I spend so much every spring ordering from a multitude of mailorder companies that I have no business checking out local nurseries....but I do anyways! It is hard to resist checking out the rose selection when I go there to get alfalfa meal and before I know it, another rose finds itself seat-belted into the back seat of my car. My total new rose total for this Spring is up to 66....and its still early. I have lucked out and found a few good finds here & there as I travel around. I have found Distant Drums, Champlain, Topaz Jewel, Morden Sunrise, Morden Fireglow, John Cabot, William Baffin, and a few others that actually do well here in NH. Of course I had to wade through dozens of pots of Knockouts to find them. I just shake my head looking at all the pots of hybrid teas that will likely die this winter. I grow some HT myself, but I know the effort it takes to winter them over and many people don't. I have my best luck at Agway (in different locations). Celeste

Petittis Oakwood Village is the most expensive nursery in the NE Ohio area and while their stock is in good shape, they don't carry nearly the selection of new cultivar's as several of the other local garden centers; Worse, of the new cultivars they carry, they sell many at $30 each which is totally out of control for a perennial; I don't care if they are 2 gallon containers.

Hi Sally! Welcome to the Oklahoma forum! Visitors are always welcome here as we are a very friendly bunch. Of course it is OK to post your question on this forum, and I hope someone from the north-eastern portion of the state will be able to answer your question. I'm way down south in Love County and a recent transplant from Fort Worth (six years), so I can't help with your question, but I have some info to pass on about organic gardening in Oklahoma. Organic gardening is alive and well in Oklahoma. I have found, though, that organic products are harder to find here, but that may be just because I am in a very sparsely populated, very rural county far away from the state's major population centers and nurseries. If you're just sitting around the house this coming weekend (and I realize that is unlikely!), then hop in your car or truck and come up to Oklahoma City for the Natural Living Expo 2005. It is going to be held at the Oklahoma City State Fairgrounds in the Made in Oklahoma Buildings #1 and #2. Tickets are $5.00 at the door. This show will feature everything organic, from gardening products aimed at both weekend gardeners and full-blown organic farmers to displays/exhibits on chemical-free living , including home construction products, carpet cleaning, weight control, pain relief, healthy foods, etc. Lots of natural foods will be available tor sampling. Speakers include RadioHost & Organic Farmer Dwayne Somerville; Pam Harmell who is a Nutritionist & founder of Healthy Too Products; Billy Klein, who is the Oklahoma Dept. of Agriculture Director of Poultry, Egg & Organic Section, and many more. You can shop at Organic Alley--Oklahoma's largest all-organic indoor farmer's market. Even if you can't make it up to the show, just the fact that there IS such an event shows that growing and living organically is a trend/lifestyle that is alive and well & growing and booming here in the Sooner State. By the way, I have no financial interest in the show, but am excited to see such an event staged in Oklahoma. I think organic growing is catching on here in a big way. As a serious hobby gardener in south-central Oklahoma, I have felt at times that I was the "lone voice in the wilderness" as a organic gardener. Yet, in just the last 3 or 4 years, I have found many people in my area are converting to organics, so I don't feel quite as alone any more. I hope you get the info you need from someone here on the forum. Keep us posted on your relocation plans! Dawn

We didn't have a freeze warning or a frost advisory or anything here in Love County but I never trust the forecast lows here in April. I brought in all the seedlings and had nothing in the ground that could freeze. At the last minute when it was nearly dark, Tim and I covered up the lettuce with a frost blanket because our temperatures were dropping more quickly than I thought they should. I know from experience that a forecast low of 34 here often means we'll actually see 30, 28, 26 or 24. Or worse. Our Forecast Low: 34 Our Actual Low: 26 At almost 4 a.m., the Fort Worth office of the NWS issued a Frost Advisory for the counties across the river from us. I hope the gardeners in those counties covered up their tender plants last night. I was prepared. Our local CBS TV meteorologist said on the evening news that he thought many parts of our area could go below the forecast low and even down into the 20s and that there would be some "patchy frost". By then, I'd already brought everything inside, but his words helped convince me to cover up the lettuce. I know it can take very cold weather, but it has had such hot weather (upper 80s and 90s) that I wasn't sure how much cold it would tolerate. I expect that my baby peaches and plums froze and will start dropping from the trees. With the strawberries and blackberries that are blooming, I think it is iffy. I've had frost and temps this low hurt them some years and not other years, so there's a 50-50 chance they'll be OK. I've linked the Minimum Temperature Recorded map that shows the lowest temp recorded at the OK Mesonet stations. It looks to me like most of the state went at least as cold as forecast or, like our place, colder than forecast. The weather this year is yo-yoing so wildly. It is hard on all our plants, even the cool-season ones, to have highs in the 80s one day and then have the lows plunge to the 20s. We'll probably be back in the 80s in a day or two. Can our weather get any more bizarre? Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Today's Minimum Air Temperatures (Mesonet)