All you folks talking about Hornbaker's better get your butts up there. 1. I agree...those are beautiful big plants. Been shopping there about 10 years now. That's the standard playing field at Hornbaker's. They don't sell wimpy anything. Price points are in-line with the other reputable sellers. 2. Wait until you see the root systems when they come out of the pots. The media falls off and leaves a gorgeous, clean root system. 3. Bonus...the potting media is fabulous. When I pull the plants out of the pots, I do it over a large bin and save it for my own pots. I top off my existing pots and/or store and save up for future use. Years ago I asked about it...they said they make their own. Gayle

Moisture build up could be caused by lack of air flow and ventalation. When tent camping, regardless of the season, you need to have air flow moving through the tent. Your breathe and your body gives off moisture when you are sleeping. If your windows are zipped shut, you have no air flow. Consequently you have moisture build up. Make sure you tent windows are zipped down a bit and if your door has a screen area, make sure the bottom is unzipped so you get air flow from top to bottom. Also, when tent camping, it is a good idea to "air out" your sleeping gear every day if you can. This is especially true if your bag liners are cotton material. Enjoy the journey. eal51 in western CT

Here's a fairly large Double Knock Out in the front yard--in the divider between my property and the neighbor's. Haven't had time to anything with it yet this year, so its looking a bit wild and woolley--and maybe lop-sided. I'll try to get some pruning done before the season is over. : ) Light blue irises came with the property when I bought my house thirty something years ago--don't know their name, but they bloom forever (for an iris). Another iris--name unknown. Sure is lovely. Here's a terrific fully packed white peony called Festiva Maxima--love that blood-red like marking in the middle of the blooms. I read somewhere once that this old classic is a good choice for more southerly gardeners, but I don't remember why. I have 4 of them. BIG blooms. Its getting so exciting now that things are nearly ready to bloom--can't believe the buds all over the yard--have never seen so many. Oddly, however, my hybrid teas are not taking over the show like they usually do. I thought with the mild winter we had, they would do terrifically well, but it seems the shrubs and floribundas are the ones doing best. But maybe that will all change in the next few weeks. This is about 3 weeks early for my roses--any of them--to be blooming. Kate

Lisa - your comment made me laugh! Yes, all that "seeing him nude" and "stripping him naked" did sound very naughty - hahaha! No, our winters are too mild really (we're still getting up to 20 C (68F) in the daytime sometimes and it only goes down to around 8 - 10 C (46 - 50F) at night so to be honest, none of the roses were going dormant. They were still setting buds. But with Spring coming in Sep just around the corner, we sort of have to force them into dormancy ;-) A few of the roses do drop some leaves - but mostly, you have to strip them all off by hand. (You can see from the 2nd photo above - that's what Pierre looked like last week, still completely covered - so all of that had to be removed yesterday! The training was actually a happy accident due to my newbie anxiety - haha! I didn't realise that climbers have canes that remain lax and can be tied up later - the rose people here in Perth told me they just let the new shoots grow wild and then tie them all in properly after pruning, when they can see better. But I thought if I didn't train them as they grew, they would "solidify" into the wrong shape! So I was there wrestling with Pierre all through the growing season, tying & retying him to the fence as he grew. I have a LOT of thorn pricks & scratches to show for it - haha! But it did mean that when it came to pruning yesterday, the guy who was helping me said that I'd done a good enough job with the training so we didn't need to re-tie any of the canes at all. :-) Funnily enough, I've discovered that I really enjoy training things (probably a masochistic tendency - hah!) and I'm now looking for more climbers to grow in my garden! Sadly, not roses as I'm out of sunny walls - but I'm looking at clematis and any other climbers I can find. Oh, and I've just planted lots of sweet pea seedlings. It's my first time growing them - I've never seen them in "real life" - so I'm excited! HY