My strawberries do not dieback. Well some did, but I think they are problem plants. Probably have a leaf fungus. Slugs are easy, just use the organic slug pesticide. Like Sluggo. Raspberries grow in just about anything, Not sure why they would taste different? The only thing I can think of is stink bugs. Strawberries like a rich soil, mine perform better in the better soils. I have one patch which really is used as a ground cover. the soil is poor, and the berries tend to be small and dry. So I guess they would taste better if better soil is used. Thinking about it, some of my raspberries that suffered some winter damage produced berries that were not great. They were small and bitter. But if the cane produced normal sized berries they tasted fine. I have 2 raspberry patches one is in a raised bed with premium soil, the other is in ground with a clay soil that has been amended every year for three years. Still it is rather poor. I cannot discern any difference in taste between the beds.

It is a beautiful rose flower and so is its sport, Pink Intuition. I find the Delbard striped Garden Roses to be very healthy. We've had them here going on four years now and I've seen them in gardens all over Europe. Regarding spraying RI regularly. Yes, when we released them as exhibition roses that is exactly what we meant. They can be grown if you are willing to put in the extra time as opposed to a garden rose. We just wanted to be upfront with the customer. Our natural rose care line is designed to build the health of the plant and it should work fine for you. Regarding availability. We have licensed only two nurseries to carry the roses. Wisconsin Roses on multiflora and Johnny Becnel Show Roses on fortuniana. Part of the reason we have plants here is to increase the supply of budwood to them so they can fulfill back orders so fingers crossed you will get one soon!

I'm no expert on this, but I found after that BIG EASTER FREEZE a couple years ago that I didn't always prune back as much as I should have. It's easy to pick out black/brown canes that need trimming, but some of the other canes were still greenish and didn't look too bad, so I left some of them. They did put out new leaves and then flowers, but they weren't really thriving. I thought they'd improve with time--but they didn't. A year later when I started pruning them, I realized the center of the cane was not very healthy--brown center, not glistening white like sound, healthy canes. So belatedly I ruthlessly trimmed back those so-so canes until I found clear white centers--nearly ground-level in several cases. Those canes have since put out good healthy growth or the severe pruning stimulated the growth of brand-new canes that are super healthy. Bigger healthier blooms as a result. If you are thinking of getting rid of so-so performers that you suspect may have been damaged back in the BIG FREEZE, you might try first ruthlessly pruning all canes back to clear white centers, even if it means pruning down near ground level. Then see if new canes are produced (add appropriate food and water, of course). You may find you have a new healthy plant waiting down there ready to emerge and blossom with a little help from you. Just a possibility--no promises. Kate

In the Chicago area, you can find 4-lb paper bags (bold yellow and red) of "Hi Yield Soil Sulphur" (in flake form) at garden centers like Sid's, The Growing Place, Planter's Palette, and others for $3-5/bag. It is difficult to know what process was used to produce the elemental sulfur you buy at garden centers. As +om said, there are naturally-occuring deposits of elemental sulfur. In the U.S., significant, fairly pure deposits exist in Louisiana and a couple other states. However, there's a huge amount of elemental sulfur on the market that's produced by treating the hydrogen sulfide gas (chemically "reducing" sulfide to sulfur) that is (1) found in natural gas and crude oil deposits and (2) produced as a waste stream during desulfurization of crude oil in refineries. Hydrogen sulfide is a very toxic gas, and the large quantities produced in natural gas and petroleum operations must be dealt with--it cannot simply be vented to the atmosphere, and the EPA regulates this. There are enormous piles of yellow sulfur (made from hydrogen sulfide) sitting at some of the big natural gas fields in Canada. (Elemental sulfur is often shipped in bulk in the molten form in rail tankers. You can usually tell which tanker cars carry sulfur by the yellow crust around the hatch.) Much, but not all, of the elemental sulfur produced at refineries goes on to nearby processing plants to be turned into sulfuric acid, and then into (water-soluble) mineral sulfates that can be broadcast on fields as agricultural fertilizers. In reading Espoma literture, I have gathered that when they use the term "all natural" with respect to inorganic ingredients (like elemental sulfur, or calcium sulfate), they mean it has been extracted/mined in that form from some place on the earth. But I've never called them to confirm that. The "Hi Yield Soil Sulphur" is marketed by a reseller that I suspect gets sulfur from the cheapest source (which currently is probably one of the hydrogen sulfide sources). As a chemist, and as a citizen who uses both natural gas and refined petroleum products, I consider soil sulfur produced from the treatment of toxic hydrogen sulfide waste streams (generated by the demand for these fossil fuels) to be worthy of use. +om, some "formulations" of elemental sulfur sold in bulk for agricultural use are coated with a surfactant to make the surface of the sulfur pellet/powder/etc. hydrophilic (wettable). For field use, most of the interest in elemental sulfur is as a cheaper source of soluble sulfate fertilizer, rather than as a soil acidifier. Elemental sulfur has a relatively low solubility in water, and in solid form it is hydrophobic. If the sulfur's surface can be made hydrophilic, then that improves the rate at which soil organisms (fungi and certain bacteria) can convert the sulfur to sulfate over the course of a growing season. Does the pelletized form that you buy have surfactants? Can you find out? If it does, all the better as a somewhat faster-acting, slow-release soil acidifier. (The down-side of some surfactants out in the environment is if significant quantities wash into aquatic habitats, where some can be toxic to aquatic animals. This should not be an issue for home gardeners using relatively small amounts of surfactant-coated sulfur for soil acidification. I'd keep it away from beds around ponds, though, to be safe.)