garden, I used to use the Bayer drench. It will help against black spot, but you may still need a spray if the BS pressure is high and conditions are right. If you have active BS now, I'd also spray with the Bayer disease control spray. As far as JBs go, it will kill them after then eat the leaves or flowers. It probably will not stop your buds from getting damaged a bit. I never saw the bees affected by using the drench, but I can't be sure. If there are no open flowers, then they will not come in contact with it. I have to be honest that when I used the drench, I did not have a thrip problem. I thought it was a coincidence that I started having the thrips after I stopped using the Bayer. I stopped using the drench because it became too expensive to use once I had 100+ roses. I also preferred to use the spray for disease because it works so well and I wanted to use organic fertilizers. However, since my thrip problems are SO BAD, I did decide to use the Bayer drench on a few roses that have bad problems with thrips. I don't get a lot of JBs. I did put down Milky Spore a few years ago. I'm not sure if it's that or other things, but I only get a few. And the few that I saw were dead. Not sure if that was from the drench, but I can't really think of anything else. I know you are like me, you want to be organic and do all the right things, but sometimes it's not possible. I also wish there was just a drench for bugs or BS, but there isn't. I think judicial use of the drench is fine. When I used it, I still had many bees, butterflies and other bugs. Just not thrips :)

If you go out early in the morning while it is still cool and dewy wet outside, you may have better luck spotting the slugs. Once you get used to seeing them nearly invisible hugging the edge of leaf or sometimes even curled around a new bud, they aren't so hard to find, but you have to kind of train your eye to actually see them--they blend in well with the curves of the leaves. Sometimes towards evening if it gets cooler, they seem to come out to the edge of the leaves again. I guess they like to hide under the leaves in the heat of the day. Your slugs may all be "departed" by now. After a week or two, the good bugs come along and get them. Unfortunately, they leave the damaged leaves behind for a long time. Once I think the good bugs have done their job, I clip back the canes a bit to get rid of the ugly leaves and to stimulate some new growth--aided, of course, by lots of water and a feeding (if they haven't been recently fed, that is). Fortunately, no slug problem this year. Had lots last year. Don't know what makes the difference. Kate

You, too, and good luck with your project. I've certainly thought about soil testing, and have always been stymied by not knowing who could do it. And the answer is idiotically simple: go to our local nursery and ask. Instead I'd rather do it the hard way (and it is hard). I never claimed to be a smart gardener. About my soil amending and fertilizing practices: I was much influenced by a book, 'Teaming with Microbes', that was recommended to me by my horticulturalist sister. Basically it talked about the importance of establishing a thriving soil microlife that then nourishes the garden plants. The gardener establishes a virtuous (as opposed to vicious) cycle in which the microlife supplies nutrients to the plants, which grow, die, and the detritus of which feeds the soil microorganisms which recycle the nutrients. Getting the process started is the hard part, in land like ours which is poor in organic matter--hence all the holes and amending--but which, once the cycle gets going well, can pretty much be left to itself. We have so much land to turn into garden that the work is enormous. But I look out my living room window right now at the garden outside (it used to be the farm courtyard), and I think, this works. I don't fertilize my two-story tall 'Jaune Desprez', the substantial shrubs of pittosporum, sarcococca, myrtle, the hardy palms and Tea roses. The bed gets pruning clippings and plant debris, and everything grows fine. Of course we have our clay soil. But if you look at Florida, for example, much of it has very poor sandy soil. And yet jungles grow there. The nutrition isn't coming from the mineral-rich soil, and not from any added fertilizer. It's due to the recycling of nutrients.

Well, I just did the official count of roses after doing the annual June death march (to make a final judgment of roses that didn't survive the winter), and the present total came out to 1140 roses. I've officially joined the premium level of rose nut, which apparently hits if you have more than 1000 roses. Now as for time spent, I'm sure you're thinking that I either: a) spend every waking minute in the garden and have no other job, or b) hire out most of the rose care to someone. I don't do any of the above, since I have a more than full-time job and family with kids at home, as well as something vaguely resembling "a life". Also, I'd never trust my roses to any outside person, particularly the usual "mow and blow" services. We do our own lawn too. So what are the tips that keep me mostly sane? Well - as sane as anyone with over 1000 roses can be. 1. I don't spray anything. No spray is lazy gardening, and it makes the roses either shape up or ship out. I used to spray Liquid Fence once a year to discourage the bunnies, but I think they're so bewildered by the vast array of choices in my yard that no one plant suffers too much. Besides, my son complained of the Liquid Fence smell, so I don't even do that. Ditto for insecticidal soap - I've gotten a good balance between good and bad bugs and I don't see any rose slugs or aphids any more. 2. I get reasonably regular rains. As several folks mentioned, that is a key for successful gardens and a real time sink if not there. During our dry seasons in August (and this year, June) when we don't get any appreciable rain, I water all the garden beds for an hour a week each with overhead sprinklers. This involves setting the sprinkler on trips from inside A/C at 5 minutes a bed (maybe 1/2 hour total time). As I said, lazy gardening. I also plant all new roses with the Watersorb water crystals, so they have moisture reserves to protect them against dry temperatures. These crystals die down after a year or so, so they learn to survive on their own once established. 3. I don't weed, I mulch. As halloblondie said, there are few garden things that are more effective labor savers than organic mulch. For me, I can weed anything that pops up in my garden beds with two fingers, except dandelions or bindweed. 4. I make garden efforts do double (or triple) duty. For instance, I winter protect with bagged leaves rolled to the edge of the garden bed or stood around the particularly fussy tea roses in one bed. Those filled bags kill the grass at the edge of the beds, meaning I don't have to edge the beds. Then in spring, I spread the leaves around the base of the roses and other garden plants for mulch, and store extra bags for use later in the season. Leaves then break down lightening the soil and substituting for fertilizer by adding a little nitrogen. 5. Bundle gardening tasks, and make the roses mostly fend for themselves. I admire those of you who use the fish fertilizer sprays and things like that regularly, but I never seem to get around to it. I save milk jugs to fill with water when planting roses, and I have jars of fish fertilizer I always intend to use later in the season to perk up the newer planted roses, but I rarely get around to it. I sometimes add a little alfalfa, Ironite and 10-10-10 fertilizer once a year to the established roses, but I missed last year and haven't done so yet this year. If I successfully do the established fertilizer, it's usually bundled with pruning tasks in March/April so I spread the fertilizers around established roses before layering down the mulch. 6. Don't sweat the small stuff - roses are much tougher than you think. Chewed leaves, bugs, blackspot, wilting, lopsided growth - bah, you can handle it! And if not, you don't belong in my yard. 7. Monitor the important things. Canker needs to be dealt with swiftly and brutally in my yard, and Japanese beetles get no mercy and swift and (hopefully) painful death. 8. Enjoy the time you spend, and share the joy with others. Remember why you do this in the first place. You don't HAVE to work in the garden, you CHOOSE to. If it becomes drudgery, downsize and/or simplify. I agree with all of you that gardening is my #1 favorite activity in spring/summer and it's where I most want to be. 9. Take care of your body and listen to it. I have several herniated disks in my back, a hip replacement, rheumatoid and osteoarthritis, I'm in my 50's, and I'm allergic to everything that grows outside (so why am I a gardener??). I take care of my back by careful positioning and movement, stretching out frequently, and having treatments at home that compensate for full long days pushing my limits. I also make sure to stop and literally smell the roses, or hang out on the swing gazing at and appreciating a good day's work. Oh, and one of the two best activities to counteract arthritis?? You got it - GARDENING. The other is light weightlifting - both involve gentle weight bearing movement - and I get my weightlifting in my 50 pound bags of alfalfa... Movement is medicine, and I put it to its test. So how much time to I spend in the garden to maintain 1140 roses? Depends on the time of year: - Most of the summer into the fall, I spend maybe 3-4 hours a week on the weekend deadheading, cane monitoring/trimming, and taking pictures of roses. The latter occupies most of that time by far. I don't deadhead roses individually with so many blooms (like Darlow's Enigma), but chop off sprays when dead if and when I feel like it. Within this 3-4 hours is usually also monitoring and picking fruits and vegetables. - Spring pruning and rose planting season is more like 20 hours a week in the garden, usually long days both Saturday and Sunday. I also prune around 75 roses for our church, which adds another 20 hours I work in somewhere. The 20 hours in March/early April are pruning, inspecting, pulling off protection/mulching, and (maybe) fertilizing. The 20 hours in late April/May are planting and watering as needed (including the vegetable garden). - Late fall I return to 20 hours/week for a few weekends to plant the 1000's of bulbs I do each year, but the roses by then are on their own. After bulb planting is done in early November, I start collecting and placing leaf bags in my usual 3-4 hours a week max. See, it's doable! Not that I recommend this many roses for people who aren't insane, but I still have time for my family and work and church and cooking most of the meals, though I draw the line at cleaning house (that's why God made teenagers). Cynthia