All of these photos are now available on the websites of the Gold Coast Heritage Roses Group: http://www.goldcoastrose.org/ and the National Heritage Roses Group: http://www.theheritagerosesgroup.org/ Here is a link that might be useful: The Heritage Roses Group

Hello everybody, It has been quite a long time since I've posted on GardenWeb as my schedule has been exhausting and perhaps some of the regular posters remember me from the guru garden (Patrick Studio retail). As a former exhibitor at Canada Blooms, I find that since Loblaws stopped sponsoring the show, it has been going downhill. For individuals who've attended the show several times, the content is no longer original and often, the same speakers are back with the same topic from previous years. The last year we attended the show in 2006, we were within earshot of a booth that was selling absorbent sponges/cloths to wipe counters and wash floors. The salespeople at the booth talked non-stop and were really loud and I found it tacky and inappropriate to have this company exhibit at a garden show. Although some of the gardens are spectacular, there is less interesting plant material on display or available for sale. The seed that is offered (except perhaps for Florabunda seeds) is commercially packaged seed like McKenzie, Sutton Seed, and Thompson and Morgan. So if you are main goal in visiting Canada Blooms is to shop for seeds and plants, you might be disappointed. I don't feel it's necessary to pay an entrance fee of $ 18.00 (which to me is highway robbery) plus another $ 20.00 to park your car to buy products that are available at the most of the box stores. Occasionally, Home Depot has some interesting and inexpensive packaged plants (like Brugmansias and Passifloras) but so many of the more interesting vendors will not be displaying in 2008. Mason Hogue, Wild Flower Farm, Fiesta Gardens, Terra, and many others are gone. I feel that the main reason for this is that it is very expensive to grow plant material in early March given the enormous increase in energy costs. There are very few Canadian growers (in either Quebec or Ontario) that are willing to provide plants for Canada Blooms. The show is just too early. It is too bad that the show cannot be scheduled in April because I feel that it would be better for the public and the exhibitors. Given the changes in the horticulture world - two major growers, Janet Anderson and Epic Plants are both out of business and the little support horticulture is receiving from the media - just take a look at the few gardening shows (most are really about renovation) on HGTV I have the feeling that if the Canada Blooms management team does not change their approach - innovation and creativity are required here - this show will go the way of the Successful Gardening Show in Mississauga which is totally commercial and pretty awful. On the other hand, if you are interested in attending a show with interesting speakers and great plant material, there is a show in Peterborough - For the Love of Gardening in mid April that is a treat. I've supplied the link to the show. Marilena

Dawn, I too often wonder how our ancestors made it. My kids were the first of our family's generation to have been born in Oklahoma, but my husband's parents were born here and raised their families here. His mother told me stories about how hard life was. She said when a grass fire got started, all you could really do was just stand there and watch it consume everything in its path. With only a well to draw water from, all they could do was dig trenches and try to beat it down with gunny sacks. They lost everything they had many times, to fire and flood. Miraculously, they were never hit by a tornado. Can you imagine how discouraging it must've been to live like that? Some of the pictures I have of my husband's grandparents show the entire family all lined up in front of a little wood shanty. DH's grandfather died of gangrene after having a leg accidentally cut off in a farming accident, leaving his grandmother with nine children. The eldest was DH's dad, who was about 18, and the youngest was less than a year old. I remember not having air-conditioning -- or even fans! When I was little, we lived in a two storey old farmhouse not far from Humboldt, KS. We had a one-room schoolhouse about a mile away, but my siblings that went to high school rode the bus to Elsmore. When my mother would describe where we lived, she would say it was "out by Leanna". I never knew where Leanna was. Anyway, in the summer the house would get incredibly hot. We spent a lot of time on the front porch then, but there was still cooking and canning to do, and that had to be done inside. At night, we would spread "pallets" on the ground and sleep under the stars. It was OK, but I always hated it because the bugs would crawl on my ears and I was deathly afraid they were going to go inside my ears and get inside my brain! Funny what a 6-year-old will think. I would panic and start to scream and my poor mom would take me inside and put me to bed there. I remember every now and then turning the pillow over because it would be cooler on the under side. We had rain all night last night, and early, early in the morning yesterday. Last night it just poured. It thundered so hard it shook the house. It's almost 9:00 and it's still raining off and on. It's getting to the point where I don't even look to see how many inches we have, and I almost don't even want to talk about it anymore. I sure wish we could send you some of this. HWY 123 is closed now. It always floods, as the ditches aren't very deep and it's very close to the Caney River. If it keeps on like this, little Coon Creek will jump its banks and then HWY 75 will be closed, too, which will cut us off from Bartlesville. That doesn't happen very often, or for very long, though. There are a couple of other ways to get to Bartlesville from here using country roads, but they usually close off before HWY 75 does. According to Mesonet, we have 60% chance of rain for the remainder of the day and 50% chance tomorrow. I guess I won't be digging in the garden much today.

Maybe call two of them Verti and Pompom! for short. Let's have a naming contest for the little beauties. I know the genus gets a lot of press because of the stinky bloom, but I love my small version, "Konjac" for its beautiful foliage and exotic lily like flower so let's give them positive names.