I am in a bit warmer and probably much more humid area but south it is. I have two Eden roses and I grow them as large shrubs without any problem. They have stiff canes and quite wide, so I think it is easier to grow them this way. Except for a few taller canes it is a 6-7 ' shrub here but I prune it back to 5 in spring and it gets a haircut in mid-season. There must be several clones out there because a lot of rosarians complain about the lack of repeat with Eden; for me it does pretty well. Foliage is better than average but not by any means clean all the time. My 2 Edens flower well and I get decent repeat - if I water regularly and fertilize more often than I do in case of shrub roses (climbers, IMO, do need more food than regular shrubs). There are two major problems with this rose in my climate: thrips and botrytis. I hope the calcium-botrytis thread is available by search because that thread started by MichaleG provides easy and inexpensive tools to prevent botrytis. Thrips are far more difficult to control - whichever insecticide I decide to use I mist only the buds and don't spray the entire plant to avoid if possible to bring about spider mite infestation. Time-to-time I decide not to do anything but then the flowers are ruined. If you do not have thrips in great number you can just ignore this issue (I could until I collected too many roses and had to plant them too close to each other- by doing this I created a paradise for these horrid insects).

Thanks all! We are in Las Cruces, last leg of the trip. Albuquerque was a blast. Abigail had fun playing in the snow on Sandia Peak. The Cannas - For those of that don't know I have a very nice collection, some rare and some really rare ones. Well, I dug them all up, bagged them and set them in boxes in the garage. I mopped the garage and left the garage door open so it would dry. I left to fill up the truck with gas and chatted with the cashier lady. When I returned someone decided that they should own my collection of cannas. How nice of them to take them off my hands. Oh well... On a better note (long story)- when we were leaving Albuquerque this morning Abi said she needed to use the "potty". I decided to stop at the K-mart. While the ladies were inside I was adjusting all the straps on the truck and a man approached me. He had his daughter with him. He asked to use my phone. No big deal, when he returned my phone he looked depressed, said thanks and walked away. I watched him as they walked to his vehicle. He kneeled down and said something to her and he began to hug her and hold her. I was completely intrigued by them. I called him back to where I was and asked if everything was okay. "I am just trying to get us back home" " talk to me" I said. He drove them to the Children's Hospital so she could see a G.I. specialist. He showed men her abdomen, she had several scars and a plug. Their one day visit turned into three days and he had no gas money. I asked myself- "What do I do" in mere seconds I broke it down: 1) is he telling the truth - seems so.. 2) he never asked for money, just to use the my phone 3) should I give him money? I gabbed a rather large bill and handed it him, he said thanks. He could not see the amount at first but when he did he yelled "Oh my God! We're going home, we're going home" He repeated that as he hugged her. The man was so overcome he started jumping in the air then he hugged me and started crying. He skipped, hoped and danced all the way to his car. I wanted to know their names so I could say a prayer for them. I motioned him back over once he was in his car - Darren and Hope. Hope: that name has meaning I asked what the story behind her name was. Humbling... His wife was was killed in a car wreck while pregnant with their daughter. She was born 9.5 weeks early, I didn't catch why but she had no intestines. She was not expected to live - he named her Hope. Tomorrow she turns four. Let me share with you what was on my mind seconds before I met Darren and Hope. House decorating budget and buying the PS3. I kissed my kids and wife, I was deciding how to spend money on pointless material possessions, Darren just wants his daughter to survive another year. I spent less than 10 minutes with them, but I dont know if I'll ever forget them. He was my age and Hope was Abigal's age. I could be him, know what I mean? Zjoe

What drive me nuts is when reading real estate listings (I am an agent) someone will invariably write "parkay" floors. I always think of how awfully slippery they must be! They also misspell other commonly used words in our field and I am afraid that the new versions will somehow take hold. Think of good old duct tape. It is now duck tape and commonly labeled that way. I typo all the time and even had to go back to the word "typo" to correct it, lol. However, I do try to catch mine. I see people on FB all the time who seem to make no attempt at spelling or grammar. Frequently they are in college or recently graduated, so you would think they'd have learned by now (my peers' children). I think by the time I was 10 or so, I had a pretty decent grip on the English language. I hate to sound crotchety, but kids these days...... I do my best with our sons (7.5 & 9), but it is an uphill battle with all the errors I catch while watching tv, surfing the web, reading professionally made signs, etc... The younger generation is bombarded with poor examples everywhere they look!

If anyone is looking for a nonstick skillet/fry pan, may I recommend Scanpan (no affiliation btw!)? We'd been using DH's very old non-stick skillets on those occasions when a NS pan was warranted (mostly if DH was making himself some scrambled eggs on a weekend morning). Not only were the pans old, but the non stick surface was degrading (nicked or chipped in spots, that sort of thing), and I really didn't know if they were even safe to use any more. I did some research here on GW (checked out Scanpan, All Clad NS, Swiss Diamond, Le Creuset SS NS, etc.) and spoke with some of the guys at a nearby cooking store (one of whom is a good friend of ours and has and loves his Scanpan--his family uses theirs every day). I liked what I'd read and heard about Scanpan's performance (also, they are DW safe, you can use metal utensils in them, they are oven safe, and you can brown/sear in them, too). I've only used it once since I got it a couple weeks ago, just to try it out (nothing sticky so I can't speak for it's NS qualities!) and it was spotless just from a rinse, before I even touched it with the sponge. DH used it to make himself some eggs recently and said "I like the new pan." I guess that's good enough for me!