Susan wishing you the same And EVERY Mother. All the want to be moms. All the future moms and all the ones that would love to be moms but God has other plans for them. Hope each and everyone of you will have a special day today....everyday. Lucy

Duane, What a beautiful letter. I lost my Mother just over two months ago. I thought I knew pain in this life. But never anything like this. I loved my Mother. It was always there, just like she was always there. But both I took for granted at times. But now my love hurts and she is gone. At times, I too feel like I do don't want to go on with out her. I often wonder HOW am I going to make it with out her. The years seem long before me. You are not alone in your sorrow, even though, I know at times you must feel like it. I feel so alone in my sorrow. I feel like the tears will never stop. Being a Mother myself, I know that her love for you will absolutely never die, it will endure through the eternities.. ((Duane))

That is too bad. Her mother was much more down to earth. It must have been hard for her to see Martha in prison. I remember the show when she made the Christmas Stollen. Martha kept trying to correct her, and the mom would have none of it!

The best candidates for carefree growing tend to be the native species of the area, or those from similar climates nearby. Your reasonably local choices would be R. arkansana and R. carolina, and R. californica might be another possibility. Beyond the species, there's the matter of selection. (A selection is which particular strain within a species someone may have found and propagated.) Some arkansana, for example, blooms in flushes, and some californica blooms all season, given acceptable conditions. The best selections may be very hard to obtain, however, e.g. there used to be one tiny producer distributing the reblooming arkansana, but they closed their doors a few years back, so now if you want any, you'd better find someone who grows it. R. arkansana is the most drought tolerant of the bunch, californica somewhat less so, and carolina a bit less still, but all are drought resistant compared to a normal garden cultivar. Arkansana and californica get a little rust in some climates, but all three species are generally disease resistant. Carolina seems pretty much immune to rose rosette disease, californica also resists it well. Arkansana's RRD resistance is a bit less clear, but probably also pretty good. Know that all of these species sucker aggressively (on their own roots). Unless you want them to gradually fill the entire yard, you'll probably want to limit the need for digging suckers up by planting them in a spot where they can't send them in all directions.