Lana, Becky & Carla, FLIRTATIOUS is one of those J&P varieties that they only offered for a few seasons, and then it disappeared. However.... Roses Unlimited now carries it. It's a great garden rose. Mine is about 4½ft tall and around 4ft wide. It's a nice big fat bush. Blooms quite often and has a lot in each flush. Fairly disease reistant. The blooms eventually fade to a light pale yellow or cream. It's really quite interesting. Kate, PEER GYNT has been a really nice rose. I got it from Hortico a few yrs ago, and it blooms consistantly every season. And it's still in a big pot. The shop is going fairly well, thanks. And Pauline, I have NO energy. I work my regular job at Ace, then go to the shop for a few hours; work my days off too. My niece is there 6 days a week. We get lots of people coming in saying they're "sooo glad" we're here; then they say, "well be back!" It's going to be months and months before we see enough profit that I can quit my "real" job! But, that's the way it is. It takes a few yrs to get going. I just hope I can hang in there that long. I'm getting really tired and hope I don't get burnt out. Thanks for the best wishes guys!

I put the box about 5' away from where they want to nest. I even put peanuts on top of the box (LOL) to get them to nest in it...but they are still trying to make a nest in the tops of the posts. They have gone to every post to try and dig out a nest. I just keep plugging up the holes they dig out. It's really breaking my heart.

1. both are normally grown from transplants, not direct seeding. With this late start adding the time required to grow from seed would put you far into the high heat of a Georgia summer before they are ready to bloom and that heat will insure little to no production. As for trying to germinate in the same pot it would grow in for its entire life? No, never recommended for many many reasons that would take pages to cover. Simply put, it doesn't work just as putting a baby in adult clothing and expecting him to drive himself to pre-school doesn't work. ;-) 2. yes you will need a growing mix like MG Potting Mix and you will have to supplement the nutrients regularly. For that plant you will need a 10-15 gallon pot. 3. what can you do to keep it small and still produce fruit? Nothing, it isn't possible. Genetics rule and that variety is genetically quite large and quite tall IF you want fruit from it. If you want a plant to stay quite small and still bear fruit then pick another variety that fits your conditions and there are many available. It is the growing conditions you can provide that dictate what varieties will work for you. When those conditions are severely limited so are your choices IF you want a chance at success. Sorry, not what you want to hear I know but any success requires we be somewhat realistic in our expectations. Dave

I just wanted to post back with an update because we finally finished the project yesterday (except for a tiny detail up on the landing to address) and we LOVE how it came out. Everyone we talked to said we should be using paint and that stain wouldn't look good. Part of that is because we initially boxed ourselves in on what could be done with the landing. But on the steps themselves, some folks on the various forums, our GC, people at the hardware store all sorta frowned on gel stain and said we wouldn't be able to achieve what we wanted. I'm happy we tried anyway. I don't consider myself handy and usually don't do my own work, but I spent a couple hundred bucks in supplies and just dove in. Watching a lot of youtube videos, then getting to work sanding (and sanding and sanding and vacuuming and vacuuming and vacuuming), stripping paint, pulling staples, filling holes and YES, staining. I think the pics below speak for themselves. Is the job perfect, NO it is isn't. Does it look better than if we just gave up and painted, YES i really think it does. We didn't even need to go the carpet runner route because the stairs really came out looking so much better than expected. We were even able to go right over our railings with the same stain to better match the colors. Thought I'd leave some pics here for anyone else brave enough to give it a try! EDIT: Updated this post because i forgot about a lot of the parameters we artificially put in place for ourselves in the beginning of this project and that definitely influenced what everyone was recommending. I'll get into the whole landing aspect in a couple days as soon as we finish that up!