kittymoonbeam, thank you very much for the detailed information about this rose. That is very helpful! Pam, what a great idea to grow MEC over a ladder! I am glad to hear that you agree with kittymoonbeam that the disease resistance is improving with age. Jeri, thanks again for your input. I will follow kittymoonbeam's advice. I definitively will give this rose a shot in my garden. For me she is too beautiful to not trying to grow her. organic tosca, thanks for the book recommendation. I have heard got things about this book before, but never got it. Now I really have a reason :-). malcom manners, thanks for sharing your experience with MEC. Also thank you for the correction of the name. From now on it will be Mme. Ernest Calvat for me. Unfortunately I can't change the headline of the post anymore :-(. lori elf, thank you sooo... much for posting a photo and describing your experience with MEC. This rose looks so lovely in your garden. I really like the way you have trained her around the pillar! Christina Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Garden Dreams

I've grown Acalypha wilkesiana since I arived in Florida 25 years ago. They take full sun to 1/2 day shade. And yes, they can freeze back in tempatures that dip around 32 degrees. In south Florida, they can reach upwards of 15 foot. but here in St Pete, 6 foot is more like. I have several around my yard. My big red one - "Louisiana Red" stops traffic. The white one named "Java white" always gets an Wow! And don't forget about the chenille plant, it's in the same family, too. I think they're very easy to grow. If you can grow a hibiscus, you will not have any trouble growing one of these. Does anyone know the name of this one? http://community.webshots.com/photo/85749816/102335439FbLFIe Here is a link that might be useful: Louisana Red

Hi Tanama. Congratulations on your cool new old house. Two of the big advantages that were touted by concrete block manufacturers was that the stuff was cheaper than stone, and--when used as the main construction material in ahouse--that it eliminated the danger of termite & rodent infestation. In my old town, there was whole neighborhood of concrete houses, and after almost a century's worth of algae & moss & general weathering, those houses look just like real stone, or, at least, what real stone would look like if all stones were identical. Anyway, that's the nice thing about concrete: being compunded from sand & limestone & sometimes a rough aggregate, it eventually takes on the varying colors of natural stone and blends into the landscape. Your foundation has already aquired the nice patina of age, so I wouldn't be in any hurry to blast all that away and recover the dead gray of fresh concrete. That's also why I'd leave the ivy alone. It's historic. Ivy can play havoc with old brick buildings, but that's genrally because the mortar used with the relatively soft brick is more vulnerable than the hard mortar used with concrete blocks. Good concrete will last just about forever. It's what The Emperor Hadrian used when he rebuilt the Pantheon in Rome--which is still standing almost 1900 years later--and it was what Frank LLoyd Wright used to make his Mayan-Deco 'textile-block' houses in Southern Califnia back in the 192Os. At any rate, your concrete block is one of the things that contribute to the period character of your house, so be careful before you erase the patina that took decades to develop with a too-aggressive cleaning. Regards, MAGNAVERDE.

Pictures would help. But you'll probably want to advertise locally as you won't be able to get anything near retail for it, and you don't want to also pay shipping on such a large item.