Tess is such a good rose. It was on the bush 6 days and just kept getting poofier and poofier but held together. Its been a dry heat and in the 90's this past week plus uber smoky from the wildfires and literally 'raining' ash some days. Gotta love Tess! Some others doing well in the wicked heat TIMF Litchfield Angel Jude the Obscure...I swear I couldnt get enough pics of him the other day!! He is sooo ~Dreamy~ I'm obsessed with the way the buds look half open. I could get lost in those buds for hours!

Brian, That sounds like a winner of a plan and I hope you'll keep us posted on how it goes! One thing (one of a million) that I learned from the great Texas gardening guru Neil Sperry was that bermuda was more aggressive than a person could even imagine. I read his gardening columns in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram from the very first day he started writing them when I was in high school, I listened to his radio Q&A type gardening show for many years, I bought his books, subscribed to his magazine, etc. and really tried to soak up everything he said. When I was young and foolish and thought I knew more than I did about gardening, I questioned (to myself) his statements that, if you rototilled up bermuda grass, it would completely regrow and recover the area in just a couple of months if you left so much as one quarter-inch- long piece of stolon every 3 feet. I just didn't think it could regrow and take back an area that quickly from such tiny pieces. Ha! In fact, HA! HA! He was oh-so-right and I was oh-so-wrong, but I had to see it for myself to believe it. And, for what it is worth, everybody I've ever known has had the exact same experience with Bermuda grass that you did during their first attempt at gardening in an area formerly occupied by Bermuda grass. So, I guess we gardeners at this forum can consider the battle with Bermuda a "rite of passage" that all southern gardeners must undergo. And, if you survive that "rite of passage" then you, too, get to be a gardener. Amanda, Actually, the best option would be to move someplace like Minnesota or Alaska where bermuda grass can't grow. Assuming that moving to a different state is not an option, then the best option is to do whatever you can to get every piece of bermuda root and stolon out of your existing soil. THEN, lay down a layer, preferably a double layer of cardboard on the ground. If you can get very large pieces like furniture boxes or applicance boxes, they'd be best because you'll have fewer "openings" in between pieces of cardboard where bermuda grass WILL find their way up through those openings. If you have to overlap smaller pieces of cardboard, overlap them by several inches. Build your beds on top of the cardboard, and if possible have the bed edgings sitting on the cardboard with several inches of cardboard extending beyond the bed. That way, whatever grass sprouts outside the beds is still several inches away from them and that gives you a chance to dig it out before it climbs into the bed. Fill your beds with your growing mix. If you can buy in bulk or have a dumptruck load of soil/compost mix delivered, that is much more economical than going to the stores and buying it by the bag. Once your growing mix is in place, buy a roll of fabric landscape mulch. You want the one that looks woven--it sort of resembles the appearance of felt. You DO NOT want the less-expensive one that says it has tiny perforated holes to allow water to flow down into the soil because it also allows bermuda grass to grow up through all those little holes. Use pegs or landscape staples to hold down that fabric. Cut holes in the fabric. transplant your plants through those holes, water in the plants, put fine bark mulch or clean (seed-free) straw on top of the mulch and you're done. But, you're not really done. Even with the cardboard on the bottom and the landscape fabric on the top, you'll still have bermuda grass trying to grow in your beds 24/7. So, watch for it religiously, and remove it the instant you see it. You CANNOT pull it up because if you try to pull it, you'll get the top but the roots and stolons will remain under ground and resprout within days. You'll have to dig it out. Do I like using landscape fabric in a vegetable garden? No. It is expensive and it limits what you can grow. Obviously if you want to direct sow anything in a bed, you cannot use the landscape fabric. In the beds where I have landscape fabric, though, I have very few weeds at all and that is important to me because I have a very large garden and I cannot spend hours every day digging out bermuda grass. In the beds, like the onion bed or the carrot bed, where I cannot use landscape fabric, I have about 10 times as many weeds. So, if you want to know the best way, in my opinion it is: 1) remove all the Bermuda you can find first, 2) put down a heavy cardboard barrier on top of the ground from which the bermuda grass was removed, 3) build the bed, 4) fill the bed, 5) put down a barrier on top of the bed, 6) cut holes through that barrier and plant, 7) water the plants, 8) mulch the plants, and 9) check your bed every single day for bermuda grass and remove each sprout the minute you see it. Using the above methods, I keep a very large garden pretty much bermuda grass free. Am I 100% successful in keeping the bermuda out? Heck, no. Every year, though, I have less and less trouble with the bermuda in the established beds, so I am making progress. Beginning gardeners tend to break up a large area of ground and then fail to maintain it properly. As the bermuda grass invades and "takes back" the area, the beginning gardeners become discouraged and give up gardening in what was, after all, not a fair fight. Bermuda is much more experienced at fighting for every inch of ground than you are, so my advice is to go slow. Build 1 or 2 small to medium-sized raised beds, even if you'd rather have 10 large ones. Look at your first year as a learning process and part of that process is learning how to keep the bermuda out of and away from your garden. Once you master keeping the 1 or 2 beds bermuda-free, then build new beds. You could build a new bed or two every year until you have as many as you need. There's a saying many gardeners use in reference to gardening that goes like this: "It all starts with the soil." I agree with the truth in that statement--with good soil you'll have a good garden and without good soil, you will not have a good garden. However, there is a more important saying that applies to southern gardeners and that is "Get rid of all the bermuda first and keep it out!" Because, you know what.....bermuda grass loves good soil and wants that soil, so your good soil is only worthwhile to you if you keep the bermuda grass out of it. I'm not trying to be discouraging--it is just that nothing drives new gardeners out of gardening more quickly than bermuda grass. Even an experienced gardener who has gardened for many years just finds themselves overwhelmed during their first "bermuda grass experience". So, learning to manage that bermuda grass is probably the most important "garden lesson" you'll ever learn. No topic that we discuss here on this forum gets more of a response than bermuda grass, and I've never seen a single person come on here and say "Oh, I have bermuda grass and it is not that bad." Bermuda grass in general, and tif bermuda types in particular, make lovely lawns. However, bermuda grass is not content to be merely a lawn--it wants to rule the world. So, as long as you understand what you're up against, you're likely to have better success. I have seen some gardeners near me rototill or dig up a veggie plot every year. They prepare the soil in Feb. and March, they plant in March and April, then they start seeing bermuda grass moving back into the veggie garden soil in late May. By late June the bermuda grass covers most of the garden. By mid- to late- July the gardeners have abandoned the garden, worn out by trying to fight the bermuda. The next year they do the same thing. Then, the next year they do it again. They say they "never have much produce to show for all the work they do". Well, the problem isn't that they don't work in their garden, the problem is that they don't do the right things to keep the bermuda grass out. So, it is your choice, but I hope you'll make better choices than these folks that I see start over from scratch every year. If I were them, I'd try a new game plan because the one they've used for 8 or so years now just isn't working. On the other hand, they have a really healthy stand of bermuda grass in their vegetable garden. Trust me--you do not want to be that type of gardener because the frustration is enormous. Good luck with your new beds. Keep us posted on how it goes. Dawn

"doddle's kids BM had two, so what. she is not taking care of them. i had one but i took very decent care of her. i guess i'd rather have one in this case. and frankly doddle does not even have a baby born yet but i already raised mine and did a decent job, so i assume i can give my opinion on raising children/child. even if only have one." Finedreams- I really do believe you probably did a great job of raising your child. I don't think anyone is taking that away from you. But ONE child vs. two and being pregnant is two totally different circumstances. You have never had a "older sissy" situation to contend with. I think the point Psuedo was trying to make is it's really easy to be judgemental when you are not the one in the situation. Yes, "My" BM had two kids but you yourself made the point that she is not raising them.... I am. Now I am VERY pregnant and having trouble "babying" the girls like they are use to. I can't throw my back out and daddy can't quit working just so the girls have someone to pick up their toys for them. That would be ridiculous. I am not a first time mommy to Layla. I have been mommy to these girls for going on a year and a half. It's nothing new to be a parent to me. I already understand what kindof time and sacrafice. That being said even bio parents not in step situations can tell you being pregnant and jumping through unecessary (key word: unecessary)hoops for a five year old gets old fast. I also don't understand where you keep getting this "long term solution" thing from. I want the girls to be a little more self sufficient. It has nothing to do with dad being gone alot. Even if he was a stay at home daddy I would think the girls need to start doing for themselves a little more. It's time. They are getting big. We can't be scrubbing their hiney's for them when they turn 15. I think you are blowing something very simple way out of proportion. Big sissy's have to start doing a little more for themselves when a baby is on the way. That's pretty basic common knowledge. What's the big deal? Thousands of people would agree with me on this because they have been there...done that.

I have a friend who had the same experience with Geico - the other driver actually crossed the center line, and hit her - which the police report confirmed. Still, Geico refused to pay stating that they couldn't know for sure who was at fault. I am still dealing with a whiplash injury (from a patient assault) that happened in 2006! Apparently it destabilized the C5-C6 vertebral connection (the way those 2 bones fit together) so that one now has a tendency to slide out of position. I know now that I have to be very careful with my head/neck positioning when I am doing things like weeding. Anything that causes me to tilt my head up or back relative to my shoulders will aggravate. Looking up while reaching up will always cause issues unless I am careful to tuck my chin in. If I am lying on my back, I can't use a pillow. I had to get rid of my road bike with the dropped handlebars. Ask your MD to refer you to a physical therapist. That was the thing that finally got me on the road to managing the injury. They applied gentle traction and massage, and taught me exercises to strengthen and maintain the proper/protective posture -so flareups are now rare. Since I can tell when the bones have slipped out of alignment (neck pain and headache, and even numbness down my arm if it's bad) I also got a home cervical traction unit that I use - only a few minutes in it, & I can feel everything straighten out and get almost instant relief. You will have to consult your MD or the PT if you get to one, to see if that will help your particular injury. I am so sorry that this happened to you and I do hope that your injury recovers fully!