My partner and I both got a late start but our seeds should be arriving at each other's homes soon. I can not wait to see what I got. Sounds like some of you got some great stuff. Linda

Thanks to those who have been praying for my health, and being patient while I recovered!! Sorry about the delay. I finally have gotten well enough to go to the PO. Amy's package is mailed... delivery conf. number is 03080070000104829437 Looking forward to hearing from Amy when it arrives. :) I also picked up my package today from Amy!!! She sent the following seeds: Early Girl tomato White Vienna Kohlrabi Royal Burgundy Bush beans (nice color, and might even fit my small garden space, yay!!) Swiss Chard, ruby organic - Awesome. :) Radish, White Icicle organic- yum! And a very handy looking pair of rubberized hot pink garden gloves, how cool! :) WOW! Thank you very much Amy! You were very generous, and the organic seeds were a very thoughtful gesture. I will have a blast growing these!!! :)

Well, I mixed up another batch of mix last night to get ready to WS some more containers. I have 5 5qt ice cream pails man what I wouldn't do for some more of those. Some milk jugs whole and 1/2 gal Some soda bottles 2L and a few 3L and some 20 oz, although I am not sure I want to start seeds in those might just use them to pot up some things for a plant swap I am planning to hold in April or May. I got my mix sopping wet so I am gonna let it dry out a while before using it because I am gonna do some sowing inside before transfering them outside and I don't want to get water all over the house/floor. :) Fran

Hi UncleHippy Welcome to GW and there'll always be plenty of opinions for you to pick from in our responses here. In many cases, you have to decide between easy roses and highly fragrant roses, particularly if you like the "classic" rose shape (those are hybrid tea roses). Since you're asking about Knockout and EE roses, you know that these are more open flower shapes and indeed good for beginners. They should both be fine in the amount of sun you describe and equally easy to grow. In terms of impressiveness, I'd go with Kashmir. It has been thickly covered in blooms in a partly sunny spot in my yard, much better than my Double Knockout. Know that neither of these is consistently a "fire engine" red color - red as a gardening color varies a lot, and both of these tend toward the crimson side of the color scheme, though much redder than roses that are called hot pink. I agree with Rick (predfern) that your best chance for easy roses that have some fragrance are the David Austin roses. There are some drop-dead gorgeous "red" Austins that tend toward the purple side of things - Munstead Wood, Darcey Bussell, and The Prince are all easy and compact good bloomers for me. The Austins that tend more like red (but none are remotely fire engine red) like Tess of the D'Ubervilles or maybe Tradescant are less frequent bloomers for me than the ones I listed in the purple range. The hardiness of Austins is good for most zone 5 regions, but it can vary depending on the part of the country you're in - the east coast gets more trouble with blackspot that can weaken a rose if severe, and that might lead you toward roses like Kashmir more often. If you let us know the general region where you live we can help more with that. One compromise that you could consider about easy vs. fragrant roses is to plant low plants of frequent bloomers (like Kashmir) and then put a few more fragrant but stingier ones behind them (or between) so you get your hit of fragrance that way. It depends on how much room you have. Bottom line though is not to be scared of planting roses and don't let people tell you they need fancy care or expensive food or spraying if you don't want it. The roses you describe should be tough for a zone 5 winter and not need much care, though every rose needs dead wood cut out of it and some trimming at least once a year (nothing including perennials and grass is "no-care" in a garden). Have fun Cynthia