Peachie, I've noticed with my roses (mostly teas but others, too) that after the flush and the flower is spent the bush starts putting out new growth, and the leaf at that growth node will turn yellow (and here get some blackspot). I understand that the rose is pumping its energy into the new growth and away from the old leaf so the old leaf loses its green and drops off to be replaced with nice new green leaves. All my roses do this (but not so much Mrs B R Cant & Mme Abel C). I don't consider it disease - just a cycle of growth. Maybe others will have different opinions. Sherry

This is a great thread to keep going. I observed the same springtime gap in blossoms that many have mentioned. Dianthus do bloom at the perfect time, so I've been trying to plant them, but haven't had much luck getting them to grow. This year I may just buy some plants and be done with it. I would encourage anyone who has the space, to grow as much Common Milkweed as possible. It is a great nectar source and is the primary species of milkweed that Monarchs depend upon. Because it spreads via the root system, it can bounce back even after being tilled into the ground. Prior to the widespread use of Round-Up, 90% of the milkweed used by Monarchs was growing between the rows of crops and along the roads. Since Round-Up and since the increase in the value of corn for production of ethanol, the availability of milkweed has dropped precipitously throughout the entire Midwest. This is threatening the existence of the miraculous migration. Monarchs will continue to exist in the south and west, but may disappear from the rest of North America. I apologize if I'm preaching to the choir, but I try to spread the word when I can. Hope everyone is having a blessed holiday season. Martha

Hello everyone; I have a rose bush at the end of my house that has not bloomed in the 4 years I have been here; but it has GROWN profusely. I should have dug the whole thing up when I first moved in but was in ill health. Will I be able to grow more from clippings in dirt? And will severe clipping help it bloom?It gets mostly full morning sun but there are 2 trees in front(5ft away) of it. Thanks for the info. Hoe_N_Round in South AL.

No, we do not use anything like that. What we do is prune the roses (if thy need it - some don't) sometime between Jan and March (we live in a warm climate), and put about a layer of 2 inches of compost around the base then. We do get some aphids, but also the "good" bugs which eat them (as well as some lovely tiny birds which eat them!). I gave up spraying poisons on my garden about 25 years ago, and after a couple of years the good predator bugs were able to balance out the bad ones. We really don't have problems from bugs (there are no Japanese beetles here, thank heavens), except sometimes on roses with small, light colored blooms in the Spring. Then some years horrid little beetles called curculio beetles show up. They are the color, size and shape of Lady Bugs, except that they have very long black snouts. Somehow they use these to drill into the small rose buds and plant their eggs. All of the buds they do this to die, and you can see them drooped over on the bush. Very disheartening. Now that I know about them, I keep an eye out, and at the first sign, I get a large paper bag, and pick off all of the damaged buds. (Otherwise they will fall off, and the eggs will produce a new crop of beetles the next year). Then I hand pick the beetles. The only way to do that is to hold the bag underneath them and try to grab them. Their defense mechanism is to drop vertically immediately, so I miss most of them, but they fall right into the bag. Then I look carefully at any nearby bushes with small blooms to see if they are anywhere else. So far they have only appeared on 3-4 roses. After I did this several years in a row, I stopped seeing them except once every 5 years or so. Come to think of it, I haven't seen any for over 5 years now - I need to look around. Jackie