Accept advice from those of us living here in California with great caution. We don't have the summer humidity you face. While we do have diseases, our blackspot pressure is much less than yours. Many years I only spray once or twice at pruning time, and my garden is usually pretty healthy. In part this is because I remove any roses that need much more than this kind of treatment. Having said all this, I'll throw out my random bits and pieces. You can take them for what they are worth. When you say 'dramatic red', I'm not sure what you mean. Scarlet reds can be dramatic, and so can crimsons, and so can dark purply reds, and so can brilliant cherry reds,but putting them in a bed together without other colors to tone them down can be a disaster. Ask me how I know. Dame de Coeur and Alec's Red are both unusually healthy roses in my experience, but are a light, bright red, not a deep dramatic color. The healthiest fragrant dark red HT I have any experience with is Oklahoma. Also fitting that description is the HT Barcelona, but it is usually sold as the tea rose Francis Dubreuil. You can get that dramatic deep color from some of the HPs, but I can't imagine growing HPs unsprayed in North Carolina. I've had good luck with Austins Prospero, The Prince, and am now planting Tradescant, but these would probably need spray for you to grow them. The most dramatic healthy red climber I've ever seen was a mature Cl Etoile de Hollande. The most dramatic healthy red rambler I've ever seen was Chevy Chase. Both are stunning. Dortmund is healthy too, no scent and a brilliant cherry red. It is indeed dramatic, but would clash with most of these other reds. Now here's a trick. If you really, really, really want intense drama do this. Try out several different roses to see which you like best, and which is healthiest in your neck of the woods. Then do a mass planting of only one kind of rose. This is incredibly hard to do, and hardly anyone can force himself to do it, but nothing gives more impact than this. Rosefolly

The late ecomonic crunch is begining to be felt in the tax coffers of US states. Several states are waking up to the fact their tax take has fallen (surprise, surprise). Down at the end of the bars in our beer halls, you can hear "Fix our tax problem, annex Canada". Back in the 1770s, there was a guy named Revere who took a midinght ride on his pony shouting, "The Red Coats are comming". Let's hope that we don't hear you driving down the road some dark night in your red MG (or maybe its an Aston Martin) shouting "The red-white-blues are coming!" Just kidding, I hope.

Another Frugal Function for people living in (esp. seniors') apts. is that the first person to go to bed on one side of an interior wall taps on the wall before hitting the hay ... and the person on the other side of that wall taps back. Lets each know that the other is O.K. just before first person's bedtime. Then the person goes to the interior wall on the other side of the apt. and repeats the procedure (if s/he's the first one to settle). Then each of those two know that each is O.K just before bedtime. Caution: For the person living in an end unit, maybe a good idea to put a large sign on the (inside of the) outside wall, saying, "Tap here before bed and again in the morning if you like ... but don't expect an answer: the squirrels don't like to learn to tap on walls". (That's for folks who may be a bit "squirrelly", themselves). The last one to arise in the morning on each side of a senior's apt. taps again, and the first, who rose earlier, taps a reply: that way, each of those three knows that the other was O.K. some time after break of day. Cost? Zero. Peace of mind? Substantial ... not only to the people themselves, but to their loved ones who are concerned about them. When I was a missionary helping refugees get resettled ... we used to have a slogan (accompanied by some laughter) that said that part of a missionary's job ... ... was to learn how to make a nickel do a dollar's worth of work! Inflation having been what it's been over those 55 years or so since that truce that ended the active Korean War (still no official "peace" there) ... I guess that'd be about a quarter, by now. Enjoy your week, everyone. ole joyful

Are you talking about yourself? You're not talking about me if that was intended. I worked in the private sector, not for the government and was involved and am very familiar (at a high level) with sales and marketing campaigns. Businesses that accumulate contact information for retail customers retain such info. If an IT-driven marketing service is hired, they'll send out the program materials to any and all names on the list. This is much more focused than mass mailings or general media advertising because these are prior customers. No screening of dates or nature of customer relationship is typically done because a wide net is intended to be cast. You suggested earlier that doing so casts some shadow on the fortunes of the business, that too is not a valid assumption.