Sherry, Well, I think you can plant them and have limited success. Onions have to be in the ground and achieve a certain amount of growth before bulbing is induced. Since bulbing is induced by a combination of daylength and temperature, it is going to happen when the daylength-temperature combo is achieved, whether the onions have been in the ground for one week, one month, or whatever. So, that is why we have to plant onions so very early--to get maximum growth before initiation of the bulbing process begins. Most onions needs to be in the ground a minimum of 90 to 100 days before bulb initiation starts in order to size up fully, and some need 100 to 120 days. Short day-length onions will begin to bulb up once the daylength (hours of sunlight) reaches about 10-12 hours in combination with the right temperature. Intermediate day-length onions need 12-14 hours days to bulb up. Long day-length onions will begin to bulb up once the daylength is 14-16 hours and the temperature is right, which is why the long daylength onions are not grown in our part of the county. (Our daylength here maxes out around 14 hours.) So, if the onions go into the ground late, they will grow and they still will bulb up once bulb initiation occurs. They'll just be smaller when bulb initiation occurs, thus, they will be smaller at maturity than onions that were planted earlier. One reason that short day-length and intermediate day-length onions planted in the southern third of the country get bigger than those EXACT same varieties grown in the upper 2/3s of the country is that our weather allows us to plant the onions up to 5 months prior to bulb initiation, and the northern states' colder weather does not allow them to plant until approx. 75 days before bulb initiation. So, if you plant late this year, you'll get onions that are "northern-sized" instead of "southern-sized", but you'll still get onions! If you don't mind knowing you'll get smaller onions, go ahead and go for it. It would be a good learning experience if you've never grown onions before. Some commonly-sold short day-length onions are TX 1015Y (aka Texas Sweet or Texas Supersweet), Yellow Granex, White Bermuda, Southern Belle Red and Contessa. Some commonly-sold intermediate day-length onions are Candy, Stockton Sweet Red and Superstar. Some commonly sold long day-length onions (and these should NOT be sold in our region) include Borrettana Cippolini, Red Torpedo Tropea, Ailsa Craig (there's also a tomato by this name), Copra, Big Daddy, Red Burgermaster, Red Zeppelin, Walla Walla, Yellow Sweet Spanish and Ringmaster. I've already planted my main crop of onions, but I do continue planting onions in various spots around the garden as companion plants, and I will, probably through mid-to-late April. Of course, I don't care if those companion-planted onions bulb up or not. Sometimes I leave the companion plant onions in the ground until the following year, and let them bloom in the spring. Their tiny flowers attract a TON of tiny pollinators and beneficial insects, and are quite attractive as well. Dawn

You can also use Bonide Fung-Onil. Both the Ortho and the Bonide have the same concentration of Daconil. Some stores carry the Bonide but not the Ortho. ****** YES!!! bcday knows that I'm growing quite a few tomato varieties that are new to all or most b'c I send her the seeds for same and she does most of the seed production for SSE listings, etc. So like a jerk I called my local Agway Saturday not remembering it was a Holiday and also called the local hardware store; they weren't home either. This AM I called Agway and at first mentioned Ortho Garden Disease Control, they had none, Steve called the main warehouse in PA and they were totally out and said they did expect some in in about two weeks. So then I mentioned the Bonide Fung-Onil and Steve actually had a pint of it in the store and NOW! I kept saying thru this whole conversation that I wanted the 29.6% chlorothalonil and he kept asking me to spell it and then said he had copper spray which says on the side Blight and I said no way. he said you really do know what you want, don't you. LOL He was not in the mood to be told that Daconil acutally blocks the LB and fungal foliage receptor sites on the leaves.( smile) Then call Freda, Freda will pick it up tomorrow and then we see if my pump sprayer is still alive, but if not, she can use the 2 gal watering can just as well. Everything will get it, the tomatoes, potatoes, cukes and squash, the latter two primarily for mildew and Daconil is great for mildew. I'm just not willing to take a chance on the special tomato varieties I'm growing but I can't get out there with the walker to even see if anything is going on with the tomatoes. Freda will do that tomorrow, but then there's more rain, heavy T storms predicted today and tomorrow, so we may wait until Wednesday to spray. Carolyn

This comment nippstress - zone 5 Nebraska I agree to remove the protection - I usually pull back my winter protection in mid-March here in zone 5 Nebraska, and they were already starting to leaf out by that point. Once the rose even barely starts putting out its leaves you really want to get that air circulation going to avoid moisture problems. As long as the temperatures stay above an extended period below freezing (several days in a row), the new leaves will continue without a hitch. My roses are now pretty fully leafed out and we had temperatures drop to 23 last night. They are totally unfazed now that we're back into the high 50's and they're ready to grow. I just read on this rose thread http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/3826251/winter-protection?n=4 suggests the sub-freezing temps I described above were NOT responsible for the rugosa's foliar problem. During those 2 nights, temps dropped briefly to 25F and 23F, but then bounced to 50F+ the following day ( I double checked the weather history for those 2 dates). Though Christopher described some leaf damage to some of his OGRs during the same cold snap - and he's in the same state and same general area that I'm in.

Silica, is it worth it to spray my indoor trees for foliar feeding? I’ve done it in the past, but have not the last couple of years. I have a whitefly infestation this year to my great horror (only in my sunroom), so I’m going to be spraying anyways...