My Earth Song--about 8 years old and moved at least 3 times--has RMV and has never had rust. The RMV hasn't seriously impacted my Earth Song, as far as I can tell. Here are a couple samples of its spring performance: Earth Song--bottom right corner My daughter's pic of Earth Song several years ago and in a different location: Heavily pruned Earth Song--couple years ago after winter-freeze damage due to a lot of freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw fluctuations in early spring. That is the most severe pruning I ever had to give Earth Song, but as you can see, she bounced right back and had no trouble blooming again although she was shorter than usual as a result of the heavy pruning. Earth Song close-up--from about 6-7 years ago. Another Earth Song close-up from about 7 years ago. Wish it would hold that form for longer period of time. My conclusions, based on my experience with Earth Song: 1. Earth Song is NOT a "rust-bucket" in regions where there are NOT high rust pressures--which is most of America, I believe. 2. Earth Song is a fairly heavy and willing bloomer. 3. If Earth Song suffers from late winter freeze damage, heavily prune it back to good canes (with white centers) and it will spring back willingly with abundant blooms. 4. Under normal and usual Midwestern growing conditions, Earth Song exhibits good disease resistance (including good BS resistance). 5. My pics above show what a RMV Earth Song typically looks like and how it blooms. I can't see it is suffering much from being RMV. Sorry I don't have a picture of a leaf with the zigzag marking on it, but it never occurred to me to take a picture of it. I just had to come to the defense of this good rose, given the beating it has taken on this thread. Kate

RANT !! I'm not one to stick my head in the sand and totally dismiss global warming, but I don't believe all the science has been accumulated and digested. Back in the 1960s, scientists were reporting in "THIS WEEK" magazine, the precursor of the Sunday "PARADE" magazine, that we were going into another ice age. There were several other articles during the same period predicting another ice age. This was back in the days before the EPA and air quality alerts. I sometimes believe the theory of global warning is a ploy by the ultra-environmentalist, tree hugging eco-terrorists to stampede us into stricter environmental protectionist laws. There was a mini-ice age from about 1400 through 1830. How do we know we aren't in a temporary warmng cycle which is just exacerbated by industral pollution. SUPPORT NUCLEAR POWER!

Hello, I've been lurking for a while and only recently became a member. Since it seems like everyone knows everyone on this forum here, I decided it might be good to introduce myself. I'm a university student living in British Columbia, Canada. My grandfather passed his love for plants on to me by letting me tag along as a little kid while he tended to his garden. My love for Hippeastrums began early on. One day my grandfather took me to a garden center (I think - it's been a while) and I saw one of those boxes with dry bulbs in them. I could not believe that the spectacular flowers shown on the box really could come out of the onion looking things, so of course I had to have one. Sadly, everything went downhill from there. As you all know, it's impossibly easy to get a newly bought bulb to bloom. Getting a bulb to maintain condition and rebloom was another matter. I could not keep a single bulb in good shape. At first I was too impatient and kept disturbing the plants and checking on the roots (mind you, I was 12 or so back then) and of course, amaryllis resent disturbance. Later, as I familiarized myself with Hippeastrum care, it turned into a tragic-comedic sort of affair. Every summer I'd put my bulbs out in the sun with high hopes, and every summer I'd end up disappointed. On several years it was devastating hailstorms. One summer the plant sitter just didn't water them at all while I was on vacation. I couldn't keep them indoors because I didn't have windows that got any meaningful amount of direct sun. Sometimes they just didn't thrive for reasons unknown (in retrospect, I suspect inappropriate drainage). One time it seemed like I was guaranteed to succeed. I had a large, healthy-looking bulb by the end of august that naturally (I thought) dropped it's leaves for dormancy. Then I lifted it for cleaning and found a strange, soft hole at the base of the basal plate. You all can probably fill in the rest of that story yourselves. This year it seems like I have finally succeeded. The two Mont Blancs I rescued last year are still plump and healthy more than a year later. One of them went dormant in december, while the other dropped a few leaves but still seems active. Their roots are extensive enough that I could lift the entire 5 gallon pot by the necks of the bulbs if I wanted to. Here they are enjoying the sun. My recent success also gave me confidence to order from Royal Colors this year. My order of two bulbs seems quite measly, but I don't have much space in the current apartment. Flamenco queen Samba

Westy, my gardens have been right near the ID/WA border for many years. I just consider this the Intermountain West. The water comes out of the Rockies, for the most part. It brought huge floods during the Ice Age and left hundreds of feet of gravel as the floods broke thru the Selkirks. I can see the ranges of the Rockies and the Selkirks are a stone's throw from my garden. Carolyn is probably Carolyn Male. She wrote a book on heirloom tomatoes several years ago and is, I believe, a biologist, PhD. I grow a Dr. Carolyn cherry tomato that was named for her. If I remember the story right, she provided some Galina tomato seed to a gardener and a plant came out with ivory-colored fruit. I like the cherries and the plants seem especially healthy. I have about 20 varieties and 50-some plants in the garden so I'd just better get this one (Sweet 100) out and think of it as a necessary loss. A lot of gardening success is just coming up with the varieties that have the least problems in the environment. Some have broad adaptability but many just don't amount to much outside of where they were developed. Cherries have BER next to never. Still, Snow White cherries developed a bad case of it one year. I even talked with Dr. Carolyn about that - over there in the tomato forum. Seems that it was a problem during a university trial of Snow White, also. But anyway, I put a lot of emphasis on cherries and then try to grow early varieties of whatever size that don't split . . . that is just about the biggest problem in my garden, overhead watering and splitting. Stay with it! Next year things are likely to go better. Steve