Studies have been done and for milk to prevent BER it has to be un-pasteurized milk only. It has to be collected from only brown cows with white spots and never from white cows with brown spots. It must be collected during the dark of the moon when that new moon was on a Tuesday. Then you add 4 eggs, 2 T of witch hazel, 1 drop of copperhead venom, and 1 teaspoon of roasted mango root to each 8 oz. of milk and blend well. Apply to the plants between the hours of 3 and 4 am only once the moon reaches its full apogee. Dave

Dirt_dew, "hoa mai" (Mickey mouse flower) is a symbol of spring for Southern VN same as Peach flower for Norhthern VN. Hoa mai is very sensitive with cold weather, so it only thrive in southern VN. I have mine in unheated greenhouse, it would die and come back in spring but ofcourse smaller and take longer to bloom or might not bloom at all. Tolerate down to 65F. Peaseblossom, Saigon (Hochiminh city) has lots of tamarind trees along the roads. Although I don't look at the tamarind fruit and think of Saigon :) but it was written alots in poems and songs. TT

Hi Jim: Thanks for updating me on your garden ... You sister's rose bush looks good. I wore disposable gloves when I pulled weeds, but the friction broke my gloves. We have lots of poison ivy & poison oak, so I throw away disposable glove after weed-pulling. We are in a dry spell and my hay fever is miserable. Organics is great for plants. My tomatoes in front, just clay & gypsum, are withering. My tomatoes in the backyard, clay mixed with leaves, on a raised bed .... are green & lush like early spring. Instead of planting roses DEEP, I tried another method, planted them 2" below, then add 4" soil mixed with bark chunks on top. It's like a partial-raised bed. Roses are much healthier that way. When I planted them too deep, the roots can't expand past the poor-drainage sediment below. Now I make sure that they have at least 2 feet fluffy soil below in case of heavy rain. Still have 2 roses in pots: Jude the Obscure and Heirloom ... no black spots on them, only mildew. They receive rain-water for the past 2 months, I'm too lazy to fertilizer them ... let's see how good the root-growth is with gypsum & Tomato-Tone previously mixed in potting soil. Will report the result once I transfer them into the ground.

Thank you, Jim, for the pics. of your mountain view, very pretty. Your Mr. Lincoln has so many blooms, so the blood meal & Brewer's Yeast works very well. We are lucky to be 73 degree today. Will pick another bouquet of Heirloom, W.S. 2000, and Carding Mill (has 10 buds/blooms). So glad that I bought 4 roses at $17 each (free shipping) from Heirloom ... just learned that they raise the price to $25 each per band !! Bolero rose is worth every cent... I wish I can find roses like that, but in different color besides white. Thank you, Jim, for the article on Rose Midge. I had minor Rose Midge on Golden Celebration early spring ... that's the only spring that I didn't dump new soil, or grass clippings. I'm going to rake leaves and dump around Golden Celebration. Cornell University stated that either too wet (flooding) or too dry will prevent midge-larvae from hatching. When I checked on rose-midge, folks in Rose forum reported that newspaper didn't work. Personally I think that spreading newspaper or plastic will hurt roses, since that block out water. I like eHow approach of dumping soil, or any organic material before the ground freeze ... that way eggs can't hatch in spring. Below is Pat Austin, blooms well in partial shade. It gets 3 hours of sun now, since my tall house shadows it during late fall. Pat blooms well, but it gets too tall in partial shade. In full sun it's shorter ... I gave that second Pat away, since it's a water-hog in full-sun. This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Mon, Oct 27, 14 at 10:33