Hi, Joyce1 many of us got our rosy start in cheap chain store roses! Propagation: please do not propagate any roses that are still under patent, and i suspect many of yours are. If you check out each rose at HelpMeFind there is a place at the bottom of the rose page that will state the patent number if it is still under patent. Leaving the propagating to hybirdizers and licensed propagators ensures that their livelihood is protected and we consumers will continue to have access to quality plant material for years to come. As for your selections, the only one I have actual experience with is New Day. I bought it last summer as a pathetic Home Depot potted rose, and it thanked me by being a beautiful, healthy yellow bloomer all season! Unfortunately it did not survive our brutal winter. I wasn't surpised, but for five bucks, can I really complain??? Blue Girl is reputed to be a dog of a rose; you might be far enough south to make it work. NOTHING repels Jap beetles, sorry. The control measures you listed are really your only viable options if you do not want to poison all the rest of the bugs, good and bad, that visit your roses. I would take your roses back outside, to get some sun and rain. If they have been under cover at Walmart, give them gradual sun rather than a full day right off the bat. Good luck, have fun!

Kylie, I will pray for your sister. Please let me know her first name, so I can pray for her by name. Ox, I am impressed that you can be vulnerable. So many people think that having a hard shell is strength, but that's simply a generalized fear reaction and not strength. It is really much stronger to be vulnerable. And as you are being vulnerable, stay away from all those damn people you can't be safe with when you are vulnerable. Relationships can only grow when there is an approximately equal amount of self-disclosure. And when you are vulnerable and tell someone your feelings, it is an invitation for them to be more open and vulnerable. If they cannot be, you'll find out pretty fast, because often they will be rejecting to avoid the fear of vulnerability. Stay away from those people, because the relationship will never gain any depth. As you become vulnerable, do it slowly with info that is not extremely close to your heart, so that you can get an initial sense of whether this person is safe. Then you can progress from there. I agree with others, who say stay away from bars. You'll mostly find barflys. Church or synagogue is a great place, but not just any church or synagogue. Call the preacher, priest, or rabbi--you don't have to identify yourself, and simply say that you'd like to eventually find a nice woman and settle down and that if they don't mind your asking, HOW MANY SINGLE WOMEN DO YOU GUYS HAVE IN MY AGE GROUP. Go where there are a bunch. And if you're a serious searcher, you can usually make two services on Sunday mornings at different churches and another Sun evening at another church. Catholic churches also have services on Saturday evening as do other denominations. I don't know the schedule at synagogues, and maybe some of you who are Jewish can help Ox with that info. Remember the stats, that we get rejected 90 per cent of the time when asking for dates and don't dwell on it. Just move on to the next person you're interested in. And then after developing a relationship, we all get rejected at times and have done the rejecting ourselves. Don't know how old you are, Ox, but physical beauty is very important up to the age of 25 and then the kind of person she is becomes much more important. Of course there are many multiple people out there who will want to spend time with you. I'll tell the ultimate example of that from my own life and experience. On internship in New York City, 1969-70, one morning in staffing at Bellevue hospital, two guys were interviewed. Not just one, but both of these guys had murdered their mothers, both had cut out their mothers' heart, and both had cooked their mothers' heart in a frying pan and then ate it. I realized right then that no matter how bad or ugly anyone ever got, there was someone out there for them to be close to. I'll make the assumption that you are not that bad off. So looking and meeting people becomes fulltime in your spare hours, right? This year is a prime year to meet lots of women in political campaigns. You can just take your ass down to a local place and sign up. You can sign up to work in democrat and republican races, for president, for Senate, for Congressional representatives and state and local races, and stay where you have the most prospects. At these places, you are also more likely to find smart women who are willing to put themselves out for the interests of others. And better than church for good women hunting, you get to talk to them more than at church. Of course when the tv cameras are there, you probably don't want to be seen by the public cheering at the McCain rallies AND the Obama or Clinton rallies. Happy hunting, Ox. BTW, the quickest nonverbal binding strategy is to generally adopt the body language of the person you are interested in. And whenever you can, keep a palm open and keep that open palm from being facing down. It's fine in a sitting conversation to have your hand at your ear with your palm facing the other person. And the final thing. Assuming the light on the person's eyes stays constant, if she is interested in you, her pupils will slightly dilate. If she's not, they'll stay the same, and if you piss her off, they will contract. So if in the conversation, you reach out and touch her arm or shoulder, look at those pupils to find out if they're expanding or contracting. If they expand, she likes it. If not, they'll contract. Jim Jim

What a wonderful day indeed! Having met three of the four of you, I can attest that you all got on fabulously and had a lot to talk about! The closest Penzey's to me is about an hour, so I usually drive 7 hours and go to the one in Oak Park IL! Go figure... Love TJ's and Whole Foods, too but again, they're along way from my home in the "boonies". But they are opening a new TJ's this coming summer/fall only 1/2 mile from my work, so I see lots of paychecks being spent there in the near future! Glad you all could get together, and really glad you get to enjoy some sunshine. Not sure when I'll see the sun again around here! LOL Linda

Oak.... VERY interesting comment on the "Dew"! It reminded me of growing-up on the farm, and waiting for the dew to go away for swathing, combining, etc. At least the days are shorter now, so cooling at night gets more of a foothold! To the rest here- Yes...I know Man does dumb, polluting things to the environment. People & Industries who blatantly do it should be strung up! (believe it or no...I even recycle toilet-paper tubes, and lots of various plastics!! I've been known to pick up a plastic water-bottle on the street and recycle it!) Pesky- I like your recent post! Paraphrasing...."Climate change over millenia" HUGE point there!! But since that viewpoint doesn't distill into dramatic evening-news soundbites, I feel it doesn't get enough study. Mots people can't comprehend the massive shifts in climate that have happened in the mists of time. But headlines like...."Sea temps have risen .5 degrees.....!!!!" get lots of play. Well Duhhhhh! * IT HAPPENS ANYWAY....The eons-old La-Nina, & El-Nino effects on climate and rainfall. * The massive deep-well undersea currents that circle the globe go thru cycles too, which in turn affect climate. * I'm not ignorant. I learned long ago NOT to fall into "trending" science subjects, and leaping to conclusions. Faron PS...I read this somewhere long ago... (ancient Chinese proverb maybe?!?!? LOL) "If the lie is big enough, everyone will believe it..."