OOoh, are you up there near those Sand Mountain tomatoes???? You'll find it SO much fun when everything starts growing and remember, the "hunt" for organic materials will be even more fun! I had let my beds go to rack and ruin over the last several years and last year decided enough was enough and was going to do lasagna gardening (it might have been around this time last year...gorgeous weather like we've had the last few days. I was driving by a bank where the landscape company had bagged up the old mulch and dirt to get ready to re-mulch and asked if I could have it. They thought I was nuts but I haven't stopped. I just can't wait for the grass to start getting cut around here! Just pulled 25 bales of hay to the back yard that I'm going to layer on the beds today, ala Ruth Stout method, a precursor to lasagna gardening. (See if your library has any of her books, they are a HOOT!) I am also working on mixing up stuff for beneficial microorganisms from yogurt whey and molasses. Roll Tide! Here is a link that might be useful: Check out this Granny Gardener! :)

I'm with Ingrid on this one - with over 700 roses and the need for replacements each year, there's no way I could disguise rose purchases even if I wanted to, and I'm glad I don't want or need to. Like a lot of other people posting, he has his hobbies and I have mine, and the monthly storage fees alone for his classic cars balances out a fair bit of my rose purchases anyway. At the same time, most of my rose purchases aren't obviously roses to a non-gardener, since band plants just look like random perennials, and I tend to plant them pretty quickly after arrival so they don't sit around and get annoying. The only time I can recall he was a bit frustrated by rose purchases was when Eurodesert went out of business and I bought over 100 of Cliff's mother plants. You really notice how many roses are arriving when each comes in its own 3' X 5' heavy box, but bless his heart his main comment was a heavy sigh and a bemused question, "More roses?" As tightly as I pack my garden beds, you don't realize how many roses are in a given bed till you actually count. The one request he made was that I not add any new rose beds to accommodate any purchases, which seems quite reasonable to me (not to mention I've run out of good spots anyway). He's been really very supportive of my gardening, even though he still can only tell a rose from a peony from phlox because I tend to have more roses than anything. He'll frequently comment how nice the flowers in the front yard look, and mentions when he can see roses blooming from standing at the kitchen window. He even commented that he was able to trim the front hedges relatively pain free that have roses backed up right to the edge of the yew bush. Last week I cut some roses to give to friends, but they forgot to take them home. I was taking them up to go give to a neighbor when my DH interrupted and said, "But I like them too. Let's keep them, I really like these." Just when you think he doesn't notice he surprises you with appreciation. Yep, he's a keeper. He's probably rather not see so many roses, but he likes the effect as an end result. Cynthia

Congratulations on your new baby! Nothing like the music of a houseful of kids giggling and playing! I have 5 also. Well I just started collecting this year, I was having problems with my on again/off again lantana that I decided I was removing most of it and replacing with a different perennial. Well as you can guess the rest is history...lol Oh my goodness daylilies sure are addicting (however that's what I say about whatever "new" plant I'm into that year.) lol Anyway here goes... Absolute Treasure All Fired Up Awesome Blossom Atlanta Irish Heart Apricot Jade Autumn Jewels (Thanks Sue G.!) Alabama Jubilee Asymmetry (Thanks Sue G.) American Doll Autumn Wood Amethyst Art Black Eyed Stella Big Kiss Blueberry Candy Beautiful Edgings Bibbity Bobbity Boo Barbara Mitchell Baron Frederick Bookmark Bombay Bliss (Thanks Sue G.) Blueberry Baroque (Thanks Sue G.) Bela Lugosi Bright Sunset Black Fathom Depths Brave World Beautiful Daydream Curly Pink Ribbons Cosmopolitan Crimson Pirate Custard Candy Carolina Ruffles (Thanks Sue G.) Citrix Cerulean Warbler Cape Coral Choral Fantasy Cosmic Odyssey (has a scape!) Coming Up Roses Carol Todd Calming Effect Dream Legacy Dragon King Desperado Love Ezekiel El Desperado Ebony Pools Eternal Warrior Elegant Candy English Cameo Egyptian Pearl Fiesta Fling Fuschia Four Fragrant Treasure Flore Peno Fires Of Fuji Fiji Fairy Firecracker Fire King Forever Lovely Gordon Biggs God Save The Queen Grandma's Smile Garden Goddess Gingham Maid Groovy Chic Highland Lord Hawaiian Swirls Happy Returns Having Fun Harbor Mist Hidden Rainbow Hyperion Heavenly Mansions Hot Lava Heavens Declaring How Beautiful Heaven Must Be Ida's Magic Irish Envy Ice Carnival Island Hospitality Inherited Wealth Indian Giver Just So Jolyene Nichols J.T. Davis King Creole Kindly Light Kathleen Salter Lacy Doily Little Business Little Wart Lavender Stardust Long Stocking Lavender Arrowhead Light Motiff Lake Norman Sunset Lime Frost Little Red Warbler Laura Harwood (Thanks Shirley S.) Lava Flow Lullaby Baby Ledgewood's Firecracker Majestic Pink Marked By Lydia Malaysian Monarch Malaysian Marketplace Mystical Rainbow Ming Toy Merry Moppet Magnificent Rainbow Moonlit Caress Mandalay Bay Music (Thanks Sue G.) Moonlit Masquerade Mardi Gras Parade Mildred Mitchell Mexican Magic Miami Mood Memories Remain Magic Lace Mini Pearl Mississippi Blues Monkey Giggles Navajo Princess Neon Rainbow Night Beacon New Paradigm Outrageous Fortune Omumuki Petite Ballet Pumpkin Kid Pineapple Moon Prickled Petals Purple Maze Plum Line Pleasant Edging Promised Day Rainbow Candy Roses & Gold Rocket City Route 66 Rock Solid South Seas Sabine Bauer Siloam Double Classic Silent Thunder Stenciled Impressions Suzie Wong Shimmering Elegance Sugar Mountain (Thanks Sue G.) Sparks Cool Mountain Mist (Thanks Sue G.) Spiritual Corridor Sunday Gloves Spellbinder Siloam Ury Winniford Strutter's Ball Screen Pattern Sense Of Wonder Secret Agent Spacecoast Picotee Prince (Thanks Sue G.) Sculptured Wax Small World Looney Tunes Song In My Heart Spanish Glow Sensory Perception Thanks A Bunch Two Part Harmony Two To Tango Trahylta Tuscawilla Tigress Thunder & Blazes Tropical Experience Thisby Upper Crust Society Violet Osborn Variegated Kwanso Vino Di Notte Wild Wookie Wonder Of It All (Thanks Sue G.) Wild Horses (Thanks Sue G.) Wild & Wonderful Yasmin And a few more I'm bidding on also... hopefully I win them. Rena'

I can understand why bottle return services have been suspended- it's a dirty and gross scene in the best of times, and worse right now. Frequently, return machines are spaced too close for social distancing. They are not sanitized, pretty much ever. Also, many returns areas in stores are unsupervised unless called on for a cleanup, and many stores don't want to risk people congregating to do/wait on returns. Spills happen with frequency from the customers, and that can be a hazard- someones backwash sticky to walk on till an employee can go mop it up, ew. If people don't/can't do a return, they are often slobs about disposal or not in the open areas. Leaving containers behind, boxes, bags. Kind of as gross as the folks leaving their masks and gloves laying around in parking lots and shopping baskets for the employees to clean up after. A lot of customer areas are nicely kept, but many are left lower on the list of things to do compared to other tasks for the employee to complete. Inside the bottle room inside big stores is just as icky. Always the stench of rotted beer and soda, floors need regular mopping for the sticky oozes. And when those bins get filled, they need to be pallet-jacked off, sometimes across customer spaces to where ever on the back dock the storage truck is. Pallet crates are stored on the truck till it's full, then it gets picked up by the recycling company. Typically, the employees that clean up after our bottle returns are also the ones that are stocking our shelves, and sometimes doing cashier or bagging duties depending on the store. And while handwashing is still an option, a lot of stores don't have the PPE's like gloves to handle items that have had our spit on them then mixed in with other containers to be dropped in non-sanitized machines. Many stores don't have good handwashing stations for the customers either, and many rely on hand sanitizer stations- which are out of sanitizer right now. And a lot of customers don't bother washing or sanitizing after a bottle drop off, then go on to do shopping- ew. I've never seen a customer sanitize between finishing the return and taking their return reciept, which they then stuff into the wallet/purse/pocket- then if they clean up before shopping, pull that receipt back out and hand it to the cashier or desk attendant. If you think having a few cases or bags are icky in your garage... imagine that much more of pallet cases on a truck, which usually isn't completely secure from rodents- because dock seals are imperfect. Sitting for a while attached to the back of your store, because the recycling pickups have been suspended. Because bottle returns are a nicety, not a necessity. I bet some garbage recycling services are still running because even if you live in a clean your recycling area, enough people don't that it could still become a potential food garbage hazard. In a lot of ways, recycling is a nicety too- the stuff could go into the regular garbage, but many of us like to recycle. And some companies can profit a bit. Regular garbage service is being a bit more strained at this time too- a lot of people being home a lot more all of a sudden fills up the bin to go out to the curb more quickly. Sometimes people get careless, and leave out an overstuffed bin, or leaving out that extra bag or two for pickup that the garbage person then has to handle instead of letting the truck keep the distance... or perhaps their household has been sick and now their usual garbage is now a bit more bio hazardous than usual. Some garbage services serve residential and municipality garbage- and a lot of people are being icky about public trash disposal or not. This is a particular problem in places like parks and other more usually more attended public places. As in people run out of personal garbage disposal, and choose to dump it elsewhere instead of hauling it properly or keeping it for a bit. Some places are needing to start their spring services of parks and open lands too... All of that is stacking up to garbage companies having a lot to do while also having employees not able to come in, or now having to figure out how to safely have 2 people in a truck at this time. A lot of places still do that. And out of curiosity... what kind of yard waste do some folks have that rats didn't bother it all winter, but now there's a possibility of a rat explosion if it isn't removed now? Usually rats are attracted to human food garbage rather than things like old leaves and spring pulled weeds.