Armstrong nursery (a smaller chain in SoCa) also has gotten less roses in than in previous years and it seems to be the same with Walter Anderson nursery (an individual owned nursery, with only two locations). I guess it is the same here, people just don't buy that many roses anymore. We have water restrictions and water is relatively expensive, which certainly contributes to the fact that a lot of folks seem to be shying away from roses. What most of you wrote just makes it clear to me that it is so important, that we buy from the small, mostly online rose nurseries and talk as many people as we can reach into buying easy-to-grow and disease resistant roses in the climate we live in (OGRs of course, but also moderns in my opinion). This seems to be the only way to keep the resources for a variety of roses to choose from alive. I also think planting roses in the front yard where people actually can see them, giving fragrant freshly cut roses from our own gardens away, and invite people over for garden tours might be helpful. I certainly believe that our own actions have an influence in the world! Christina Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Garden Dreams

"The Quarter Ouncer" Love it. These are great. I wish this friggin' recession would go away. A good laugh helps.

"With so much of the flooring available as a DIY project, is it becoming a common thing to have a variety?" It has always been common to have variety. Even going back a hundred years, even with newly built homes. I was very common at least in my area to have the LR and DR in oak. Then to save money the homes were built with pine in the bedrooms, or maple. You wanted to "impress the guests" with oak. The kitchens and hallways always had linoleum when they were built. Bathroom had white/bright tile. The entryway was always built with deep colored tile. Entryways had to be waterproof because of snow being brought in, in the winter and sturdy and resistant to wear due to sand being brought in in the summer. Tile looked prettier than linoleum to impress guests too. This is how homes were built. Different material in respective rooms. Then, mid-century additions were built onto these homes for family rooms and extra bedrooms. Due to both cost considerations and the popularity of wall-to-wall carpeting, these additions were built with particleboard covered with carpeting. It is in these additions where the flooring mismatch looks bad. In the original floorplan of when the homes were built, the flooring choices were carefully thought out for both utility and eye appeal, while allowing for cost cutting maneuvers that would not stick out like a sore thumb. As long as everything flows nicely there should be not problem with different floors in a home. Who would really want a wooden bathroom floor to take care of?

I'm not sure if this comment will be seen, since this post is years old, but I wanted to explain why we say that a plant likes to be tight in its pot. House plants thrive when they're tighter in their pots because it allows for energy to be put into their leaves. When a pot is too big for the root system, the plant diverts all of its energy into developing roots to fill out the pot. This takes energy away from the foliage, and will slow down leaf/stem growth, and can cause the plant to drop leaves to make more energy in the root systems. Bigger pots also mean more soil to water. When there's more soil to water, the soil takes longer to dry out, which leads to roots sitting in wet soil for too long, which leads to root rot. So when we say "this plant likes to be tight in its pot" it's because of all of the above stated reasons. In nature, the moisture is usually evenly dispersed throughout the soil. There's also plenty of sunlight and wind to stimulate growth. Indoor conditions are vastly different, therefore the care is vastly different.