Tapla, Thanks again for the help :) ive been in the process the last two or three weeks going in and out man stores to find the materials to make the 5-1-1 and a small batch of the gritty for the bonsai. I had trouble finding the pine bark, so i bought a few bags of the reptile bark. I will look around more for a place where i can get the exact pine bark for the next batch. I did not realize how complicated it would be to find everything, or things that can be subsituted. The only thing left i need to find now is the turface (which i have a napa store and found another forum on here that even pictures what i can use) i also have been reading many of these forums and trying to get an idea of things. When i went to find the chicken grit today, they also had a tester. I will add a pciture of this, but it tests for "conditions of soil ph, soil moisture, light intensity and total combines nitrogen, phosphorus and potash levels" i do have a dowel in with the bonsai, but i thought this might help me with this and the other plants maybe?? For the soil ph and soil fertility, it says to get some soil out of the container add rain or distilled water to mud consistency and then stick the prongs in...there is hardly any soil in the bonsai so i am not able to check those with it. I understand and am hoping this tool might help me in the future when i need to fertilize with the 5-1-1 and gritty. Also as i understand that when you use the girtty or the 5-1-1 that basically you need to fertilize and add nuritriants then i normally would. When i have read the reicipes it says that you can add a long term fertlizier with it, is this and ideal thing to do, and what kind should be added?? I have read on many forums that you use foilage pro?? Is this a good thing for me to get and have on hand when i repot?? (I have spider plants, bonsai, urn plant, corton, devils ivy, kalanchoe, a kalanchoe tomentosa, sedeveria sorrento, aloe, double impaitent, brougvilla,and a few others i dont know the names of) I have been using schultz-instant plant food 10-15-10. Sorry, i wasnt very great in science 20 years ago in school but i have been reading trying to undertstand and taking notes to try and get a better understanding.

Noticed the powdery white bugs on a minirose in a planter here yesterday. We call them leafhoppers but don't recall which one as there are many types. The larger mobile ones hop quickly & can fly short distances at certain stages.They tend their brood in the white stuff. Agree with simply wiping them off with fingers, gloved or not (which catches the hoppers off guard), followed by the cold water hose to remove the remainder of white stuff (which is slightly sticky). Find a preliminary treatment with the hose watering wand set to "mist" weighs down the hoppers so they don't jump away. Follow that up with a medium-strong spray, not so strong that you beat the leaves up. The cold water stuns as well as removes them.They seem to only show up in the heat here. Never needed to do more than repeat this daily for a few days till they disappear entirely. Very effective & harmless to all but the target. Some of the scariest-looking bugs are actually the most beneficial & eat the harmful ones for supper.Tend to treat them all as friends & neighbors unless proven otherwise - definitely a "mini-ecosystem" going on here achieving balance on its own. The hornworm spied on the tomato yesterday will become a hummingbird moth & we'll still have tomatoes to feed us, too. The caterpillars that munch the passionflower leaves turn into butterflies floating amongst the flowers while the aphids feed the ladybugs. Without the rich web of life the plants would never be a garden & we wouldn't even enjoy the plants themselves without the pollinators. All have their place in the dance. When I sit on the porch steps as day turns to twilight, the porch frog wakes to sit beside me & the enormous praying mantis we've known since she was tiny climbs down the passionflower vine for a lower perch to join us. We watch as the daytimers settle down & the nightlife starts to play. Silly as it may seem, we enjoy each other's company. I consider them "people", but then I do that with everyone. So much richer for knowing them. Curious to find out what those eggs become - please let us know. And remember, the garden is also for savoring. This post was edited by vasue on Thu, Aug 1, 13 at 7:58

This is Judy in CA: I just got the biggest laugh read all these rose Bush stories!! Been there done that! In fact one of my sons is coming over tomorrow with his chain saw to hack my four Cecile Bruner roses off at the ground. Then I will use the salt and boiling water trick and see what happens. I planted them seven years ago as a pseudo fence. Used poles and wires and they were beaut the first three or four years. Then I had to trim them sever times a week so they didn’t slap us in the face and stab us with thorns! Plus they were no blooming as before and grown over and into my neighbor’s shed( the pruning got away from her)!!🥴. So my project last sunmet was to cut them to fence height and keep them as small bushes. They had other ideas and I was pruning all the time again to keep them “in shape”! So this year it is bye bye. After the chain saw massacre, I will do as I’ve said plus use the black trash bag on top and pit a barrel with a different rose bush in it that is very well behaved and sm divine! I paved over one at my other house but lo and behold I noticed a “weed” growing up about five feet out from the paving in the middle of my ground cover and yes, it was the pesky rose bush trying to reassert itself. Don’t remember how I dealt with it but I did get rid of it without much trouble. I must have caught it early before it got too much of a hold. At least I feel better that I’m not the only one having this problem. Best thing- use pots for roses!!!

Thanks for digging up those photos, Curdle. I think I am gong to be very happy with my CdP. I'm happy to hear your comparison to Yves P. I think they will look lovely together, with Souvenir de la M between them. They sound alike enough to look nice near each other, while different enough to look like two distinct roses. I soooo can't wait for some blooms. It sounds like she is an eager bloomer, so I'm guessing I will have flowers by May. CdP and Sonia Rykiel will be arriving in March, and roses usually get going very quickly here (with a couple of exceptions). I still kind of think of Versigny as "one that got away", but I only have so much space. When/if Augusta Louise becomes available in the US, I will find the space for her. The photos posted on this forum have been incredible! Thanks again. Lisa