I cannot imagine what sort of monster would be such trouble to maintain. If trimming it encourages new growth, well then trim it more often. Grass gets cut more than once a year, too. A shaky ladder on uneven ground can be remedied by having enough people on hand to steady it. It takes only a saw and some elbow grease to top the hedge or remove key branches. Can you post a picture of this behemoth? I am curious now. As urban neighbood gardeners, it's often necessary to roll with the punches and put up with light-robbing encroachments. That means rather than expecting "them" to do something about your problem (even if caused by their trees, hedges, cats, ineptitude), it's only you that can make the best of it. While painful, perhaps it's time to give up on the roses (or let them go into decline) and look to shade gardening, which is an extremely satisfying way to garden. Can you move the roses to another side of the house? Switch to climbing roses if those spaces are smaller? A compromise like that may, in the end, go a long way to making you feel better and maintaining your good relationship with the neighbors. At this time, you are as stuck on keeping your sun-garden as much as they are on keeping their hedge in this state. C. My neighbor, with an eye to selling his house, took an electric clipper to my huge cedar hedge that, so far, provided 100% privacy between us. It was growing through the chainlink but there wasn't anything on his side but grass, anyway. Guess he didn't realize that this hedge would NOT easily regrow (his side is north and cedar doesn't grow back well on old wood). So now, although still lush on my side, there are big holes and there is no more privacy. The hedge just looks dead on his side. What a way to reduce the appeal of your backyard! Wish he'd talked to me so that I could have done some selective pruning instead of shaving the branches down to stubs. (No point here, just ranting in response to Annette's tale of hacked forsythia)

I live in Northbrook and there are cracks in the soil of my garden that are at least 2 inches wide and run for 8-10 feet. When watering, I pour water down these cracks and they never fill up. I have seen some trees wilting from the dryness too.

It IS taking a long time to load, Bonnie. I was able to fold half a line of clothes waiting . . . Does starting a harvest thread make sense? I had lettuce in my lunch sandwich today but we are definitely down to the last of it. We'll see if the most recent transplants can overcome the dog days of Summer. Three beds of peas have been ripped out so far. I harvested the shallots from sets this week! A little early but it was either get them out of the ground or allow the weeds in the bed to run to seed! What is with the onion family? They offer ZERO resistance to weeds and trying to pull a weed beside an onion at almost any stage of growth means taking a 50/50 chance of ripping the onion out of the ground along with the weed! Fortunately, I've still got the shallots-from-seed left in the bed, uh well, 50% of them. I think they'll be able to grow to be sets that can survive a Winter. I'd be pleased to get another variety going. All onions are doing well where more attentive weeding prevailed. Altho' I am a little worried about my leeks. I blamed the American Flag variety for being so scrawny last year and went back to Lancelot . . . they seem rather scrawny, themselves. It looks as tho' sweet onions from seed will continue "bulbing-up" sufficiently not to embarrass me in o8. The sweets from plants are HUGE! The little leeks will get more fish emulsion tomorrow and maybe they can catch up. The 1st zucchini came off a vine nearly 10 days ago. Not much sign of anything else in the cucurbit patch with the exception of small Fastbreak cantaloupes forming! Oh, and it looks like I'll have a good sized pun'kin for Halloween. The earliest of the sweet corn has started to tassel. And hey, I've got the 1st Dusky eggplant for tomorrow's lunch!! Somehow, it seems like we should be later in the season . . . Maybe that's because we went from a cool Spring, to very pleasant warm weather, to some Summer HEAT, to today. Whereas it was 91° mid-afternoon yesterday, it was 63° with a smattering of rain showers at the same time today. Makes it seem like Autumn. digitS'

I picked a whole cluster of Anna Russian 3 days ago because they were very low to the ground and quite exposed and I was worried that, if I left them on the vine, someone would try to taste them in the garden. I was watching the next few that were blushing.... This morning's garden inspection: I guess I'll get some stockings, or tulle. The ones picked 3 days ago are getting pretty red but still feel a day short of table ripe to me. Maybe I'll make pasta with fresh tomato sauce this eve. Would the pecked, pale one be worth using in a sauce like that, or should I just chuck it?