It happened after I typed. I was out weeding and I heard a clatter (finally got to use that Christmas poem word) down in Rocky Narrows where the paved road is. Lots of sounds that I hadn't heard before. Then one of the handsomest horses I've ever seen emerged. He couldn't have made that much noise! Then a pair of ridden horses really close- then two more ridden horses all in a four horse hitch. The four were being trained to pull a wagon. The wagon was heavily laden, much heavier than I expect the old wooden wagons to be. Then a glint of sunlight hit the barrel of the cannon. This was not a small cannon, but one almost five feet long. What a great thing to do on a sunny January day. Train your horses so they can participate in reinactments. (Beats weeding.) Back to roses. I have kept roses in pots in a wheelbarrow for moving in and out of the garage. Also on a two layered cart, also for moving in and out. Before we had three vehicles in need of garaging, the third bay that faces south was mine in winter for certain plants: good weather=door up; bad weather= door down. About the once blooming OGRs. In late fall, when I talk to my roses, every fall I tell the OGRs how smart they are. Forget the moderns that hold onto their leaves well into December. The OGRs drop their leaves regardless of the apparent hot/cold; it HAS to be length of day related. Now spring has its own effects on them. I've had moss roses here that bloom and are nice for a short while. Then we visited the garden up west of Canton Ohio and I almost went into shock at the size of the sprays of roses that developed on their moss roses. HUGE sprays of ten or more buds (I would be lucky to get three buds per spray.) On their sprays, two or three buds would bloom at once, and there were still so many, many more buds to come that they were going to have a longer bloom time, just because their were so many more buds to happen. I'd guess that that was a function of cooler growth times in early spring. Then there was the Madam Hardy we saw up in Portland Maine. My Madam Hardy made three inch blooms. The one up in Portland was five inches across. (Their version of the Pacific North West moster HT blooms.) This winter will go towards ballancing out the two winters we had here (we've had this place for about 16 years) when temps were below 0Fahrenheit. Re the soil moisture: as long as the soil smells OK while I'm weeding, I know the moisture is moveing through and I am avoiding anoxic conditions. IF I were to get that rank sulphur smell, I'd rather know now than later when the plants would show a problem. This is one place where being on a hill with a roll-down if you slip slope is an advantage; I can always change the drainage if the plants don't like it.

mad_gallica -- 'Rose de Rescht' is available clean, but not due to our heat therapy. We got it from Heirloom, who apparently imported a clean one from Europe. We indexed it here and found it clean. true-blue -- I've heard people make claims for resistance to fungal diseases and other "miracle cures," but I have no reason to believe any of them. Removing the viruses that cause mosaic will alleviate any symptoms those viruses may cause, which may include fewer, smaller flowers, shorter stems, less longevity, less cold-hardiness, etc. And in at least some varieties that are said to have "declined," it seems to help reverse that. But no, I'm not aware of (nor would I expect) other major benefits. I'm sure by "indexing," you mean the heat therapy process. Actually, indexing follows therapy -- it is the series of tests done to demonstrate freedom from the viruses, after we've removed them.

In my experience my baobabs have taken a couple of years to settle on a good dormancy cycle. Here in SF I get about 6-7 months of dormancy starting in Sept and ending in March. I assume the reason for irregular dormancy is because I germinate the seeds at atypical and random times over the year. Where they grow in west Africa the rains typically come over the summer so it stands to reason that seedling tend to germinate in the middle of the summer. I only water mine when they have leaves. I let the plant break dormancy on its own and then I start watering. Extra water is worse than not enough. They have a lot of reserves and are pretty tough. I'd stop watering it until it is ready for it. Since you are in south Florida you should go looking for established baobabs growing there and see if there are seed pods. Where did you get your seeds? There are several growing near Ft. Lauderdale and in the Miami area. Also most of the botanical gardens have them around there. If you see any I'd be really interested to hear if you can collect seeds. I've only got digitata and am looking out for other species.

Even though a non-dormant daylily could keep growing in ideal conditions, any given single fan doesn't keep growing. Once it has matured and flowered it is replaced by a new scape from a new meristem? Once the fan has matured and flowered it will be replaced by a new fan from a new meristem and it will eventually produce a new scape. Would this mean non-dormant daylilies seem to multiply after the bloom season? Because non-dormant daylilies can grow whenever the conditions are suitable they can multiply whenever the original SAM has converted to a scape, even if the scape has not yet grown large enough to be visible to us. I have tried to upload a drawing of a fan from a dormant daylily showing two new buds. Since it is dormant it will not grow new leaves until the next spring so neither bud will start to grow until then. I am going to upload a drawing of a non-dormant daylily showing two new fans in the next message. Can any of this explain fans splitting? I have heard of this happening but I'm not sure I've ever really seen it. I'm sorry, don't know what is meant by "fans splitting". Maurice