Iowa is not the best either. I think we have every rose enemy, blackspot, powdery mildew, RRD, occasional spider mites, Japanese Beetles, crown gall, I am sure others too. Gardeners seem to admire someone who can grow clean looking roses, because most people can't do it. So if you are looking for a challenging environment, try Iowa. My parents are now in Arizona, and in the spring time their roses look great, and are tall with lots of flowers, and no diseases. They have a drip system for watering. My sister in Colorado Springs probably has an almost ideal environment. It is not humid. The summers are not as warm. They do not have disease issues like we do here. They might have critter issues, esp. deer. But you need to water, and she doesn't, and the roses I have seen there in mid-summer are disease free, and flower free. Regular watering would turn that around.

I had the idea (from changes in style of business) that he might now have someone working with him, but I don't know that. I hope so. I might suggest ordering early from Nick, partly to be sure you get your choices, and partly to be sure that scions aren't breaking dormancy when you get them, as one or two of mine were last year. Best, M

If you can find a specialty produce market that sells the fresh cut stalks, this stuff roots in like a week in water. That's how I've done it many times. Here in the Detroit area, we have large Asian and S. Asian communities and have a lot of upscale gourmet markets and ethnic markets that carry unusual produce items, and this item is always stocked at several of them. Don't know if it would be available in more rural areas or not.

Hi all. I'm a newbie to this forum but not to this topic. Bottom line in regards to the original posting: if you sign the forms and then violate those terms then you are legally responsible. Putting aside what I think about the chem congloms (I detect a stench strongly akin to that of Ma Bell), signing your name to a legal agreement is still binding. Say you decide to quietly save back some RoundUp Ready seed, or decide that non-GMO refuges are just a waste of time/money and put a field completely into a GMO crop...you are knowingly going against your contract and busted is busted. If the speed limit is 35 and you get clocked at 70 don't feign surprise when you get the ticket. We have been saving back seed from our best-performing variety of soybeans for the last seven-10 years (non-GMO of course). This year when we contacted the operation that we use for our cleaning and storage they informed us that they had totally discontinued this service due to ongoing litigation with several customes. You guessed it...people were caught saving back GMOs. And the same people who don't understand the concept behind a refuge system with GMOs are quite often the ones who have more and more weeds still nice and green after yet another year of ALS-herbicides and can't figure it out. They accept the technology as foolproof without ever fully understanding it. I am sure there are a few here who will immediately want a background check. Here's what you get: We are small farmers-- the dying breed, if you will. We farm less than 400 acres of the big three (a rotation of soybeans, corn, and milo), all conservation tillage. The only reason my husband and I stay with this is because his dad died this past September and we absolutely refuse to sell the family farm to the 5000 Acre-Big Names. If I had my way (and wishes were horses so that beggars could ride) I would put it ALL BACK into native hardwoods and prairie and tell the rest of these greed-driven big operators to keep their damn hands off...uh, sorry--need my Prozac fix, forgive the tangent. Did try Bt corn against my wishes...I don't feel secure around anything GMO but the decisions are not all mine to make. Objectively speaking, I did notice that the non-Bt had a higher mold occurrence in the ears due to caterpillar frass breaking down (Makes me think of the contaminated Diamond dog food in the news lately), but other than that, we didn't see much difference in yield or stalk quality between the GMO vs non. Of course, no two growing seasons are alike in terms of weather, pest stresses, etc.... Never used RoundUp Read...beans, corn, any of it. In fact three years ago we got a 30-cent PREMIUM for non GMO beans. Only money we EVER saw from RoundUp Ready was two years ago when a neighbor who does bow and scrape to The Roundups had an adjoining field custom sprayed... seems that operator skipped school the day they taught basic GPS and so we received a complimentary spraying and a bunch of dead beans. It isn't possible with bigger acreages, but some of us still do it the old-fashioned way: long-sleeves, a bottle of water and a cane hook. I admit I am losing ground to the water hemp and the cockleburrs in some places, but after the initial spring planting/spraying (yes, we DO use some chemicals) the majority of post emergent weed populations such as shattercane, ragweed and velvetleaf are up to me. I have yet to read of a knife-resistant strain of anything. Politicians, maybe?