Will lasagna work or will it break down so much by Spring that I only have half of the bed filled. It will work but yes, it will have reduced by 1/2 come spring. You will have to heap, really heap, the contents much higher in the bed to end up with a full bed come spring. So using some good soil in the bed will make a big difference. Using some soil will also make the bed more productive since growing in straight compost (which is what lasagna beds are) has its own set of problems. And they do continue to shrink so you will need to keep adding materials a couple of times each year. Dave

I use a mini- trellis for my Mme Pierre Ogers, and Reine Victoria. The mini-trellis is about 3 1/2 feet tall. It's easily moved. I use it to hold a section of the rose into place. You might be able to use it to brace the rose to keep it away from the walkway. Reine Victoria does get blackspot in my no-spray garden, but repeat bloom is good and it grows new leaves. It can set buds on very thin stems, so after the first flush I only deadhead it, don't prune it back any further. I've found these roses take some years to build up structure to give their best repeat bloom. Here's a pic of the mini-trellis, and Mme Pierre Oger.

Ditto on what janetpetiole says. I'm in Milwaukee, just @ a hour from you & can tell you some things have been very slow to wake up this year. Not only that, when they do wake up they are just hanging there & not really growing. It's like they don't know what to do, kind of protecting themselves...good thing. The last couple of weeks have been a rollercoaster ride with the majority of the temps being 50-60. Yesterday I had a high of 50...on June 3rd! The nite temps have been dropping into the mid 40s. If I was a plant, I'd hide too. The only thing worse that could happen is solid consistent warm temps & get everything growing like mad & then have frost. I would much rather take the weather we are having now. Trying to be optimistic because this weather makes me curse under my breath regularly!

Today is another nice day and I was outside this afternoon pushing off and taking off mulch that had blown around (fall leaves) off some of the tulips. The three new sections of Darwins (some are shown in the tulip picture I took above) which are now on their second spring are coming up really nicely. I planted them deeply not last fall but the year before. At this stage just from looking I can't see any difference between what they looked like last spring coming up and what they look like now. Meaning the beds looks full with lots of tulips so looks like great return. But I was also removing mulch from the section of the extra early mix I bought from Scheepers. Those are not Darwins, they bloom earlier. I had 200 but from the looks of what is coming up, nowhere near that now. Poor return. Looks like less than half of what I had last year. I am hoping that since it is still early more of those tulips might still come up but not sure that will happen. I should of planted more of those extra earlies along in that same section like I thought of doing this past fall but for some reason I didn't order them and didn't do it. As of now I deffinately plan to add more of them this fall. The section I am referring to is in the front yard between and in back of the daylilies along the stone wall. Then I also have a section in another garden bed. Some perrenials in the back (columbines) then a row of daffs in front of that. Literally a row because that is how I planted them. Then a row of clumps of tulips in front of the daffs. They were planted 5 of a type in a grouping in a hole. Then dig next hole next to it and five more and so on. Well some clumps comming up but bare spots between them which means certain clumps not coming up at all. These were non darwins, don't remember which class, that I bought because they were so pretty. Planted just as deeply. So no knowing if they might show up but not looking promising. I will have to replant there by just marking with a brick each empty spot in the row so I know were to put new clumps in the fall.