I just wanted to say thanks everyone!! Very informative articles and so much knew stuff you learn each day comming here...I never understood this about bark and wood.. All I can say is thanks! I FINALLY found some! Fir bark... I remebered buying orchards from someone I met in my area over 5 years ago that was growing beautiful and citrus back then, and I remembered him saying someday he was going to sellevery good supply he could think of for orchards and tropicals, to help people be sucessful at these plants. It was a dream of his. I saved his number from then. I called him, and come to find out, he is a big supplier of YES!! "fir bark"...We were both happy to hear from each other besides. He has fine and or small and medium grade...He says it's real real good stuff. He specializes in this bark..NICE ha. Now I am excited. I get a FREE delivery of three bags within the next couple of days... I will take a pic, and you can see if it as nice as he says when I get to using it.... If it is, then I would be willing to tell you where I got it privately, since it can be VERY difficult to obtain this hard to find good stuff..:-) A secret he shared. I asked him how his plants were doing. He said better than ever before, since he waters his plants once a month with, ready? Seltzer water, sodium free.... He explained the benefits in detail, hard to remember...Hummm.. As anyone ever heard of this, watering container plants with seltzer water?

I have a bareroot rose from last year and I have it in front of a side fence to discourage anyone from hopping the fence to get in the back. Someone stepped on it late last fall and broke and bent canes off to the ground and within a few inches. I cut them off and with normal watering it came back this spring, growing off what I thought were dead canes and I didn't see anywhere it could start growing from again. I almost think it's going to be a better rose bush for it. I don't think a bent, damaged cane could sustain the weight roses would put on it. From what you're saying I don't believe the rose will regrow the damage done. I don't really understand where it's broke out but I think you'll have to prune it off and hope to spark new growth with some watering. I'd be putting some Vitamin B1 on it for stress. You might create a well around the rose and water it deeply before you go, maybe it would be enough if it's not too warm where you are. Roses are pretty tough, I've had various accidents with them and thought they'd be toast and they were fine.

Thanks everybody! Harold, I wish I could get out and just get my winter deadheading done. Don't have time. I only have Sundays off, and the rest of the week, there's not enough daylight to get any time in outside. Can't wait til the days get longer again... Christina, I can't believe there are so many roses till trying to bloom even beyond these guys. It's amazing. And that MCCARTNEY ROSE.... ooooh what a delish scent it has!! Masha, if I could, I would start a nursery. As it is, I can't. But I keep hoping one of these days I can get some cuttings of some of the rarer roses to Cliff so he can propagate them. We'll see... Iris gal, I really thought I had lost CC. She sat dormant for about 8yrs. The bed she's in is total crap as far as the soil goes. LOL.. actually "crap" would help!! Rosemeadow, I don't believe Lois has any scent. But then, I could be wrong. I rarely check. Especially her. She's like 8ft tall (and not even a climber!) Judy, I'm with you... I can't wait for spring. I hate winter. Ya know my camellias don't bloom til Jan-March. In fact, they didn't do much last season... Lesley, I love THE MCCARTNEY ROSE too. It's one of the smelliest roses I have. And usually always blooming too.

I boiled my dozen eggs last nite for scotch eggs. Gonna hit the kitchen now to peel them and will have them ready for cooking in the moring before heading to friends. Learned this from a fireman: In boiler pan, after eggs have cooled in refrigerator, and are well drained, put the lid on and shake them like you would if you are popping popcorn . Open and they should have peeled themselves or partly peeled. Twill see in couple minutes.