De-lurking here to say it's not just you! We had a strange spring with wild weather swings (up to 40F from daytime to night), and I have to say...this is the crappiest rose season I've had in 8 years. Very abundant number of buds--probably the most ever--but the quality of the individual flowers just stinks. Like the worst thrips damage ever, but each and every rose has it. Some roses had stunted/balled/withered buds, others had blackened petal edges, still others didn't bother with blooms. My Queen Elizabeths, easily the most prolific roses in my garden, haven't bloomed yet. There are some old, established bushes that hardly went beyond their pruned size and only spewed a few deformed buds. Thrips are normally a problem on my light colored roses, but this blight is affecting every color. The later developing buds are better--if on the small side. It's the roses that developed first (late April to early May, which is quite late for us) that were the worst. Surprisingly, the roses that seemed to shrug it off best were some of my David Austins--Jude, the Dark Lady, and a few others. But some of the DA's (Abraham Darby) and other shrub roses and climbers (like Sombreuil) were just horrific. My mom came over and said "you know, if you just look at the roses from the house, they're not so bad." Sigh. And we had such a lovely, rainy winter (for us) that I was sure the rose flush was going to be awesome. And the numbers were truly impressive--hundreds of buds on some of my small (3 ft) bushes, which is the best I've seen. But again, the actual quality of the buds was the worst I've ever seen. Some tried and true winners from my garden were hard pruned just because I couldn't bear to look at their browned/blackened/crinkly/balled horrible little blooms. These included: memorial Day, Queen Elizabeth, Sheer Bliss, Peace (sob), Marilyn Monroe, Daybreaker, New Zealand, Just Joey, blue Nile, Evelyn, Abe Darby, Charles Darwin, Autumn Sunset, Golden Something(normally gorgeous downturned sunny yellow blooms, but this time they didn't even open!),Chicago Peace, Tamora, Pink Peace, Mirandy, Mary Rose, Secret (double sob), McCartney Rose, Tiffany....I could go on, but I'm feeling kind of nauseous. To put it in different terms: I have over 160 rose bushes with few repeats, and this year I have only brought six cut blooms into the house. SIX. But who can really blame the poor roses? Last week we hit 100 degrees on Monday, and on Thursday the high was 54 with rain (snow in Flagstaff, poor buggers). What is a plant to do in these conditions? Apparently, they sulk. Now it's getting to be blistering hot again, with humidity in the single digits. Spider Mite season. I won't likely see a good bloom until September, and then the deer and javelinas will be moving in for their Autumn feast. I'm thinking of getting into daffodils. At least the lilies, Shasta daisies, coreopsis, and cannas are doing well. And the glads look like they might actually open this year (last year they were all duds). I'm off to sulk myself. Heather

I plan to make all my seedlings (that I can handle) flower, then force them for the following year, and give away. I already promised the first one for Cindeea, for she sent me seeds, the second one for Maria, for her seeds... And then the rest will go to Project Angelfood. Hopefully they will see it as a nice gesture and not an unnecessary burden. :o)

I'm 2/3 set....well, sort of. I'm still working on the hand made item, but I found the cookbook yesterday. Like many of you, I had to get 2 of them, one for myself and one for my partner. I'm still puzzling over the local item. I've found a nice locally produce item, but I'm not sure about shipping it. I'm going to do some more research. I've thought of other things, but Texas is a big state, and I'm not sure if the other side of Texas counts as local. Unfortunately, where I live the primary locally produced products are McMansions. I know I can spend as much as I want, but I'm NOT spending THAT much! LOL. Besides, that would definately be hard to ship! Sally

Pal, you mentioned contractor or wife. My story. I bought a house second hand. I knew it was the demo built for the contractor and his wife when I purchased it. It was the stud house in the neighborhood. I hated the decor, wallpaper, stove, bathroom furnishings, etc. I had to live with it, however until our children got their graduate degrees (at least). One day shortly after moving in, my neurologist called to ask if I would talk to a lady who needed a pep talk about MS, who was very depressed and he needed an upbeat patient to counsel. So, I told him to send her over. I am sure she told me her name but it was a common surname. She complimented my house and the decor. I thanked her, told her I loved the architecture and how every square foot was utilized wisely by the contractor, but went into a rant about hating other items, but getting it for a good price and how I planned to demolish the baths and kitchen, blah, blah, blah. It turned out she was the contractor's wife. She had chosen all the colors, papers, furnishings for the baths and kitchen. C'est la vie. Days have only 24 hours, thankfully and I was over my faux pas in about 4 days, so less than 100 hours. Neurologist has sent me no subsequent referrals.