I can get Milorganite at both Lowe's and HD but it has gone way up in price to $10., Alfalfa pellets and Fish Emulsion from a Feed Store but they cannot get Fish Meal or Cottonseed meal, just not available anymore.... Bone Meal and Blood Meal are all over the place here but in small bags which makes it pricey.. I get Black Hen in 20 lb. bags also Black Kow in the big bags.....I'm in St Pete, Fl and go to Neeld-Gordon on 13 Ave No. just east of the overpass abt. 19 St, backed up to the RR tracks, a real olde-tymey feed store with wood floors and counters, a pot-bellied stove in use in the winter, shelves of antique farm supplies, and pens of chickens in the back !! worth just the trip to go back in time like that ! sally

Hi Smithga: Potassium silicate is sold on Amazon quite expensive, and I already bought crushed red-lava-rock on Amazon for $10, it helped with blooming, but DOES NOT help with black spots on Carding Mill. I know exactly what I did wrong with Carding Mill: Since that location is near tree, I put tons of alfalfa-pellets in the planting hole, and when that decomposes, it GLUE UP with my clay, roots get waterlogged in that sticky-combo. I did the same to black-spot prone Pink Peace, when I dug that up, it's a big glob of clay glued-up with alfalfa pellets. Spraying leaves is temporary solution. Permanent solution is to dig the rose up, and fix the soil to make it loamy & easier for water to drain off. What I did to Pink Peace was to throw the old sticky-gobs of clay elsewhere, put in fresh top soil mixed with FLUFFY compost, plus coarse sand, plus red-lava-rock for drainage. Gypsum or gritty lime can be added, depending on one's soil pH. The cause of black spots start with the planting hole .. I notice when the soil is fluffy, it's easier for nutrients from above to reach down to roots. But when the soil is hardened, and when you water it ... water just floats over, rather than sink in ... those are the roses most susceptible to black spots. Coarse sand is a fantastic separating-agent. I found loose spots, with sand-grains intact, where I poked holes and stuff sand in these "breathe holes" ... that's done more than a year ago. Breathe holes can really perk up roses, even without stuffing sand inside. Crimson Glory was next to a tree, the soil there is rock-hard, thanks to my mixing in peat-moss with clay. When I watered it, the water just floated over, rather than sinking in. So I used my large shovel to dig a circle around it, I meant to dig the entire rose up to fix the hardened hole. But it rained on me, so I left it there .. a circular gap around the entire rose. It perked up right after that .. and bloomed, thanks to rain-water going through that circular gap. I use a bamboo stick, a dandelion digger (great for stabbing soil), a thick butter-knife, a long thick scoop, and my big shovel just to create gaps. Then I top it with 1/2 gallon of coarse sand. It works fantastic to loosen hardened clay. A long term solution is to dig the rose up, and fluff up the clay with cracked-corn, coarse sand, and organic matter. Cracked-corn glues up with clay, it's the gypsum and sand that helps to separate organic matter from clay. When roots can't get rid of excess water, they are more prone to diseases. Fluffy & well-drained soil is the best solution to fungal diseases. Coarse sand is a must for fixing compacted clay. I get tons of leaves in the fall ... they glue together in wet-sheaths, but if I layer sand between the leaves, they don't stick together. I posted in the other thread about the myth of sand plus clay makes brick. That's NOT true. Coarse sand is FANTASTIC to break up my high-magnesium sticky clay .. I dug up spots 15 years later, and it's stilly fluffy & loamy where I mixed in sand. IT DOES NOT GLUE up into concrete like peat moss, alfafa (both meal and pellets), or wood chips. Below is an excerpt from a link that clarifies the misconception that mixing sand with clay become concrete: FALSE !! http://rebuildingcivilization.com/content/true-or-false-concrete-can-be-made-mixing-powdered-limestone-sand-gravel-and-water

NewHB: Thanks!! The flowers and herbs (both in pots and in the garden) have actually managed to stay alive this year -- thanks to slightly cooler (and now chilly! LOL!) temperatures around Dallas! The silk flowers in the large half-basket have been replaced with fall ones -- always a nice change! Of course the front door area is now filled with spooky Halloween decor! LOL!

I sure wish someone would answer this because I have the exact same problem. Had it last year and it affected all my plants and I'm seeing it again this year already.