De-lurking here to say it's not just you! We had a strange spring with wild weather swings (up to 40F from daytime to night), and I have to say...this is the crappiest rose season I've had in 8 years. Very abundant number of buds--probably the most ever--but the quality of the individual flowers just stinks. Like the worst thrips damage ever, but each and every rose has it. Some roses had stunted/balled/withered buds, others had blackened petal edges, still others didn't bother with blooms. My Queen Elizabeths, easily the most prolific roses in my garden, haven't bloomed yet. There are some old, established bushes that hardly went beyond their pruned size and only spewed a few deformed buds. Thrips are normally a problem on my light colored roses, but this blight is affecting every color. The later developing buds are better--if on the small side. It's the roses that developed first (late April to early May, which is quite late for us) that were the worst. Surprisingly, the roses that seemed to shrug it off best were some of my David Austins--Jude, the Dark Lady, and a few others. But some of the DA's (Abraham Darby) and other shrub roses and climbers (like Sombreuil) were just horrific. My mom came over and said "you know, if you just look at the roses from the house, they're not so bad." Sigh. And we had such a lovely, rainy winter (for us) that I was sure the rose flush was going to be awesome. And the numbers were truly impressive--hundreds of buds on some of my small (3 ft) bushes, which is the best I've seen. But again, the actual quality of the buds was the worst I've ever seen. Some tried and true winners from my garden were hard pruned just because I couldn't bear to look at their browned/blackened/crinkly/balled horrible little blooms. These included: memorial Day, Queen Elizabeth, Sheer Bliss, Peace (sob), Marilyn Monroe, Daybreaker, New Zealand, Just Joey, blue Nile, Evelyn, Abe Darby, Charles Darwin, Autumn Sunset, Golden Something(normally gorgeous downturned sunny yellow blooms, but this time they didn't even open!),Chicago Peace, Tamora, Pink Peace, Mirandy, Mary Rose, Secret (double sob), McCartney Rose, Tiffany....I could go on, but I'm feeling kind of nauseous. To put it in different terms: I have over 160 rose bushes with few repeats, and this year I have only brought six cut blooms into the house. SIX. But who can really blame the poor roses? Last week we hit 100 degrees on Monday, and on Thursday the high was 54 with rain (snow in Flagstaff, poor buggers). What is a plant to do in these conditions? Apparently, they sulk. Now it's getting to be blistering hot again, with humidity in the single digits. Spider Mite season. I won't likely see a good bloom until September, and then the deer and javelinas will be moving in for their Autumn feast. I'm thinking of getting into daffodils. At least the lilies, Shasta daisies, coreopsis, and cannas are doing well. And the glads look like they might actually open this year (last year they were all duds). I'm off to sulk myself. Heather

Well, it poured here in Troy this afternoon for a while, like 20 minutes. It helps. But, in watching the NWS radar, it doesn't look like I got nearly as much at home out in the Bloomfields. Alas, I'm always among the last to get rain. It's going to be cool Saturday. Much of the garden is going bye bye for the year. I'm sick of it, too, and it looks bad between the heat, drought, and the deer and woodchuck that have rendered a lot of things like sunflowers and amaranth into leafless sticks.

Olychick: I'm pretty sure Washington state's law (and Maryland's and maybe a couple of other states') refers to deceptive practices, not places that mistakenly send the wrong merchandise. Somebody at O clearly pulled the wrong item (reading- or vision-impaired?). Most times, at least regarding Amazon customer service, the merchant just tells the customer to keep the wrong item -- because the processing efforts aren't worth the money to the merchant -- but the OP would be hard-pressed to claim anything deceptive went on here. (Even if the item sold out before she could get it.) It's not a "gift." A gift is those personalized mailing labels that arrive in your mailbox with a letter saying "Won't you please donate to our cause in exchange for us sending you these lovely address stickers?" with the undertone of harassment. (And then some people do, feeling guilty.) Here's something from the Fla. atty gen's office: "If you believe that the unordered merchandise is the result of an honest shipping error, contact the seller and offer to return the merchandise provided the seller pays for postage and handling." (It goes on to say you should tell the seller -- in writing -- that after 30 days of no action, you will have no further responsibility for it.)

Thanks for all your comments! I'm a single woman who has always been courageous in doing many "guy" things myself -- I've restored several vintage homes, for example -- but for some reason I'm paralyzed at the moment thinking about hauling a propane tank home and lighting a gas grill I assembled myself. Plus now I have to worry about snakes in the grill! :) I actually bought this grill -- it is, by the way, really cute and small -- to use on my condo balcony. We don't have condo rules that forbid it, but it is also a condo of only three people, a big old house converted into units. I realized after I got it, however, that there is no way I'm going to use it on my second floor balcony -- far too close to the house for comfort. I may end up returning it, but I'll probably (briefly) feel like a wimp doing so. I'll just go back to the old familiar charcoal. . .