Here I am again staring at your lovely roses, and the best rose photography I've ever seen.... Whisky Mac sigh.... the Dark Prince...Sharifa Asma, so many... Khalid you wrote: During previous years, I used to prune all my roses at one time but now I have decided that I will only prune those roses which show the signs for hibernation. Otherwise, I let them grow and finally prune them on 15 January Due to the rust I had I already pruned a few but not a full-prune. Did you do a full-prune with your roses, after they stopped blooming? I was thinking to do that a bit later on, closer to spring, but definitely to cut away a lot of canes, to prevent the rust problem....and with spring 2 months away. I can see the value of not allowing diseases to over winter.

Uuuuuuuhhh, where are you located? If my tree had that kind of asymmetric blotching, I'd send a picture to the local citrus station. It could be serious. Is your fruit also kinda weirdly bitter? Have you noticed little bugs sucking on your tree, kinda brownish looking?

Khalid: Your Michelangelo is stunning & gorgeous color-blend. LOVE THAT !! Port Sunlight (deep orange) and Molineux (yellow/orange) are known to be LOW in thorns & smaller & compact bush with little scent. Golden Celebration is wider-spaced large thorns. http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=21.225184 If it has very large thorns but wider-spaced apart, and vigorous & big bush, it could be Crown Princess Mag. (medium fruity scent large climber with thick stem). Below is cluster of Crown Princess Mag. in June, I used sulfate of potash, resulting in cluster-blooming. Crown Princess starts deep orange-yellow, but fades to lighter yellow. But when I compare my CPM leaves to your "Golden Celebration", My CPM' leaf is bigger & darker & more elongated, versus roundish & smaller Golden Celebration or Teasing Georgia leaves. Bloom color changes, with high-phosphorus fertilizer or compost, blooms shift to the red-zone, resulting in apricot/orange, rather than yellow. Since I used sulfate of potash (high potassium) my CPM is yellowish, rather than deep orange. CAUTION: sulfate of potash, anything high in potassium tend to BLEACH blooms. One fall I put too much sulfate of potash on W.S. 2000 and the blooms became whitish, rather than deep red/purple. UP the potassium, you'll lower phosphorus (needed to shift bloom to red-zone). Below is your "Golden Celebration" which I copied here to compare:

Yes, I understand that the immediate intention for the play area is not to install a play set. But it's coming eventually and do you want the planting scheme to do dual duty by working now and also be ready for the future without any major alterations? Or do you want to subject yourself to the possibility of making a lot of changes when a play set is installed? A year is NOT a long time. As the play area develops, it is divided from the planting area with a bed line. The bed line is something to be figured out now, on the plan (as information about the play set/area becomes known.) The bed line divides places where people could possibly walk ("floors": lawn, low groundcover, mulch-only) from places where they couldn't ("walls" & "furniture": shrubs, perennials and tall groundcovers.) Trees ("ceilings") could be located in either areas Another possibility with the pitts is to cut them down and do a total rejuvenation -- where you control/shape their re-growth (which will happen very quickly since they already have developed root systems) -- and trim them so as NOT to reach way out into the yard. Let them grow as a much narrower hedge which is later trimmed into tree forms and reaches and screens above the fence. Based on some of the prior discussion, I'm going to speculate that one potential problem that could come up is not devoting enough depth to the planting beds (that are likely to surround most of the yard.) In general terms, this bed(s) ought to be allowed 6' depth as an average minimum. There are usually instances where it can easily be deeper, and possibly some instances where it can be shrunk to 4' when sacrifices must be made. Plants require space and trying to maintain a bed that is too skinny/shallow is not only difficult & more demanding of maintenance, but it doesn't look very good either. That's something to be mindful of.