Pam, I'm so glad you stopped by. Since I posted I have far fewer roses blooming, and many of them are balling, since we had more than 8 inches of rain in less than a week a couple of weeks ago. Today is a gorgeous, warm and sunny day. I hope some sunny weather comes your way soon. Ingrid

It is so much fun when Forum friends come up to visit. For some reason, Mary's Teasing Georgia was the Austin that gave me confidence I could grow them, and now many of them do well for me. It is a beautiful rose, and people walk over to the end of the high school building just to look at it. I started taking care of our roses in March of 2004, and started gardening (redesigning and reconfiguring areas etc) that November. It's amazing to see how the plants mature and what happens. This spring flush is something unbelievable...and each year seems to get better and better. Each year I try to have a theme. This year, it's "Feed the Roses". I am trying to do something nice for them once every month.

We had a pretty serious midge problem the previous two years here in the cutting fields, but this year we went totally organic and I've seen very little midge. I don't know if there's something we have that actually kills the little buggers or what that we'd been killing off and now they've come back, but it's been great not seeing those burned tips so often! We change a few months back from organic sprays to only using Actively Aerated Compost Tea, and roses we've not been able to get for cut in a couple years suddenly started producing good roses (Elina/Peaudouce, Geoff Hamilton, and others), plus it seems to have eliminated botrytis on our white roses. Powdery Mildew (our worst summer disease here) has been eliminated on the vast majority of roses, and has been losing hold on the roses that did have it, it's actually been curative in some cases (where foliage that had PM cleaned up). In reading that book "Teaming with Microbes" it said that the AACT using fungally based compost can actually kill nematodes because the good fungus in the soil around the roots will strangle the nematodes (they had an actual photo of that occurring). We don't have the bad nematodes that I've ever seen, but I'm wondering if maybe that same fungus kills the midge larvae, or something like it does. All these good fungus and bacteria are eliminated by chemical sprays, particularly the good ones right at the roots. They are also killed by strong chemical fertilizers. I don't really know for sure if this has been the cause for a much better rose year for us, but it does make sense, and it's a heckuva lot cheaper to do for us, even including the cost of the Compost Tea maker we bought. Plus, the crew doesn't fuss about spraying, and in fact are fairly enthusiastic about it (for our crew, LOL). Our rose production has increased about 44% over last year, some of this is due to newly planted roses getting big enough to cut, and stopping some excessive pruning practices in the past (we stopped that 2 years ago). --Ron

Temps here last week were in the 80s, so everything started really popping up and blooms pooping open. Very nice today too. Worked in the garden this morning wearing shorts and a tank top and my favorite flip-flops. So nice. I let My Girls out for an hour this morning to scratch around and eat bugs and grass. They have begun to lay eggs again and need the new grass to stimulate their egg production. They followed me around, clucking happily and singing their little sighing songs. So cute! The Jane Magnolia tree's flower buds have suddenly begun to swell and there are three flowers beginning to open. I sniffed one and oh, that sweet, one-of-a-kind fragrance! The honeybees and Hummingbird moths are out in droves today supping nectar from the purple Henbit flowers in the grass and visiting all the flowering shrubs. I've even seen butterflies for the past two weeks. Tulips preparing to bloom and hundreds of yellow jonquils, daffodils and purple Muscari Grape Hyacinths are blooming. Hostas and Peonies are poking their noses up through the soft earth and looking good. I could go on and on... The weather radio report yesterday predicts there will be lows in the mid-thirties in the next few days, dropping down into the low-20s on Friday night. Ain't that just DUCKY! If that happens, even if it is just for one night or one hour, I will surely bid a fond but sad farewell to most, if not all, of this year's spring flowers. .I can just kiss the Apricots goodbye...again...for a second year. It will spoil all the new tender growth on the roses and send all the little seedlings popping up in the garden to coldest Purgatory, Glad I didn't set out the Cole crops and onion sets. Unreal