Hi Celeste, hopefully your waiting game is over soon and your roses are starting to leave out. On the other hand for us Gardenwebbers it's not a bad thing, that you are posting pictures of your beautiful roses to pass the time until then ;-). I bet when you really can go out and work in your garden with so many projects and roses to care for you are busy like a bee! All of the roses you have posted are very lovely, but of course I have some favorites: I love white roses and Baltimore Belle seems to be so beautiful. It must be very nice to sit underneath her! Gros Choux d'Hollande has a perfect flowers shape and I love the button eye. Baron Girod de L'ain is incredible pretty with his beautiful color with the white edge, nice flower shape and strong fragrance. I think that this is a very special rose and unusual rose. I am eying BGdL for quite a while and may have to figure out if I am able to grow him here. I kept Rose de Rescht for the last, because she is the most admired rose by me of the once that you have posted this time. You have a very beautiful bush and your photo captured the essence of this rose very well (both the bush shot and the single flower). I find that her fragrance is to die for. The best thing for me is: I HAVE this rose already. I got her as a very teeny tiny band this winter and just yesterday she opened her first flower for me. I am looking so much forward for her to mature and just cross my fingers that she likes my garden and wants to develop her full potential, here. I am also very anxious to see how large this rose gets in SoCa! Thanks for posting! I am looking forward to more photos of your incredible garden!

I expanded the garden beds in the fall. Trades are done and my seed list is all organized so I know what I've got. I've got some good seed starting mix at hand and plenty more scheduled for pick up in January. For now, the "work" is thinking about all of the goodies on my seed list and falling asleep each night thinking about my garden and how it might look next year. Then in January I'll sow the hardy perennials over the course of about 10 days. In February I watch for a day with a big snow coming in followed by a week of cold temps and when I get one of those I direct sow perennial and hardy annual seed out in the hills in goatland. Not quite sure on when to do my WS hardy annuals. I guess late Feb, early March and keep an eye on when Bakemom does hers. March/April, watch the garden beds and wheel hoe them up once the soil is thawed enough to work it. Relocate some perennials from last year. On April 15th I'll start watching the extended forecast and sow tenderish annuals whenever the 10 day forecast is starting to look like freeze risk is very low. No problem if I have to end up holding off until May 1 for the tenders if the forecast looks like serious cold or frosts in late April. If it looks like April will be warm and wet I'll start plunking and running with any perennials that look like they are ready to graduate to the garden bed. If it's cold and dry, that might wait until May. Early May, watch weather for incoming rains followed by 10 days of warmish temps and direct sow tenderish annual seed out in the hills of goatland. May to June - plunk and run like a crazy lady. Start pawning off over abundant plants on the mail carrier and on the neighbor up the hill. Consider selling plants to the strangers that pull into our driveway to ask if we are a garden center that sells plants. Hoe hoe hoe the gardens a bit each day to aerate the soil and let the intentionals grow while keeping weed levels down. June - check T&M site daily for their end of season half price sale. Hoe hoe hoeing continues. June to August - run around the garden with a watering can like a crazy lady. July on - run around the garden with seed collecting containers like a crazy lady. Try to eat, can or freeze produce as fast as we can harvest it. August - start planning end of season humongous trades with other WSers. September- start checking Value Seed website daily for the day when they go from 2 pages of seeds to 13 or 14 pages. Watch the oak tree and stop hoeing before the acorns start to fall. Let garden paths get packed down so I can maybe just sweep up acorns this year instead of picking up each by hand. October - clean thousands and thousands of acorns out of the garden. Make more acorn wine and some nutty acorn bread. Wait for the massive leaf fall to start. November - ugh. Leaves leaves leaves. December - hunting season. Confine goats and cow and toss edible annuals over the fence for them to snack on. Use spare time to huddle over seed list and get ready for January. Of course, I hope to also have a bit of time in there to sit on the porch and enjoy my gardens. Lynda

Time for a category change? How about anything that can be served as a main dish. Enchiladas Meat Loaf Imperial Crab Casserole Lamb Stew Yataklete Kilkil (Ethiopian Gingered Vegetable Stew) My name is still Pamela. Or people call me Pat by mistake so you can use Patricia if you want.

Donna, Yes we also have black bears ! One afternoon I looked out my bedroom door ( it's french style and full glass so the view was full on) and there was a BIG bear walking across the deck just 6 feet from the door. What concerns me is that they are more than able to break through any first floor window should they wish to. In the Adirondacks they will come right into a camp through the door and ransack the kitchen searching for food !