European roses are always grafted - the only own root roses will have come from personal cuttings. Since there is a huge climactic range across the whole of continental Europe, I am a bit mystified by the US craze for bare root to the exclusion of all else, especially when many old and beautiful gardens contain grafted roses which are practically ancient. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the argument essentially holds validity for commercial rose-growers, who use certain methods for both convenience and tradition. Of course they are going to claim superiority for this or that method - for those of us who simply buy and grow roses in our own gardens, the own root vs grafted is of less importance than selecting appropriate plants for climate and soil conditions. As someone who has an almost equal number of each, although I grow roses in a temperate climate, I find this dilemma is one of the least contentious - of far greater importance is the continuing care and maintenance which plants receive (or not) once planted.

Close proximity can be good enough. Many species of Lepidoptera leave it up to the first instar larva to find edible plants on their own. In fact with some species it's a miracle any of them do. An example of a minor miracle... Some Speyeria that use Viola commonly lay their eggs just on the ground, in the weeds, etc long before the LFP has even started to grown above ground yet. The female does "smell" the LFP and so lays pretty close to where plants will eventually come up though. An example of a major miracle... Parnassians often don't even land to lay their eggs, they just fly low over the ground where they think their larval food plant is growning and drop their eggs like bombs on the dirt, rocks, whatever. One of the quirks of being the most primitive of the true butterflies I guess. Larry

The new posts reminded me that I hadn't updated since last year. I put in another two raised beds, 14" or so, and planted all tomatoes in them, none in buckets. Old dirt, city compost, a handful of organic (NPK and micros) additives, woodchip mulch. Much, much better results. Very little watering was necessary - I watered fewer than a dozen times all summer long. Blight hit very hard on the tomatoes I planted in May, though they produced very well through maybe halfway into the summer before slowing down. I got very little from them in the fall, as blight had done too much damage. As always, I was lax in spraying with a baking soda/soap mixture which, while effective, needs to be applied regularly. I did get more tomatoes during the summer months than I did last year, though production was still weak. I tried several heat-tolerant varieties, but noticed little difference between standard varieties and the heat-tolerant ones. Next year I won't be using that as a criteria for picking varieties. As before, cherry tomatoes tended to do better. I also planted 6 or 8 tomatoes during July. They'd been growing in Solo cups for several months, and were extremely rootbound and not in great shape in general, but most took off after a few weeks, and especially so when temperatures began to drop a bit. I was eating a ton of tomatoes from those plants through October. Interestingly, I planted seeds from a hybrid, wondering what I'd get and hoping they'd be a really nice cherry that I'd grown the previous year (pink princess from Fedco). I didn't get any of the pink princess, but got several plants that produced - I assume - one of its parent varieties, which turned out to be an excellent monster cherry tomato (2" diameter). I was pleased, and I'll try planting seeds from them again, but I have no idea what to expect. It's fun not knowing! In any case, I'll try planting a second batch in mid-summer again, as it worked out very well this year. As for peppers, I discovered that despite high temperatures, if they don't get near-full sun they aren't very productive, but had great results from hot peppers in the same bed - and planted at the same time - as the mid-summer tomatoes. It wouldn't work in cooler climates, but there was just enough warm temperature left in the year to get a single good crop out of them. I'll definitely not try the late planting for them again this coming season. However, I might do so with sweet peppers, which require considerably less time than hot peppers to fruit and ripen. And cukes, by the way, did amazingly well. Lemon cucumbers are a new favorite. They're not amazingly tasty - though they're quite good - but their tennis-ball size is perfect for grabbing one for a snack as I take the dog out for a walk, eating it like an apple. Armenian and striped Armenians are really fun to grow, but what the heck are you supposed to do with a two-foot long and 3" thick cucumber? Also, with both lemon and Armenian varieties, I discovered you've got to pick and eat them while they're young, as the bigger the get, the tougher the skin and seeds get (I'd heard that before, but now I know from experience). So, finally, for this summer, I'll be using a lot more of my own compost (leaves, grass, kitchen scraps), most of which wasn't ready this year but definitely is for this coming year, and I might try some peppers in buckets, but all tomatoes will again go in raised beds. I'm still loving the woodchip mulch. I'll try to be better about spraying for blight and hopefully keep plants hanging on through the summer to get a good fall crop out of them. Greens are the only plants that do well in the shadiest bed (mostly kale and spinach), and I've had very little success with lettuce - it croaks when temperatures get too warm. I'm going to move strawberries out of the main bed and put them in a smaller one - they're just too space-intensive for what amounts to a fairly small, short-lived crop. But oh, they're good! Also, raspberries are a year old (actually two, but only one in their current bed), so I'll hopefully get a good crop out of them. They did reasonably well this past year in a bed that's mostly clay, so they're pretty hardy. I might try carrots and potatoes. I've had very little success with carrots in buckets, so we'll try a deep raised bed.

I didn't think to do that, but I imagine it's about the same age as the house: 100 yrs old. Its twin is on the other side of the walkway by the new compost pile and is probably feeling surprised right now and wondering its fate. There was also a massive elm that died a long time ago, but I think they grow bigger. One limb heated the house for two years. That's the wood compost I now use. We cut that ourselves and couldn't move the pieces they were so heavy. By the driveway is another huge liquidambar (sweet gum) that was planted in the teens or twenties for Arbor Day. They were giving them out for planting and the original owners' kids planted them. Now I park my car under its shade, but worry about limbs falling. They look small far away, but are really heavy. There are quite a few of these beauties in the neighborhood from that time. The original landscapers and builders really thought about shading the house in summer and solar gain in the winter. They chose unusual species and natives as well. Such forethought is generally unheard of today, but it wouldn't be that difficult or expensive to incorporate these ideas that worked so well. I'll need to replace the awnings now that the tree won't shade the front rooms.