I've had a terrible time here in L.A.- zone 10- with powdery mildew - this time it got my squash, cucumbers, tomatoes and bush beans; now it's working on my pumpkins. I have tried a bunch of things - milk, baking soda and a little detergent, etc.- but they seem not to work. Realize I probably water too late in the day and put manure on at the wrong time...but still! Most sites states that "treating the soil" is not useful, but one site says to cover with clear plastic and let it sit for 4-6 weeks - longer if it's rainy. Seems like a long time to wait - but I'd do anything to fix this problem! Can anyone help? Another thing - I'm from the South and can't help but notice how much better plants like melons, okra, summer squashes do there. I'd attribute this to it nearly always dropping down to the 50's and 60's at night, instead of staying hot. Am I the only one that thinks this?

As Baby Boomers age, allergies are increasing tremendously, far worse than with any other generation we have records of. I submit it likely has a great deal to do with the smog and other pollution in the environment they (we) grew up in. Yes, what your neighbor sprays or dumps greatly affects you, too. I completely understand the necessity of spraying roses in environments where most won't grow without it. If I had to live where extreme winter protection or frequent, regular use of sprays were required, I honestly doubt I would grow roses. My hat is off to you who do it as it just seems too much work from my point of view. Ingrid made a great point about the found roses from the area. A plant which has survived, even flourished, for decades without our intervention seems a perfect choice to enjoy. Many OGRs and earlier modern roses have survived in old gardens and cemeteries in the Deep South and California's Gold Country and they frequently make excellent landscape plants. It is truly a case of climatic suitability, what is happy where you garden. I'm very glad you brought up that point, Ingrid, thank you. Perhaps they aren't exactly the flower you might be looking for, but using a variety of those which are successful where you are then filling in the premium spot with the desired flower on a plant specifically selected because of its performance in your climate should provide you a beautiful personal environment with less effort, time, energy expense and exposure. Working with Nature instead of trying to bend it to our will requires a whole lot less of everything. Kim

Okay, I'm a newbie-my first rose. I used sodium carbonate (1/2 tea-scant) and a drop of dish soap : 32 oz water as a spray. I can't recall where I got the recipe, but is the soap needed? Has anyone tried it? Then, like an idiot I went nuts with the shears. The deformed, shriveled, powdery leaves and shoots-bu-bye. I finally realized that I'd wind up chopping all the leaves off and a shoot has come in with the first leaves looking discolored and shrively, but newer leaves look better. Then, our SF summer time winter has set in, slowing growth. I've got leaves towards the bottom, stems mostly empty, and leaves at the top. Some of the stems never developed shoots, but some got cut because they were white with fungus while others just fell off. We will get summer again next month, but a lot of my sun will then be blocked by the building across the street. Is there any hope here? This was my first rose plant and I got it for my birthday...I have one idea-it's 4 plants that I couldn't separate when I repotted. What if I were able to get rid of the least healthy ones? I hesitate to cut the stems because some of the top leaves are relatively healthy and doing their job. Finally, my husband tells me he's going to put bicarbonate in the water he waters with-his got ingected though I was so careful-rather than spraying the leaves-very few apparently infected-his has very glossy leaves-but that makes no sense to me at all! Help! Whenever I look at that plant I want to cry. Thanks for reading this.

I'll take the comfy chair, please. Thanks for your thoughts, brittie and Virginia. Yes, it certainly does look a lot like the pictures of 'Souvenir d'un Ami' on HMF (there seems some doubt if those pix are all "fer sher" SduA). Virginia, it's very fragrant with the normal Tea rose fragrance, very vigorous (but in a shrubby way, not a climber way), very floriferous and continuous, not at all disease-prone (in the most humid conditions, maybe just a touch of powdery mildew). As to thorniness, on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being something like 'William Lobb', this would score about a 2 at most. There's really nothing about it to suggest that it's anything but a "pure" Tea--in everything, it's prototypically Tea. To my eye, it has the look of something from the 1870s or 1880s (but of course an older rose could have a newer look, or a newer rose could have an older look). The very mature bush is about 6-7 feet tall (and would be at least that much wide if I'd let it). The flowers never droop; however dangly the branch which bears them might be, the flowers themselves always manage to look upwards. The hips absolutely never ripen, never have a seed. Likely if I had a list of all the unknown Teas that Heritage Rose Gardens offered, I could pick out which one this was, especially if it had the descriptions too. What I remember about this one was that it was one of two unknowns bought at the same time which, planted in a sandy soil, did poorly; but when I moved them just a dozen or so feet away to a very clayey soil, they responded with vigor and looked nothing like they did in their sandy quarters. Aside from curiosity, the reason I'd particularly like to identify it is that, though still vigorous on some limbs, the bush is getting old, and I'd hate for it to die with me not knowing that there are others out there to carry on its beauty. It doesn't seem to want to root from cuttings or by layering (going by my repeated failures over the last five or six years). It's much more beautiful than my pictures convey. There are times when I'd say that the opening bud and young flower with their tints and form are as beautiful as any rose could be.