I live in a very different climate, but I have much the same experiences I read about here. I mostly have mildew on newly planted roses, next year there are hardly any trace of it. It seams to be the nature of conditions around her. How we water the roses might be very important. Drip irrigation often only waters the top 4 inches and roses have deep roots compared to grass and some other plants. Depending on variety, rootstock and type of soil they often go four feet down in to the ground if possible. That is probably why we get the advice to water generously every other week and not just a bit every day (newly planted is different). I have a few roses in pots and when I had them under a cantilever roof in the garden they milldewed something horrible. I had this problem for years. As soon as I placed them under open sky they stayed healthy. I watered every day so that was not the problem. I once heard an old gardener come with the advice to let the sprinkler go for about 30 every other morning to wash of anything that might get stuck to the rose leafs. Apparently this washed away any sticky sugary resins and mildew spores and prevented them from getting a foothold. This workes on mildew only and not black spot. I live in an area with lots of rain, and mildew is usually not a problem. I only came to remember this advice when I discovered my roses only get mildew under the cantilever roof. If you feed the roses a lot they are more prone to mildew too. In pots it is very easy to have some fertilizer in the water every time. Give them fertilizer only every third week or and see what happens, and something with at least the same amount of kalium as nitrogen. Good luck with your roses

Here's what I'm doing, based on reading at Building Science.com and the architect -- Fiber cement planks furring house wrap, taped XPS @ 2" shiplapped (R10) 2x6 @ 24" o.c. OVE framing damp cellulose cavityfill (R19) sealed plates/sills & penetrations; foamed rims to R10 Sealed drywall latex paint AT the corners I'll use let-in 1x4 to provide shear walls Whether this will suit your purposes or not depends largely on your climate -- I'm in north Georgia so it is mixed-humid here. If you're in FL or AZ or MN or on the coast of OR makes a big difference in what will work best for your situation. Interesting reading at BuildingScience.com, as I said. Best wishes, JWilson

I print several designs to one sheet of overhead transparency made for my type of printer. The plastic sheets aren't cheap, but since I only do it once in a while it makes thing easier and a single package lasts me a very long time. If you have an inkjet printer you have to wait several minutes for the sheets to dry (the ink WILL get on fabric otherwise) but laser printer sheets are ready when they come out.

I was just reading what Consumers Reports has to say about how long to keep these things--check out the latest issue on the newsstand. But I've checked into several sources on the web, including Suzie Orman's site--there's no "right" list--they all seem to vary a bit. One thing that Consumers said: Keep your pay stubs until your W2 form comes, then "reconcile" it. I have no idea how or why--maybe to total up state and income taxes paid already? I've never done that. Utility bills, I keep for a year. Some sources say you can ditch them after you pay the bill, and also, if you do any online bill paying with the utilities, they have your payments on file for a while. One useful thing about having a year's worth of utility bills somewhere, paper or online, is that they can come in handy when you want to sell your home and need to provide an average utility cost for heat, water, electricity on the real estate property listing ad. Also, they can give you a quick visual if you're thinking of paying the budget route--where your personal costs are averaged out and you pay the same amount each month. Home Depot receipts? Are you talking about new windows or a new power drill? Staple them to the warranty booklets. Anything less, reconcile with your credit card bill if you charged them, shove them in a Ziploc bag and store them a secondary storage place for 6 months or so in case somethng breaks and then toss them afterward. Also, the Consumers magazine also had an item about what you should store in your safety deposit box, if you have one at the bank. Social Security card, passport, car title, original insurance documents were among them, and many others. Worth looking at! I tend to keep my credit-card statements a few years longer than most people. I find that I'm occasionally wondering where I bought something from, framing supplies, for example, and a quick look at the statements reminds me which website had what I was looking for. For all my papers, I have a closet that stretches far back, and in it I have, in the front, a set of 2 stacked rolling filing bins, for the current year. Stuff that I know I want to keep longer goes in a cardboard file box that gets pushed to the back of the closet. (Also in that closet is a metal shelving piece holding all my stationery supplies, some fabric, craft supplies, my computer warranty and related documents and extra cords [in a large Ziploc]). So documents are all in the same space, but divided between what I really need more frequently and stuff I want to hold onto just in case!