Perhaps the clearest delineation I come across between gardeners can be found in the variation between how eager growers are to accept anecdote over science; or said in reverse, how diligent growers are in determining whether something can or should be taken at face value. How much we learn or how much we actually know about plants and gardening isn't necessarily related directly to the effort we expend to learn, or even to the effort we expend to gain what passes for experience. Experience is only valuable if we are learning from our errors and changing patterns so we don't make the same errors a second, third, fourth ..... time; and being bitten continually by the error half of 'trial and error' is actually one of the slowest ways to learn. It's not experience that has learning value if we are doing the same thing over and over again without improvement. I think experience is extremely overrated unless it's being used to validate previously acquired knowledge. IOW, learning by error and then changing 'something' in the hope of making things better is far less efficient than learning something from a reliable source and using our practical experience to validate that knowledge, or in some cases refute it as impractical for our application. Limiting our opportunities to learn to only those sources that are in accord with our personal views may increase the enjoyment we get from the affirmations we seek, but learning from a source that is concerned to the greatest degree possible with disseminating information w/o bias, puts us on the fast track when it comes to acquiring valuable experience, penultimately, and user-friendly knowledge, ultimately. I think it's pretty easy to take the measure of a gardener, at least on these forums, by considering how his observations and statements are qualified. The casual gardener is more likely to make broad statements and assumptions with little in the way of qualification; while the more analytical gardener understands that everything isn't always black and white, and illustrates the analytical side by thinking through his offerings to see if it holds water as a broad statement in all cases or if it needs qualification. As an example - the casual gardener might say, or accept on its face, the idea that because Mg is a critical part of the photosynthetic process, and that because banana peels or Epsom salts contain Mg, that adding either to your soil can only be a good thing. The analytic gardener understands it's not that black & white & qualifies the statement by saying it can be a good thing if the soil is deficient of Mg because they are both sources of Mg. Or, he might note that in the case of the banana peel, if there is no Mg deficiency, the excess may be (in the tiniest of degrees) a potential limiting factor that could be offset in other ways because of the addition of the OM. I don't think that analytic gardeners are necessarily better gardeners, but I think they have the potential to be better gardeners because they want to know 'why'. I also think that ambition has a LOT to do with how successful a gardener is. The diligent casual gardener will probably fare much better at harvest than the lazy analyst, illustrating that gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration; and the best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow. Al

I'm another rose novice, deciding during a torrential rain storm this winter that this would be the year I'd plant my first roses. I learned A LOT during the first week that I spent educating myself. Most importantly, I kept asking questions...and still do. My first advice is to share your climate zone and a general idea of where you live. Growing roses on the Pacific Ocean, where I live, is very different from mountains or desert, and even from someone's backyard 5 miles inland from me. The best suggestions will be those specific to your growing conditions. This is what helped me most to get started: - read/skimmed back 20 pages of this forum, an excellent source of a wide variety of knowledge - read articles on the ARS website (someone gave their link above) - looked up two local ARS chapters (using the ARS website) and contacted their presidents via email for help and advice. They were tremendously generous with their experience and knowledge. I eventually attended a chapter meeting for each, one of which had a great talk about organic rose gardening from a well-known rosarian. - volunteered to help care for roses at a local ARS test garden to learn skills like pruning, etc. - read the "organic rose growing" forum here because I only do organic gardening - called rose vendors recommended on this forum and asked them questions Through my initial research, I met three individuals (one here on the forum) who know my area well and volunteered to answer questions on an on-going basis. All three of them were able to give me very specific information, down to nitty-gritty details, for my micro-climate. Their advice, encouragement, and warnings are invaluable. Finding someone who knows your area from personal experience is probably the best way to wade through the overwhelming amount of, and sometimes conflicting, information about rose growing. Here is a link that might be useful: USDA zone map

Hi Crazy_Rose, I had over 30 roses from hybrids to David Austins when I lived in South Pasadena 10 years ago. We had CLAY SOIL and went the frugal way for amendment. We used playground sand from Home Depot. And then some slow release rose fertilizer. SUNNY LOCATIONS...well we found out that some of the English roses could not take the extreme heat all day long so we had to put in areas that get less sun. I've never seen roses do well in shade. Also, don't be alarmed if some roses are duds. Some just were bad plants to begin with and that doesn't mean that the rose variety is bad. For example, I have an Iceberg left over from last tenant and it is not prolific or bushy like the one I used to have. Yet the David Austin Mary Rose I transplanted from last house is doing the best ever! You'll love Double Delight. Big perfumed blooms, flowers all the time. Mr. Lincoln is an ol' standby. Lovely. Work in coffee grinds under the roses, chopped up banana peels and crushed egg shells. If you need coffee grinds, it's free at Starbucks. Worms love coffee grinds and that should also help with amending your soil from clay to loamy. Like a previous poster, don't over fertilize. You might want to join a Yahoo group I belong to...it's for California gardeners and there are a lot of members in Northern California. CASAPE (CAlifornia Seed And Plant Exchange). We haven't discussed roses yet :0) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Casape/ Susan, Altadena, CA

Amex has always charged more than the other cc companies. Others have already pointed out that those mall cc purchases really hit small businesses hard. We have customers that are kind enough to be aware of that and write checks or use their debit card, or even, believe it or not, pay in cash. A lot of you have mentioned Costco. I've never shopped at one because they're just not convenient to me, but I used to shop at Sam's. I quit doing that years ago because they had an annual fee, and I didn't feel like I was saving enough to make up for that annual fee. Most of what I got at Sams I could buy as a loss leader at a regular grocery store. I've also not found coupons to be very useful, because they're rarely for real food, just processed food. After seeing several stories on the news, and listening to co-workers, I broke down and bought a Sunday paper several weeks ago for the coupons. Boy, was I disappointed. I spent $2.00 on the paper, and maybe found that much worth in coupons that I might use, (which I have to admit I've forgotten about), and then I had all this mess of paper to deal with. What a waste of time that was. Sally