We put the new shade cloth up yesterday. It's called Chill Out and has foil strips alternating with an open weave of a clear fiber. The day before yesterday we had outside temps in the mid-70's and the greenhouse got to 114 with all of the vents open and the exhaust fan going. Yesterday it was hotter outside, mid 80's, but the greenhouse peaked out at 104. This is still too hot for plants, but it's an improvement. I'm annoyed that the greenhouse company didn't tell us what kinds of problems we would be having with a small attached glass greenhouse. They "designed" the greenhouse with what they said was plenty of venting, but they were obviously wrong. Now that we're going into fall, our outside temps should be dropping into the 60's for day and 50's at night. I have a feeling we'll have to keep the greenhouse empty in August and September, but my main reason for wanting it was to grow greens all winter and start seedlings in the spring, so I still think it was worth building it. I thought our main problem would be keeping the greenhouse warm enough not to freeze lettuce in the winter, but now I see that cooling is a bigger challenge. MJ

Don't know if this will help but my clematis Montana Rubens (vanilla scent) goes up and on our roof, morning sun, afternoon shade. My daughter has Montana Elizabeth (vanilla scent) going up and on their roof, morning shade afternoon sun but then we don't get temps over 80 most summers. I have a Montana Wilsonii that will completely cover my big lath house and this one fill the air with the scent of chocolate. Once they cover the shingles it's quite cool under the vine. DH pulls it off the roof after flowering every couple of years so the fallen leaves don't end up as a pile of compost on the shingles. Annette

This spot that I put the rose garden on has a tragic history. I had it plowed, to be a giant veggie/flower garden. Next, I got a hundred lilacs, to go along the fence. I came home, and the neighbor had planted caragana along there. I put the lilacs in the far end of the garden, planning to move them later. 15 years later, they're still there. It became a great place to hide the junk. This garden was divided in half by a gravel path, which became a great place to dump rock. The other half of the garden was equally tragic. We went and got the free city compost. Did they compost grass and leaves? No. We introduced every nasty, vicious thug with deep taproots that occurs. The worst are the thistles. You can't actually find anything that kills thistles commercially. There's a product called Torgon, but you have to have a license to get it. Half of this half of the garden went back to grass, to choke out the thistles. It has a crabapple tree and a hedge. So the other half became a rose garden, and me and the thistles and roses co-exist. Canadian bull thistle grows massive amounts of underground runners. I've tried 2-4D, vinegar, boiling water, gasoline, etc. AND they're back. So I just dig them up. After all, roses have thorns, too. This part of the garden has an arch with a gate, and a little cement path to a small pond with a solar powered fountain. These are Chinese junk. I'm on my third one. I did finally read about the Oase solar water fountain for $369, which might be the ticket, If I ever have the dough. Another vicious self seeder I planted there was saponaria. Now, I love this plant, but now I have thirty. The nicest thing that came out of the city compost was wild verbena, which I let happen until I was sorry. That's interesting, how mulching could keep the rain out: another dilemma.

tally - Ike had a very different impact on my family. I remember when ya'll were suffering with all the devestation. My son 'graduated' from USMC boot camp on the 12th in San Diego, and we had to jump a ride back to DFW on Friday to get in before Ike came up and closed the airport on Saturday. We didn't even get any rain out of it, but were so proud to have our new Marine home. Hope that crazy waterspout/tornado left you alone. J.D.