Fun musings, Rick! Another option to consider in the mix of reasons for less BS for you this summer is the notion that rain actually washes the BS spores off the leaves so there's less chance for the disease to take hold. Even in relatively humid weather, regular spraying and/or rain seems to have a positive impact on BS - the real kicker is humid heavy weather WITHOUT the rain to wash off the spores. Nightmare city, eh? Your observations about the health of your plants providing extra vigor has to be a factor in BS being less of an issue, even if plants don't have an immune system per se. Still, if you have a healthy 4' bush putting out new leaves constantly, you don't really notice the 40 of those leaves that are blackspotted, whereas if you have a 2' one-cane runt, those 40 leaves would leave it bare-nekkid. Quick recovery from a disease is almost as good as not having the disease at all, at least as far as roses go. Cynthia

Kay - thank you, thank you! I hate weeding more than anything. Oxalis and crabgrass everywhere. It's been a challenge with the rose garden as the bed was overrun by both and I can't get myself to dig everything up and start with fresh soil as I don't think the old roses would survive. Sometimes I stop and talk to neighbors while I'm walking my dogs too. They're not very friendly, but they're ok to talk to about their plants. The neighbors across the street are friendlier, but all they have are lawns and potted palms. I seek out the gardens that stand out among the agapanthus+jasmine+nandina that most Southern California gardens have and kind of linger in front in hopes that there is someone tending it at that moment hahaha garden stalking. It's been like The Secret Garden lately, new plants growing amongst dead ones, then later on discovering they're not dead at all. It's all very exciting and I send my mom and sisters photos and we try to remember where grandma placed it in the garden, and what else she grew with it. We are bonding through this collective memory of what it looked like in its heyday. I will post more pictures once things get greener and fuller 1gteacher - I've been too nervous about direct sowing poppy seeds because I think the weeds would swallow them up. Actually, I haven't direct-sown any seeds other than nasturtium in fear that I'd pull it out by accident like I did with the dill and artichoke(that did not look like a weeds, but I was in factory-assembly-line zoned-out weed-pulling frenzy and they were so small and surrounded by Oxalis). I do have a thousand poppy seeds so... Here goes nothing, wish me luck :) mrclint - yes, my grandmother did this too! She never mulched, she just stuck nasturtiums, peas, spinach, thai chili peppers and cilantro everywhere. She would give me and my brother a list of what ingredients she needed for Sunday lunch and we would hunt everywhere, front and backyard, coz it WAS everywhere. She always had food growing year round. I just miss her a lot. At first I didn't even want the house because I looked at it and kept thinking she was there pruning her roses or then I realize she's never ever going to come back to her garden. I guess I just needed time to mourn her garden too, and now I've set to work and I see it in a different light, see every new opportunity and theres a backyard large enough to make mistakes in :) I have started reading about succession planting and I think it makes a lot of sense. I just have a hard time making decisions on what to actually plant haha. I have so much to learn :) your photo of the Washington Navel is very inspiring! And it's reminded me that I need to prune the Meyer lemon tree in the backyard that is so heavy with fruit. It's also gotten really tall. That one my grandma underplanted with cilantro. This weekend, I'll be weeding and mulching around trees as well. - Isabel

Oh, you're welcome, 'shades'!! Anytime! I really thought you had to have a B.A.!! Your gardens are so beautiful and you have such wonderful specimens of so many of the ones we all love. Slugs--ugh!! I know--they do make 'the season' less than stellar--depending on the rain. The rain sure makes the hosta grow and look so hearty but the slugs sure seem to love the rain, and then our hosta as dessert!!! Gak!

Busy is right, some of the same things are going on here too, although not as much as in your yard. I think I have learned something from the Monarch Butterflies, took me a bit to get it though. I too thought how odd it was that we hadn't seen any yet. Well last week with that cold snap, the Monarchs surely wouldn't have made it, they know something we don't I think. Monarchs need it to be 60 degrees to fly and it certainly wasn't that warm last weekend. Saw the first Monarch this year in central WI on June 11th, second one yesterday and I now have one Monarch egg in the house. They are way way late this year but I think they somehow knew the weather wasn't going to be nice until now. Usually we see them the end of May. Donna