Not sure about growing the Cardinal in that climate and having it bloom. Cardinal Richleieu is a gallica where it is NOT as important for it to get a lot of hibernation time to bloom. On the bright side it is very lightly armed with prickles. In my climate it can grow to five or six feet tall but it bends way over while blooming because of the weight of blooms.

Hi - this is Lisa P. from Pass Christian, writing from my Camille-Katrina-Gustav-tested home complete with electricity, restored by our fantastic power company last night. (MS Power rocks!) Mike - so sorry to hear about the 20 hour trip. What a nightmare. But I hope your home is okay. Let me know when you get back home. We had only 60 mph gusts here, but they went on for about 6-8 hours. Small trees and large limbs are down and some minor issues, but overall we are fine. I have family that lives in Slidell and St. Bernard - all evacuated so are safe, and I'm hoping that none flooded, but we don't know yet for sure. We may have a house full of people later today as they drive here and wait to get back home. General update from the local news: Some of the worst storm surge hit Hancock County in Miss, which unfortunately was also the worse surge area in Katrina, so there are a lot of folks who got hit again. The emotional toll is going to be heavy. The just rebuilt harbor area here is a wreck. I don't know about the city services (which are still in trailers) yet but we are going to drive to town in a little while to check on a friend's place. Pass Christian, Waveland, Bay St. Louis, and Pearlington all got hit pretty bad. Pearlington had a report of a 19 ft. storm surge, but I think that may be exagerated. It was more likely 14-16 ft. but that is bad enough to wipe them out. A friend from the Bay reported a nearly 11 ft. surge at his place about 1/2 mile from the Bay. He is a scientist and probably has that pretty accurate. Power is coming back pretty quickly to places that didn't flood. I don't know what is going to happen here when so many people who have barely recovered have now flooded again. We are lucky - I joked with my husband that after only about a day of yard clean-up, we could get back to our normal Katrina repairs. But the truth is it isn't really a joke. We still aren't back to normal yet, but that isn't unusual if you flooded in Katrina. Slidell, New Orleans, and St. Bernard - reports are that there is still flooding in low lying areas of Slidell (Palm Harbor), but it is isolated. Several friends on the east side of Slidell - Cross Gates, Quail Ridge, have power and did not flood. The surge may have been as high as 9-10 ft. on the most southwestern part of Slidell, where one friend has a ft. of water in her yard. The storm moved fast enough that water didn't pile up in Lake Pontchartrain as it could have. They are saying the sewerage system in Slidell is out. Reports are the the levees in New Orleans and St. Bernard held although water was at the top of the Industrial Canal levee at the 9th ward. A couple of levee leaks in St. Bernard (one right near my sister's house) were plugged and prevented flooding. One report said that near Paris Road and St. Bernard highway did not have water. Terrebone Parish (Houma area, Brian lives there I think he might have flooded) flooded pretty bad, but I am hearing very little details about the damage. They had 10-12 ft. storm surge. Gustav was a high cat 4 storm with a bad surge predicted for LA and MS we were expecting a lot of damage. It went down to a 3 and even a 2 at landfall, but still had a solid 3 storm surge. It could have been much much worse that it is, but it is still bad enough, especially for the folks who got whacked by Katrina. This was nothing like Katrina, but it's harder than it would be if Katrina hadn't happened. Regarding the question of 'Why don't ya'll just move if you live in a flood-prone area?' I can say that personally, my husband and I moved from LA to MS where there is some high ground, and we did choose someplace that was never expected to flood at 23-25 ft. elevation. Well, it flooded in Katrina anyway, and nobody ever thought that could happen. Now if we want to move, we can't afford to. Insurance is so expensive here that nobody will buy your house. Some places can't get insurance. Also, our town isn't the most attractive place to live right now and probably won't be for decades. So unless we want to take a huge financial loss and sell our house for practically nothing, we are stuck. That is true for many people in the towns that got wiped out by Katrina. Who wants to move to a town with no grocery or pharmacy, trailers for city buildings, beat-up trees, perpetual road construction, and unaffordable insurance? Actually the people here are great and we have some beautiful areas so it has its good points, but outsiders won't necessarily know that and want to come here. I think more people who flooded are going to move away now, and that is going to make things even worse. The other reason, and perhaps the main reason people don't up and move away is that nearly all of New Orleans, St. Bernard, and Slidell are in flood-prone areas, at least for a bad hurricane, so unless you leave town, you can't get away. And people don't want to leave their hometowns where they work and have family and friends. I live within a hour of my 2 sisters, and I won't move away from them, so unless we all decide to move together, and we all get new jobs somewhere else, we can't leave without breaking up the family. It's unfortunate that cities got built in flood-prone areas, but way back when, people didn't have the knowledge they have now about oceanography and weather to help choose places to settle. Also, the terrible destruction of our wetlands and barrier islands due to decades of oil canals being dug, and the levees built along the Miss River stopping sediment flow have contributed to the flooding problem. As Mike said, New Orleans is sinking due to the Miss levees, but it is still an important city. Sorry to ramble, but I want to try to explain that it isn't as simple as it seems from the outside. New Orleans, St. Bernard, and St. Tammany are telling people not to come back home - that you will be prevented from going home even if you have electric and your home is fine. That is creating a lot of problems. Also, schools in all those areas are going to be closed until Monday, or at least that is the latest I've heard. Hope this is useful to somebody. Thank you all my friends for your concern for me and everyone down here. It means a great deal to me. I'm fine, my family is safe, and more importantly, my roses are mostly okay. Let's hope to hear from Brian, and Mike again soon. Lisa

I live in way way upstate NY. First I'm assuming that you do not want to go through the trouble of digging them up and freezing them for 6 weeks. That would be the best way to have any Lily you want. They need to be covered when frozen. But thats not what you want right? Any hardy winter bulb, INCLUDING LILIES needs to be frozen to grow well. Some can handle the high 28-32 temps as enough cold. Usually in area like yours it doesn't stay cold long enough. One would think none will do well there if not frozen in ground for 6 weeks. But there is the good news that Lilies are extremely forgiving bulbs. They can take a lot of abuse and still grow fine. Winter hardy bulbs are not harmed by the cold. Either 28 or minus 60. I've left Lily bulbs on top of the gound under the snow and they grow fine. The ONLY reason hardy bulbs like Lily, tulip, daffs are planted 6 inches deep is to protect them from the HEAT not the cold. I suspect you need to plant them deeper than you are. 5 inches is perfect here. In texas I'd guess 6 inches deep plus 2-3 inches of mulch. They are getting too hot. Also, since they are getting too hot don't over water them. they will get boiled to death. I recommend you try the same varieties planted deeper with 2-3 inches of Cedar mulch. Let the rain water them not you. They can handle dry periods. I NEVER water my flower gardens. Suggestions that should work well in TX....NEGRE--a very dark red upright bloom.......NIPPON- 9-10 inch bloom of white,pink yellow blush with a dark red edge. Only availible at "dutch gardens" I think.....Tom Pouce- side facing, 6", pink & yellowish blend.....REGALE- a purple longeflorum easter lily. Have a good day

Merryheart, I was living here in 2002. We moved here in February 1999. What I remember of 2002 was that we had a whole lot of rain in March, April and June and were relatively dry the rest of that year until October or November brought heavy autumn rains. Y'all may have had more rain in Carter County than we had here in 2002. I remember 2004 vividly because we were trying to get the barn/garage built and it rained daily. My dad, who was in the latter stages of Alzheimer's Disease went into a hospice facility in early June and passed away six days later. I was there with him for five of those six days. It rained here every day during that time frame. After daddy passed away, I came home to a wet, soggy, wildly overgrown and weedy garden/yard and trees full of almost-too-ripe peaches. I was playing catch-up for weeks. For what it is worth, we had about 30" of rain here in 2002 and the huge majority of it fell in March, April, June and October. In 2004 we had a little over 40" of rain, with more than 14" of that falling in June alone. The rain in 2004 was especially heavy in April, June, July, October and November, but each month had a pretty decent rainfall amount. I am just guessing, but I think we are on track to have a rainfall year more like 2004 than 2002. One of my peach trees is a Ranger and the other is RedHaven. The guys who were building our barn couldn't get anything done....and they were getting nervous because when they weren't working, they weren't getting paid! They noticed it tended to rain every day during the daylight hours but hardly ever rained at night that summer, so they bought some of those big worklights on stands and started working all night and sleeping during the day. It still took them about twice as long to finish our building as it should have, but that was the fault of the constant rain. Last night we received a weather statement from the NWS that the Red River was going to crest at something like 22.5' and that flood stage near Gainesville/Thackerville is about 25'. So, I think it is up and running about as high as we ever see it around here. I feel sorry for the folks in the Kingston area. Some of them always get flooded when the river is this high. My rainfall totals often vary significantly from the NWS totals and from the OK mesonet station for Love County at Burneyville. Our local cooperative weather service observer lives only a mile or so from us and you would be surprised how much our numbers will vary from his sometimes. That is one of the reason I try to track our rainfall for myself. My early-ripening peach tree is Red Haven and it always ripens around Father's Day, which makes it easy for me to remember when to expect ripe fruit. My other tree is Ranger, and it ripens later than Red Haven but earlier than Loring. According to OSU data, my Red Haven should ripen in early July. However, this tree does as it pleases and always ripens before July arrives. Maybe it is because we are so very far south. Nothing in my garden looks the way it ought to, and nothing is producing the way it usually does. I am hoping for sunshine and heat to correct the problems....if we ever have sunshine and heat again. Just the other day, some of our local firefighters at a meeting I had attended asked me how the garden was doing. I told them that it was pitiful and I was disgusted with it. They were stunned....saying that could not possibly be true. I assured them it was true. I described the garden and how the plants were looking and told them I'd only had about a dozen ripe tomatoes so far. That's when they told me that I was nuts if I wasn't happy with the garden because no one else has had any ripe tomatoes yet, and likely won't for another month. So, I tried to explain to them that usually my garden is 'spectacular' by now but this year it is only average. They basically told me to 'get over it'. LOL So, I guess in comparison to many local gardens, mine is doing fine. However, compared to how it normally does, I still think is it underperforming. I keep telling myself that some years are just this way and you just have to work with the weather you're given. This year's weather is certainly challenging though. I must say the trees love the rain and are growing like mad. We had an additional 2/10s of an inch after I emptied the rain gauge last evening, and both the skies here and the radar indicate it is likely we will receive more rain today. Right now the sun is shining and I bet the mosquitoes are hatching outside. Dawn