Hi Sherry, Have you ever tried adding native nitrogen-fixing plants to your rosebeds? I don't know much (like zip!) about Florida natives that fix nitrogen, but I found a few pretty quickly on a Google search--the small partridge pea (annual) and Elliott's milk pea (perennial). Both of these were on the website of the Florida Native Plant Society (link is below). Maybe this wouldn't do a lot, but it might give just a little boost to the soil so your roses could possibly benefit from mini snacks throughout the year. I use a variety of nitrogen-fixers in my garden. Many are California natives, with some non-natives that like the climate here. I have palo verdes (love this tree so I have 3 Parkinsonia 'Desert Museum'), Lotus scoparius (deerweed), Lotus crassifolius otayensis (Otay lotus), pink fairy duster (Calliandra eriophylla), Santa Catalina Island Mountain Mahogany (Cercocarpis traskiae), lots of California lilac (Ceanothus cyaneus, spinosus, tomentosus, 'Snow Flurry', 'Zanzibar', 'Lemon Ice', 'Diamond Heights', 'All Gold'), as well as non natives like white Bauhinia, various clovers, Austrian winter peas, birdsfoot trefoil, etc. Guess I'm just a lazy gardener who would rather not have to add stuff to the garden if the plants can do my work for me.;) My plants are lucky to get a little fish emulsion--although a small number get a mild powdered organic fertilizer occasionally. Many plants I feed nothing. Don't know how successful this would be in a much different climate/soil. Here I have mostly sandy loam, with some strips of the garden being clay or sand. Both the soil and water are alkaline and rainfall is low. The only problem being that the city water is high in boron with varying effects on plants. Melissa Here is a link that might be useful: Florida Native Plant Society

I've always direct sown my peas in the garden mid to late May. They grow so fast they always have enough time to produce before the heat of the summer sets in. If you choose to ws, I'd plant in individual cups that can be spaced apart. My sis-in-law planted a flat of them early indoors last year and ended up with a tangled mess by the time she could plant them out. I think they literally grow inches a day. :)

Last year, I was visiting the Rose Forum more often and I read a thread about the infections people would get from thorns. It was news to me that could happen. So I put getting a tetanus shot on my to do list, since it had been at least 15years since I had one. Kept putting it to the bottom of the list. One day a month ago, I stepped up on an upholstered chair to reach something and a nail tip came out of the seat and I stepped on the tip of it. Just barely broke the surface of the skin, but I finally got my tetanus shot. One less thing to worry about. I use Alcohol on my shears and Felco pruners every time I head out to the garden or before I put them away. If I use them on something that has disease, then I clean them again before using them on another plant. I never would have thought about dropping the pruners with open toe shoes! I hope it is not too painful and thanks for posting this!

The prior owners had a whole house generator installed. It is enormous, i think 60,000 watts, i believe the largest you can have in a residential setting? It has a dedicated 1,000 gallon underground propane tank. It automatically comes on when the power goes out; you only know power has been lost because it flickers momentarily. It powers the entire house, which is pretty large. Personally, I would never have installed such a thing. They left us files on many household appliances, and this thing cost about 20k installed, plus a cement pad and fencing to hide it. My reply was, what, so I can save a couple of pounds of burger in the freezer? Silly. Well, in the 2 yrs or so we have been in the house, there were two hurricanes and an ice storm. I think in toto there has been three weeks without power over this time! I still may not have been impressed until I realized that, if you have well water, no electricity means no water! THAT is the killer. I can usually keep warm, esp w a fpl, and use candles, read a good book. But not being able to flush a toilet? No thanks. So, my advice is, consider it. 1) I would not put in one as large as the PO did, and I don't think it needs to run everything (ours heats our pool and lights our trees ... silly!). 2)BUT, I would not want one that you need to go out and refuel. Often you won't be able to do that easily. I am told we could go three weeks as normal, using our u/g tank. and 3) If you have a generator, do not run it continuously for days on end, even in emergencies. You need to turn it off for a few hours from time to time. PS. Random tip. We would freeze bags of water in the freezer when we had the generator on during the day, and then when we turned the generator off at night, we would fill the fridge with the bags of ice. The next morning the ice was water and we would do it all over again ...