Hi Sphee: There are 2 types of roses: once blooming and repeat-blooming. The once-blooming are big and messy, such as Dr. Huey rootstock. Those need to be drastically pruned AFTER flowering, 1/2 to 1/3 off. DO NOT prune early spring, since the once-bloomers bloom on old wood. The repeat-blooming are compact & slender hybrid teas, These need to be pruned 1/3 to 1/2 off in early spring (when the forsythia bloom, or when the trees bud out). After each blooming, prune less than foot off. Austin roses and repeat-bloom bushes like Knock-outs: prune like hybrid-teas: less than one foot off after blooming, and DRASTIC prune in spring (1/3 to 1/2 off). Own-root roses can take drastic pruning better than grafted on rootstock. Some roses on Dr. Huey need to achieve certain height before flowering, but that's not the case with own-root, which can flower like crazy as a tiny plant ... see below picture of my less than a foot Crimson Glory hybrid tea, bought as a tiny band. How much to prune depends on how much water one gets: Lots of melted snow & spring flood in my zone 5a, so I can chop repeat-bloomers down to 1 foot in early spring. But in mid-August, or after the 3rd-blooming, we get drought up to100 degrees temp. ..so I prune lightly. After the 4th-blooming, or late fall, I don't prune for best winter survival. The tip of using Elmer glue to seal doesn't work in my rainy weather. I haven't tried the tip of sealing the branches with my sticky clay, but that worked well with trees. Cheapest way to fertilizer roses: Dry chicken manure pellets, such as Chickity-do-do sold for $8 per 25 lbs. at Menards, or $24 for 40 lbs. at HomeDepot, or $3 for a small bag at Lowe's. Dry chicken manure is stinky, best cover with some dirt. I used 1/4 cup on small rose, and 1/2 cup on taller 3' x 3' roses. Dry chicken manure is highest in salt among all manures, less is best. The advantage of chicken manure is: high in boron, copper, zinc, potassium, and calcium .... nutrients most lacking in soil which make roses more disease-prone. I top-dress roses with chicken manure after flowering or early spring. Then sprinkle some bagged manure or bagged top soil. I tested bagged soil & manure in my Chicagoland, they are alkaline above pH 7.5 ... which is great for fungal suppression, black spot spores can't germinate when it's dry and alkaline. The bacteria in the bagged manure also suppress fungal growth. Cheap bagged top soil tend to be drier & more alkaline & discourage fungal growth. Caution on mushroom compost: way too alkaline & higher salt. Caution on moisture-holding soil (with peatmoss), since wetter surface means more fungal germination. Keep surface dry and alkaline is the key to suppress fungal growth, that's one thing I learned from my microbiology class in college. See below link for the biggest Pinterest on roses with name identification, very useful to identify any roses. Here is a link that might be useful: UrszulaT. picture collection of roses This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Fri, Jan 10, 14 at 15:54

Anyway, I had no idea to check adrenal function when (preferably before, actually) going on Thyroid (similar to Armour). The doctors are supposed to do this, but they do not unless the patient has a problem. I had a huge problem as I raised my Armour.. I kept getting more hypothyroid and my doctor kept raising my Armour. I almost ended up agoraphobic, I would get so freaked out in a traffic jam or even driving though a row of trees! It did a number on my mental well-being, I had major brain-fog, swollen legs/feet and terrible constipation. All due to low cortisol and probably a high reverse T3... things my doctor never checked. My blood was FULL of thryoid hormone but it wasn't getting into my cells. I'm doing better now (not great) and it's only due to my own research. I frequent the forums mentioned above and both are very helpful. I also just bought the "Stop The Thyroid Madness" book and am really impressed so far. Lots more info here than on the website.

Got curious about compost tea. This is the second time I checked. Early this summer time I spent 1 hour researching but was disappointed. Here's one link from United Kingdom on compost tea (unbiased, NOT sponsored by compost-tea industry): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardeningadvice/11121288/Compost-tea-does-it-really-work.html " What did they find? In a glasshouse study on lavender and choisya, none of the compost teas had any effect on growth or on susceptibility to botrytis (grey mould) or spider mites. Sometimes plants treated with compost tea were taller, sometimes they were shorter, sometimes there was no difference. Sometimes plants treated with compost tea were of higher quality, but often they weren’t, and treated choisya plants at one nursery were significantly worse. In short, the effects of compost teas were “extremely inconsistent”. Other links from U.S.A: http://www.walterreeves.com/landscaping/compost-tea-does-it-work/ From University of New Hampshire: https://extension.unh.edu/articles/Does-compost-tea-really-work From University of Vermont: http://www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/factsheets/composttea.html Excerpt from above link: " It’s not clear whether it’s necessary to aerate during compost tea production. Aeration can speed up the production time, but it may also add to equipment cost and complexity. There are claims that aeration helps kill off the organisms that can cause illness. Very few studies have compared aerated and non-aerated compost teas. Some recent research. A 2-year study by the Rodale Institute and Pennsylvania State University evaluated the use of aerated compost tea for disease suppression and crop stimulation in grapes, potatoes, and pumpkins. During year one, approximately 50% suppression of powdery mildew was observed in the compost tea treated grape plots. A slight reduction of gray mold, along with an INCREASE in the level of downy mildew, was observed in the compost tea treated plot during the first year at one of the vineyards. Compost tea failed to suppress powdery mildew on Howden pumpkins in year one, but reduced the number and size of pathogen colonies in year two. Compost tea did not reduce severity of late blight on Superior potatoes when disease was present in year two. " http://www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/factsheets/composttea.html *** From Straw: FOR ROSES, just spraying with alkaline tap water alone is enough to suppress mildew, as testified by Roseseek (Kim Rupert) in CA and rosarian Dave Boyd in HMF. For mildew, just plain tap-water spray (alkaline pH over 8) is enough to contain mildew, as rosarian Dave Boyd in a dry climate (only 13" of moisture per year) testified in HMF: http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=3.4748

Good Morning, Y'all. We only dropped to 28 degrees so, surprisingly, many flowering plants survived and look half-decent. When I looked at the garden around 7:45 a.m., I still could see flowers that looked fine on the Cape honeysuckle, begonias, lantanas, marigolds, some of the Texas hummingbird sage plants, mealy cup sage, autumn sage and the globe amaranth plants. The remaining herbs (rosemary, sage, chives, parsley and basil) also looked fine. Even some of the remaining zinnias looked good. Everything else probably is gone though. If the butterflies that were flitting around the garden yesterday survived the cold night, and it is likely they did, then at least they still have some flowers for nectar. Jennifer, I need to give our dogs a bath. Maybe on Monday. I have one grandchild here for the weekend, so just don't want to mess with bathing dogs while she is here. Larry, Mud has us at a standstill here as well. I'd say that I'm hoping we'll dry up in this cold, dry air, but more rain (and snow) are in the Monday forecast so I guess we'll just have more mud. You're quite a bit colder than us this morning, but then you're quite a bit further north. Our Mesonet station went to 26 but at our house the Min-Max only shows 26, and it still was at 30 when I got up at 4:40 a.m., so we really weren't at 28 degrees for more than a very few hours. A mole has tunneled across our driveway, from the neighbor's pasture to our yard. I hope he or she isn't planning on sticking around. When moles show up here, the cats usually take care of them so they normally aren't a problem for us. I kinda felt sorry for the mole having to tunnel through all the mud. Some people that I know dig up their regular potatoes with some sort of attachment they pull behind their tractors. I don't know if it is some sort of mechanical digger or what, but it merely turns over the soil and then they can easily find the potatoes. I wonder if such a thing would work with sweet potatoes? George, I bet y'all were cozy and warm with that fire going. Jen, That's a lot of dogs. Are you dog sitting? Jennifer, If you know what caused the injuries to the dog, I'd just explain it to the vet. I suppose if the vet questions why you didn't bring in the dog you could just explain you used your own holistic methods to heal the wounds? Lots of folks here that have lots of animals do a lot of the routine day-to-day doctoring of their animals (not just cows, horses and such, but farm dogs and cow dogs as well) and don't take their pets in for every injury--not if they can heal it themselves. Wherever the hair is not regrowing there probably is scar tissue. We've had that with snakebitten cats---the hair did not grow back in the snakebite area. Our cat, Shady, is 18 or 19 years old and still has a circular scar that is white flesh with no hair growing there in the same spot where he broke out in a copper-colored rash after a copperhead bit him in the abdominal/groin area when he was only a couple of years old. I just think of it as his copperhead bite scar. In the early years I did think that hair eventually would grow back there, but then it never did. Today is sunny and bright and it looks so nice outdoors, but it still is very chilly. Looks can be deceiving, I guess. The leaves on the red oaks look a brighter red this morning, so at least there's that. Everything that had yellow or golden leaves left on the trees has lost them over the last couple of days. I expect the red oaks will lose the rest of their leaves soon, although some of the red oaks have foliage that still is 95% green. It is odd how some trees are so slow to change color and lose leaves this year. There's not much consistency. The post oaks are still green too, but usually are about the last trees to lose their leaves here and some of them will hang onto their leaves all winter long before dropping them in early Spring so new leaves can emerge. We had a lot of hungry deer waiting for deer corn this morning. They remind me of cows standing near a fence waiting for the rancher to show up with cattle feed. I don't go back there and put out food for them until they've all moved far enough away from the feeding area that I feel safe. Generally, I feel safe if they've jumped the fence into the adjacent pasture and moved at least 30 to 50' away from where I feed them. Deer that are too friendly can turn dangerous in the blink of an eye, especially bucks during the rutting season, so I'm always extremely careful. I hope everyone has a good day. Dawn