Gardengal48 first, the original question asked about moving to an area for gardening, so that is what I answered. Obviously most people cannot move only for best gardening. Second, I could not disagree with you more. Pollinators are one aspect of a very complex system of specific interactions that have evolved together so that every aspect fulfills a specialized niche in the ecosystem. I have a Master’s in both Wildlife Biology and Environmental Education. Did you know that songbirds gain their coloring for specific proteins found in their food sources? Each different protein will create a specific color. During migration and mating season, these proteins are by far the most important food source for each species of bird since a female will choose a male to mate with based first on his color brightness. The highest concentration of the proteins are found in many different species of moth caterpillars. Each caterpillar has a specific host species or genus that it eats, and nothing else. As the native moth caterpillars, that the native birds seek out, only eat native plant species, then without those plants both animal species are out of luck. There are thousands upon thousands of other examples like this, so just because pollinators drink nectar or collect pollen from non native plants that is where it stops. Not to mention many non native species that are used by gardeners end up escaping cultivation and become nasty problems in the surrounding wild areas. In my area, NW Ohio, 3 species that escaped cultivation have devastated many of the last remaining swamps of the Lake Erie Basin - Purple Loosestrife, Phrafmites Reed Grasses, and Asian Honeysuckle bushes and vines (multiple varieties). This has effected the water table, fish species, bird species, soil composition, etc. Every plant we plant as humans has an impact on every species since plants are the base of the food web, so what we chose can either be extremely beneficial, neutral, damaging, or extremely negatively altering. Being educated about each choice and their impacts is very important and can hopefully help save species that are currently on the brink and stop any more from becoming that way.

Interesting how some things change while others stay the same. Avalon: My Vets Honor gets a fair amount of morning sun. I have to say that it is a heavy feeder and performs best when fertilized consistantly. Belinda's Dream is a work-horse in my garden where I have almost as many of it as I do of Elina. I recently purchased two Pope John Paul II after being pleasantly surprised by the growth of one that I ordered from J&P in the Fall on own-root. I was able to find it at a nursery in Miami. Appearantly a nursery up in Central Florida has begun to take up the slack left behind from MerryGro and is selling J&P roses on Fortuniana rootstock under the name of Armstrong Roses. I've spotted a few of these roses at my local Home Depot in Pembroke Pines. Well, bottom line, and a return from my tangent, PJP II is creating quiet a sensation in my garden. Peggy: My hat goes off to you. I can't get into OGRs. I can just imagine that they're huge in their pots. I was just up to the Cool Roses farm this weekend and Geoff echoed what has been a growing problem in my garden, regular thrips. He said that the weather is keeping the Chilli Thrips at bay but that the regular thrips are reaking havoc everywhere. I was warned against overly using ConserveSC and to stock up if I found any for sale as it has become restricted due to nurseries over-using it to combat Chilli Thrips. In other news: My raised beds project is 40% complete and coming along nicely. I hope to post pics some time in the future. Enjoy our Spring while it lasts Florida!!! Adrian.

This one is from my own sweet mom, who is mother to 9 of us. To save on bathroom storage space ~ which, let me tell you, was at a premium with 9 kids! ~ she gave us each a simple, inexpensive, plastic tool-type caddy to keep our own personal bathroom necessities (toothbrush, comb, brush, etc. ) in. They were stored on a shelf in our bedroom closets, to be carried in and then back again, as we needed them. This helped a lot to keep our bathrooms uncluttered and organized. Mom also bought one of this type of plastic baskets for each kid to catch of our dirty laundry. She wrote our names on each of them. The plastic made it easy to keep clean and the holes kept our dirty clothes somewhat aerated . . . which really helped with our brothers' stinky things (LOL). The handles made them easy to carry back and forth to our laundry room. Lynn

I think you have superb taste in roses. I planted S.D.L.M in a triangle, one in front and two in back. It has rapid rebloom for its' class being fully 50% Tea, good fragrance, and is a no-spray rose locally. Lady Hillingdon has the longest bloom season and the most blooms per year of any Tea that I've documented. La France is a wonderful rose, with shapely roses that have a strong scent. climbing W.M.C. blooms once in spring, summer and autumn, where I live, while the bush form produces a couple more bloom cycles each year. I love Sombruiel. too though I cannot smell the flowers on my plant. Buff Beauty is loved by many, I prefer 'Reve d'Or' because it has a longer bloom season with quicker re-bloom in our climate and because of its' versatility, it can be grown as a bush, or climber or limbed to produce a rosebush with a tree like silhouette. The three ways of growing a rosebush is also true of the sublime beauty 'Grandmothers' Hat. A local rose park has several planted along a pathway limbed from the ground to 2 and 3/4 feet from the ground, and a bit more than 5' tall, they are planted upwind, from the path and it is a wonderful thing to walk along that scented pathway. I'd suggest a 'Susan Louise' to provide a shade for a sitting area. 'Susan Louise' is a Hybrid Gigantea (Rosa gigantea is Latin for "gigantic rosebush" it produces thousands of large pink and cream rose blossoms at a time, all year round, and locally I've seen it grown against a low fence of c. 4 feet tall where it grew to be 4 and 1/2 feet tall by 35 feet wide, I'm limbing my plant so it will resemble one grown a few miles from my home, which has a sillouette like an apple tree, with one trunk- thick central cane, bare from the ground up to c. 7 feet and a canopy of 18' wide by c. 11 feet tall. Good luck creating your rose paradise, Lux. P.S. I noticed you don't have any red roses on your list, I never appreciated red roses until I saw 'Gloire des Rosomanes' in full bloom. Because I always thought red roses appeared somber, but the white streaking that is seen in G. des R. and other China genetically influenced roses changed my mind. L.