choice, I'd consider something essentially solid, but with some texture, because there's so much texture in your sofa fabric (which looks very nice with Miss Sophie on it...). Take a look at this idea from FabricGuru's inventory, and think about the possibility of picking out the lines by using welting in the deep plummy color. Here is a link that might be useful: Upholstery fabric idea

I wanted to suggest an attractive Mediterranean peony that would cost less than P. cambessedesii (hope I got the spelling right). I've read, and my experience confirms this, that viable peony seed sowed fresh germinates quickly, but if you let the seed sit around for a while, it can wait years before it sprouts. A thought to keep in mind if you buy seed: a good deal of patience may be required (and don't throw away seeds that don't sprout!). I poked around a little on Internet and found 'Mollis' offered for sale in the U.S., so it is available, though I don't know how widely. While I'm busy offering unsolicited advice, let me mention another excellent Mediterranean peony, one I brought up recently in another thread on the forum: P. officinalis 'Rubra Plena'. This is as red and as full as a person could ask for, and an excellent grower. It's common locally. This is different from the double red form of yet another Mediterranean peony, P. tenuifolia. I am wondering how these will do in your garden, as I don't know your conditions. We have a mild climate, but we do get chill hours, and I don't know whether the peonies I've mentioned need that.