I've got a funny story about removing rocks. I grew up gardening in California adobe clay. No rocks. Having rocks in your garden was a sign of severe laziness. I did commercial landscaping and I made sure I picked out every single rock when preparing a lawn seed bed. Grass seed won't sprout on rocks after all, needs to be in contact with soil, and no one wants to step on a rock when they're running across the lawn in bare feet. So, every single rock came out, but that wasn't any work at all as there might only be half a dozen rocks in your average size lawn. Then I moved to Washington state. Recently glaciated soil. That means glacial till and outwash, and that means ROCKS. Lots of 'em. Gravel, cobble, boulder, hardpan. There's hardly any soil! I liken it to gardening in aquarium gravel. So I was preparing the lawn seed bed in my new house soon after moving here and before I had fully processed the differences in soil types. I raked, and I raked, and I raked, that seed bed, tossing out all the bigger rocks - never mind the gravel. I raked some more. And more. And more. I spent days raking up rocks. The season for seeding lawns was coming to a close and winter was heading my way. I kept raking. The rocks kept coming. Every drag of the rake turned up more. Did I mention we had an abandoned gravel pit on our property? Eventually, my then-husband, no gardener but more accustomed to the local soils, stuck his head out the door. "Honey, how long are you going to keep at that??? The rocks aren't going away!" He was right, and I had to admit defeat. Oh the shame! leaving a lawn seed bed FULL of rocks like that! I would have never left a seed bed like that back in California! but I had no choice here. Adapt, or die! Anyway, since these same gravelly and rocky soils produce some of the most and best timber in the world, you can see that there's nothing inherently wrong with rocks in the soil. Rocks decompose and release mineral nutrients, and the basic matrix of the soil itself. They provide mechanical stability and increase drainage. Although it is possible to have too much of a good thing - my soil here is described officially as 'excessively well drained'. You cannot keep it damp in summer. Water goes right through it. Oh how I wish for a bit of clay. Although it's nice in the winter when it rains for 60 days straight to have water draining right through your soil without stopping. But, rocks are bad for root crops, and seed won't sprout on rocks. That lawn always was kinda sparse because of all the rocks on the surface, and more every year. If you only have some, you can remove them as you go. If it's all you've got, well, you just kinda come to terms with it. I do have one little patch I've tried to dig out all the rocks for a veggie garden, I mean about 40 sq ft. Every time I go to plant something new, or till in more compost, I turn up more rocks. Root crops have to go into raised beds filled with imported, screened soil. Washington's famous potatoes and Walla Walla onions do not grow in glacial gravelly till, you can be sure of that. No, this is timber soil here. Yesterday I planted an artichoke in that little veggie plot. I would say the volume of the soil from the hole was about half rocks of various sizes. I removed I think one or two. Tossed them under the deck. There'd be no soil left if I removed them all. The roots will just grow around them. It does mean less water holding capacity - rocks won't hold water at normal pressures after all but there's nothing I can do about that.

The bulbs I obtained from Mcguires were not virused.No one I know of,in the USA, has received virused bulbs from Mcguires. I know of some having the mosaic virus existent in their bulb populations before the first group purchase,including myself.Having a bulb from Mcguires exhibit mosaic in that environment is a circumstance in which the evidence cannot be conclusional.No matter how hard you try,it is impossible to keep vectors of mosaic from infecting isolated plants.Only a multiple doored entry,chamber poison, gas chamber, or heat chamber entry to a closed green house would provide that level of isolation. In a post on this forum, someone stated that his beautiful seedlings were all infected with a virus he got from Mcguire bulbs. I was alarmed to a degree,but did, and still do, remain dubious of his claims,for two reasons.I have never seen,nor have I ever heard of a virus exhibited in Papilio.He wrote that his papilio was infected.He also provided no pictures of any plant having virus,large enough with good enough resolution to determine anything but flower beauty,with no virus evident in the blooms. I believe one person asked him for better pictures for evidence,which he did not do,nor did he reply to.If this had occurred in the USA,in most places he would have been paying large sums of money to the Mcguires,if he could not prove his claims. I hope the Mcguires don't have a virus problem. Many South African and European bulb farmers do. Destroying the reputation of a business is a serious matter. I have a file of numerous specimens of mosaic on hippeastrum on photo bucket,under npublici.I would list the url,but GW probably would erase my post. Del

Skype is very easy to install and use. Once installed you would search for your contacts (ask them for the handle they use to make life easy) you then make contact. Be sure to add a personal note so they realise it is you and not some whacko wanting to pester. And yes, that happens occasionally but can be stopped, see next paragraph. Once installed click Tools and Options then on the Privacy tab make sure you are set to only receive calls from those you know and not any old stranger. While chatting you can send photos to each other or files if you wish. Do not use the desktop mic in front of the speakers because the sound coming from the speakers goes back into the mic a fraction of a second later and makes for a very lousy chat. Perhaps your camera will come with the mic included, if so that is great. Just set the camera on top of the monitor and that avoids all the cross sound. Don't add too much info on the personalising, I say I am near Niagara Falls, Canada rather than the small town not far away and I offer only my first name. Your choice of course. You will not be disappointed if you have family living any distance from you. You can also buy time to call landline telephones around the world. Last time I bought it was about US$14 (10 Euros) for 10 hours of talk time. not a bad deal.

Yeah, I can already hear the excuse coming because if I didn't know what happened, I would have pronounced it dormant. due to the location and visual from a distance. Unfortunately, proving that will be almost impossible. Most herbicides can and will burn the lawn if the temperature is above 80-85 when applied and in sunlight (and blanket spraying is not recommended at any time unless the problem is also very wide-spread). You know that now...they should have known that, but, as Sherry noted, they had a timeline and probably a boat payment to make. Spot spraying herbicides later in the evening can be OK if you know your lawn is up to it. But that's only true on established lawns, is very herbicide-dependent, and not something I'd do over a wider area. I did it on my own a few days ago in two tiny areas of less than a square foot to remove a piece of nutsedge and a tiny bit of creeping Charlie that had gotten started in a dormant bit, but I was very careful not to overspray and I was using an herbicide that's not particularly known to cause damage even in heat. The good news. Some of that is going to recover because it's top burn. The blade and crown burned, but from the before shot, the grass very clearly has lots and lots of carbohydrates stored in the roots to use to regrow the crown and blade. That does take a lot of energy, and some time, but keep that watered and it should work. The bad news: These idiots managed to hit this at, quite literally, the worst possible moment on the calendar when carbohydrate reserves in the roots are at their lowest point, so some of it is NOT going to recover. I can't see the grass type at this distance (and I'm pretty visually disabled so have trouble with plant ID even up close sometimes unless the color stands out), but hopefully at least some of it is Kentucky bluegrass. Bluegrass spreads when well-fed, so your Labor Day feeding will encourage that to fill right back in. First, fire them. Or restrict their care to mowing it if they do that. Taking over your own care is very easy if they won't do it right. Second, water. Keep the soil damp to moist for a week or so in the burned area to see where you are, if rainfall doesn't do it. Just moist, not wet or soaked or squishy or puddled or... This is the one case where I'm actually going to recommend shorter, frequent watering. Thirty minutes, every other day? If it works to keep it damp, sure. But just for a week--we do not want to set off a fungal infection in that yet and the lawn is stressed. Cut it off dead after that and resume weekly watering unless... Third, seed. If you're really not seeing recovery when you spread the dead stuff and look down, you might want to reseed. Normally I'd give it longer, but you're on the clock here, and Labor Day is really the outside acceptable date for reseeding (you could re-sod that area much later, however--out to about September 20th or so). If it comes down to that, get back to us. There's a whole rigmarole for that. And for general lawn care if you choose to do it yourself--it's pretty easy--or just dictate what they're going to do in the future (which they usually will disobey because...hey--boat payment). Watering: Weekly, deeply, if rainfall isn't doing it, a full inch at a time in most soils, but there are some exceptions, a very few. That's the general rule, although during very hot periods, you can certainly nudge that down to every 5 days or so and I won't argue. (How do I do it personally? I don't water. My bluegrass lawn is allowed to go dormant and return when rainfall returns, but it's fully mature and healthy enough that this is not a problem). Feeding: Four times yearly (three can be acceptable). Memorial Day, Labor Day, October first, and when the last mow of the year is done, give or take some. The first three can be organic or synthetic, the last has to be synthetic. Either one of the last two is optional as long as the other is done, so a very cold year may end in October, or a year where you're not sure may end with delaying October's feeding but doing the shutdown feeding later in October or early November. For Maryland (and up here in PA), both can almost always get done as even December features green grass these last three decades. Weed and Feed: Never. It does neither job well as the appropriate weeding time is not the correct feeding time. Spot spray weeds, if any, as they appear. Try not to apply synthetic feeding to a damp lawn as it can burn the lawn--which is how Weed and Feed is supposed to be applied. Really, once established and healthy, lawns are mostly butt work. You sit and look at it because it mostly does its own thing. Those two weeds are the only two I've sprayed all summer, and they're only there because the lawn is partially dormant and rains just resumed. If I'd ignored them, the sedge would have grown, but the Charlie would get choked out.