I've only found so far 2 garden plants that are self cleaning. Lilies and clematis. They drop their blooms and all I'm left with is empty stalks on the lilies and the clematis just stays green until the winter comes. Iris, daylilies, phlox, coneflowers, roses, lavender, the list goes on all require maintenance. That is the challenges of being a gardener and having a garden. I enjoy this time of year even with the challenges because around the corner comes winter and we hibernate till spring comes around again. You might consider just buying bushes on your next project that you just have to trim each season. There are many varieties that add color and texture to a landscape.

Interesting how the shopping styles change. Lots of malls around here are having trouble and some have closed but the Mall of America is going strong. It all started in Edina, MN when Southdale Shopping Center opened the first enclosed regional shopping center in the nation. There were certain advantages to the mall concept such as having a number of places to choose your shoes or the like. There'd be various specialty shops, etc. Instead of having someone from housewares come make a key for you, you could talk to a locksmith. When much younger and more willing and able to walk more it was fine, but today I'm not built for malling. There were some smaller malls that did quite well too for a number of years. But then people's shopping habits started to change. The convenience era began. Fast food and fast shopping. One stop and get your turnip seeds, house paint and aspirin in one cart. Walmart, Kmart, Target and more began popping up and Powers, JC Penney, Sears-Roebuck (remember Roebuck?) Montgomery Ward and more began to suffer. Economic ups and downs and malls suffered. People started to prefer specialty stores. Then the traditional mall anchors such as Wards and Sears began to hurt more. Many didn't survive. Add to the problem stores like Kohl's and others I can't recall offhand, have chosen to pull out of the malls and go with freestanding buildings. Some of the malls brought on their own problems. They tried to go cheap. Didn't maintain the building and people didn't like grungy looking places. Leaking roofs didn't help and parking lots that resembled minefields would shoo away people too. Rent is expensive for small tenants and the economic bust of the last near-decade has had its impact too. Many of the malls around here are being bought and replaced with townhouses. One local one, Apache Plaza was developed into a mini village with streets of small shops, plus a Walmart and Cub foods.

Daniel, We are in Brisbane in the same area as you and have had an onsite system for 12 years. The initial cost was about $8k. We chose an Envirotech aerobic sand filter system. Over that time we have had to replace three pumps at a cost of approx. $560 each. We have had to have annual inspections at a cost of approx $120 pa for the last 8 years. We now also have to supply chemists reports each year at an average cost of $160 pa. and this is for a system which was "state of art" We do not pay any sewerage rates (I dont know if others do) The system has been trouble free - just general maintenance when pumps wear out and we are glad we chose the one we did. I have heard from neighbours who are less than happy with the performance of some other systems. You do have to be careful of the cleaning products you use(not a problem - I am too busy gardening to get precious about cleaning) and when we installed BCC would not allow the water to be expelled above ground so could not move water to where it was needed,had to have in fixed contoured position (This may have changed) I was disappointed by this as the water goes to trees which no longer need it - so I am using water on plants that I would not normally water, and the water is not available to use in other areas on more needy plants. All in all I would say it is not a cheaper option - but you might get a warm feeling knowing that your sizeable expenditure has helped save valuable resources, and then you may not!!! $8000 will buy a few well sized tanks, but then BCC will probably bring in a levy for anyone with their own water storage. If I had the choice of connecting to the sewerage and with the water situation I would go for connection to the system and use the money saved to install tanks to harvest water. I like the idea of being nearly self sufficient with water and at least I could choose where I watered.

The moss traps moisture, debris, dirt, insects and disease spores. I'm not sure if it can actually feed from a rose, but if sufficiently dense, it can shade out new growth like weedy ground covers can and it can help to trap the moisture around the canes and foliage which can make the conditions more favorable to insects and diseases. You should probably check whether you have a cane borer in your area. We have the Pacific Flat Headed Apple Borer here in the West. You can see other sites about ithere , here and here. It attacks virtually anything and is attracted to sun burned wood. It lays its eggs around the scalded/burned area. The maggots hatch and burrow themselves under the bark where they eat the cambium layer, the circulatory system of the plant. They work their way downward, toward the bud union or roots. Once they hit that level and work their way around the cane or plant, the only remaining living part is the root system. It's entirely possible your standard damage is due to this type of issue, combined with the sun scald. If the bark is split and black, try prying into it with a knife. If you find dried powdery tissue resembling cocoa powder, it's the "frash" or excrement of the borer maggots and used to be living circulatory system, cambium layer. Once the cambium is dead, for whatever reason (freezing, burning, physical damage from borers, girdling, bending, breaking, etc.) the tissue above it is doomed to die. Intense, direct sun shining on a point on the cane can cook the cambium layer under the bark, attracting the borers to do their jobs, or simply killing the tissue above it by starving it for sap. Humidity has nothing to do with it. In my old Newhall garden, the humidity was often single digit and the Flat Head borers were legion. The best defense against them is to keep a good foliage cover on the plants to prevent too extreme exposure to the direct sun. For standards, using the trunk protections used by orchardists for the trunks of their trees can help. White wash the trunks or wrap them in protective coverings to shield them from the direct sun. For the heads, just maintain as good a foliage cover as possible.