I used a recipe from the Ball Blue Book for tomatillo salsa. Came out awesome! Will use Annies recipe for my red salsa as tomatoes from the produce market are cheap and good right now. Can I roast it a little before adding the vinegar? My tomatoes are struggling but I finally got our flood irrigation problem solved, hoping they'll recover from multiple days underwater. Starting a fall batch of seeds tomorrow and will include ground cherries, mild/sweet habaneros and plenty of tomatoes. Need salsa, having salsa withdrawals. Any idea where I can buy Asian cilantro seeds? My cilantro has been done for two months.

There are others as well. I'll post some of the lists I have. There are lots that do well that are not fragrant. I've had some problems with some (Ann Kulpa comes to mind). Some just died right off (Barbara Ann comes to mind). Many have done well for me. I've read that Ventricosa is great for naturalizing. It comes true from seed, so if allowed to go to seed naturally it will increase it's area. These are the trials in Tyler Texas (7b). Tyler (the rose capital of the world) is fairly wet and has acidic soil. It's a spreadsheet that goes whacky when posted. Just look at it and you'll get it. The first column is evaluated score by master gardeners in June, the second column is August, the third is October and the last is average. There were some sprinkler issues on some of the plants, but they still scored very high. NAME DATE AVERAGE June August October Blue Angel 9.8 8.8 10 9.5 Sugar & Cream 9.2 9.4 9 9.2 Blue Cadet 8.7 8.8 10 9.2 Francee 6.0 8.8 10 8.3 Gold Standard 6.3 7.6 10 8.0 Honeybells 7.1 8.8 8 8.0 So Sweet 9.4 5.6 8.5 7.8 Royal Standard 7.4 9 7 7.8 Lancifolia 7.3 7.8 8 7.7 Grand Tiara 7.8 7.2 7 7.3 Albo-Marginata 7.6 5.8 7 6.8 September Sun 6.2 7 7 6.7 Sun Power 6.8 6.8 6 6.5 Elegans 6.0 7.4 6 6.5 Emerald Tiara 7.8 7.2 4 6.3 Patriot 4.6 6.2 7 5.9 Bold Ribbon 6.5 6.8 3 5.4 Guacamole 6.7 5.4 4 5.4 Gold Edger 7.1 6 3 5.4 Fragrant Bouquet 5.1 4.8 6 5.3 Sagae 5.2 4.6 6 5.3 Shade Fanfare 5.5 4.6 3 4.4 Summer Music 3.8 2.8 6 4.2 Undulata 6.3 3 3 4.1 Temple Bells 6.1 3.2 3 4.1 Krossa Regal 4.2 3.8 4 4.0 Resonance 4.3 5.2 2 3.8 H. fortunei 'Aureo Marginata' 4.3 3 2 3.1 Aphrodite 3.5 2.4 3 3.0 Colossal 4.3 2.6 2 3.0 Fried Green Tomatoes 3.8 3.4 1 2.7 Invincible 4.5 2.6 1 2.7 Halcyon 2.8 2.8 2 2.5 Big Daddy 2.3 2.8 1 2.0 Daybreak 1.7 2.4 2 2.0 Sum & Substance 2.1 1.8 2 2.0 Hadspen Heron 1.5 1 1 1.2 Hosta varieties which consistently scored high overall marks over the 4 years they were evaluated include: 'Blue Cadet', 'Blue Angel', 'Sugar and Cream', 'So Sweet', 'Royal Standard', Francee', 'Albo-Marginata', 'Lancifolia'. This is the Dallas Arboretum list of recommended varieties: Invincible (plantaginea Hybrid) Sugar & Cream (Honeybell sport) Dixie Chick (Invincible x Masquerade) Abba Ready Sweet Standard (Honeybell sport) Emily Dickinson (plantaginea hybrid) Potomac Pride (H. 'Blue Umbrellas' x H. yingeri 'Treasure Island' cross) Plantaginea Honeybells Royal Standard Regal Splendor (Krossa Regal sport) Krossa Regal Francee So Sweet (Green with cream edge- compact) Blue Cadet (Blue green medium) Patriot September Sun (Chartreuse green/yellow with dark green edge) Come back to see us. There are several southern growers on this list. bk

I'm cracking up about Frozen Dead Guy Days! What a town you live in, Jennifer! Several of you mentioned humidity. I really don't mind humidity, except when it's around 100 degrees. My wife agrees with you, though. We went to Disneyworld four years ago in June, and I really enjoyed it and didn't mind the humid heat all that much. She said she hated the weather and that it ruined the trip for her. I wonder if women feel it worse than men? I also think of winter as "nosebleed season" -- inside my house it gets so dry when the furnace is on that I end up with nosebleeds at night sometimes or even in the morning if I just crinkle my nose, sometime the skin can break inside and bleed. I know we could get a humidifier on the furnace, but I'm a little cheap, plus I had a friend whose house (which was a new home) always smelled musty, and I blame it on a humidifier system. I've tried using a saline nasal spray at night before bed, and it actually helps. I just haven't been real consistent with it. I'm still dreaming of that home on a lake... A year or two ago, there was a an HGTV contest to win a fancy home on a lake in Texas. It was in a forest and looked beautiful (probably east Texas?). So, maybe there are some places I could find that are like Minneapolis but in a warmer climate? My wife told me this year that maybe when the kids are all grown up we can move somewhere else! (She likes the safety of the schools here, even though I worry about them being severely underfunded). The only problem is that our youngest is only 19 months old! I've got a long time to wait. And then we'll have grandkids we won't want to leave. We're probably staying here for life...

Thanks for that helpful bit of info, vaporvac. I hope I'll retain it in my computer challenged senior brain. All of fragrancnutter's roses are just incredible, including her Young Lycidas. My YL is several years old, and until this year was pretty floppy, but I didn't mind, because he sort of fit in with the roses around him, leaning on them a bit without getting thuggish. Now, he's getting some muscle and doesn't need to lean so much. My YL isn't quite purple, but isn't hot pink, either. It's a slightly odd but beautiful color with a lighter colored outer border of petals--and there are lots of petals. His scent is luscious. Mine could bloom a little more, and there's resting between bloom periods. Here are a few photos of varying color. Diane YL leaning on Colette This shows the lighter outer petals which are often, but not always present.