Thanks everyone... it really doesn't look like anything I've seen. :\ There's always one major thing that doesn't fit. I threw out the worst affected plants, which left 3 plants. I VERY carefully removed every leaf that showed even a teeny inkling of "the ick" 48 hours later there are no signs of "ick" on any leaves, and the plants are putting out healthy looking leaves all along their bare stems. Let's hope!

The two winged critters aren't flies. Instead, they're winged aphids, a normal occurrence when the colony becomes crowded. Long-legged flies have a metallic body and hold their wings out to the side, also horizontal. Further, their antennae are very short. Aphids aren't metallic, and their wings are held tent-like over the abdomen. Aphid antennae, although admittedly difficult to see in the above photo, are typically -- but not always -- quite long.

Okay... am I the only one that thinks the kitchen looks good, with pickled oak cabinets and all? It really doesn't look that dated to me, with the exception of the light box over the island. In my previous kitchen we had honey stained oak cabinets that screamed 1980's and we paid someone to come in and paint them. The people we bought the house from kept the place filthy so we had to do a major degreasing treatment on the cabinets to get the new paint to stick. It really did look good. We had the painted cabinets for seven years and by the end there were plenty of chips and I would not call it the most durable solution (this is with one sweet demure little girl and one wild little boy). We had used oil paint on them, so perhaps a latex wouldn't chip as much?? I don't know. The oil paint was thick enough that the grain didn't really show up much. If it were me (and it is clearly not, so take it for what it is worth)... I would put my money into removing ceiling light box and perhaps a little work on the cabinetry on the fridge side. The cabinets above the ovens and the fridge being just 12" depth is not ideal, and fridge sticking so far out into the space is calling more than a little bit of attention to itself with the stainless front and black sides and top of fridge just inches above top of oven cabinetry. I would possibly put some money into this and live with the cabinets for a while. Sorry if this offends, just being honest as I see it and trying to help. I think your kitchen is really pretty and I bet with nice window treatments and bar stools, it will be a dream.

I've always thought of dormancy as something plants can do, more so than something they need to do. It is more of a skill of survival through the cyclical weather patterns of the seasons--evolution and genetic adaptation. It is a rather insular idea that cold is the only condition that promotes dormancy in plants. In many places in the world dormancy is promoted by lack of water--a dry season if you will. Some of our heat loving roses likes teas and chinas hail from places like that. I strongly suspect the disaster teas roses are in my 7a garden where they cannot survive through to spring--even though conventional wisdom says it should be warm enough--has more to do with the fact we have significant moisture in the late winter and early spring. It is the moisture that forces them out of dormancy, but then it is still too cold for growing, un-dormant plants to not to be mortally damaged. We take plants that have evolved under certain weather patterns and then expect them to thrive someplace with a different cycling of conditions all while assuming that dormancy triggers are the same. They aren't. All that to say, I don't think I would try to force dormancy based on temperature/cold without at least trying to understand the potential genetics of that particular rose.