My "early" garden was a bust, even with shadecloth on parts of it, though I may have waited too long before shading. I grew 4 kinds of corn, all supposed to be heat & drought tolerant & got nary an ear, but it bloomed. On the other hand, my fall garden did well & I managed to get at least some tomatoes. My winter garden is peculiar--lettuce & some greens bolting, broccoli making loose heads, etc. In January. Just enough cold weather for my cabbage to start heading finally. I have planted a couple of cool weather tomatoes in hopes they will survive, but the others stay in for now. Most of the black tomatoes will continue to produce in heat & a few others. I find myself freezing more now so I know I will have it. Last year was a sure cure for complacency!

Well, maybe I should have prefaced my comments with, "In my limited experience with Bermuda...." I definately don't have anywhere near the experience TW has, so listen to him. This is my second season with my Bermuda lawn and I have not noticed any negative effects from cutting in hot weather...although it is usually in the morning or evening when I mow. Cut it last night...think the temp was still 97 or so, down from a high of around 100, with a heat index of 115.....

Hello Jan, Are you back home? I live in Central Alabama, between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. I agree with Belinda's Dream for sure, but haven't yet planted any of the others he recommended.. the Old Garden Roses are wonderful for the fragrance as well as the beauty. I also like Louis Phillipe, a red china. It is a great bloom machine. Not huge roses, but it blooms all summer and smells great. (right front) Iceberg is a wonderful white rose. It is a shrub that blooms from spring through summer and fall. William Shakespear 2000 is not quite 2 years old. I got it from Chamblee's as a one gallon plant. Tht pink behind is Belinda's Dream. If you want a huge climber, I second the suggestion for New Dawn ...big thorns though, so be careful where you plant it (Not near a path) Doesn't get blackspot: This one is about 5 years old. Started as a band. My big baby: Close up of blooms...and it is fragrant, as are all of these. William Shakespear 2000 is still patented, but the others aren't, so if you wanted to try rooting cuttings.... kay

How to Root Roses... as told to me by our local "rose witch", Venessa, who grows gorgeous roses: Use clear plastic cups with plantable peat pots inside for "liners". This way, you can see roots forming without removing the little rose from the cup & disturbing it, & then when you plant the rose, peat pot & all, into a larger pot, there's almost no disturbance to the tiny roots. Poke drainage holes in the bottom of the plastic cup. Use coconut coir, available at pet stores, for the rooting medium. Break apart the coir brick & soak it in a bucket of water. When it's saturated, put it in the peat pot, put the peat pot inside the clear container, & use a pencil to make "post holes" in the rooting medium (the coir). Take a cutting from the growing tip of a rose (one that hasn't already been cut). Remove most of the leaves, including any tender new growth, leaving only a few at the top. Using a knife or the blade of a pair of scissors, gently scrape off the "skin" below that first node, & submerge the cutting in water & cut it again about 1" below a node or joint. This fills the cut end with water instead of air, so that the little cutting can uptake water without being stopped up by a "cork" of air. You can also split the end where the stem is cut. What you're doing here is exposing as much inner tissue as possible to the rooting hormone & the medium: The inner tissue is the part that forms roots. Dip the scraped area in a rooting hormone & gently tap off the excess (too much will burn the cutting). Gently put the cutting into one of your "post holes" (if you just stick the cutting into the coir, you may scrape off the rooting hormone), then gently tap the coir back into place around the cutting. Spritz the cutting with water, & keep it in a warm shady spot until you see roots through the sides of the cup. Use a clear plastic cover to keep the humidity high. (I don't have one of those, so I just put the roses in the shade & keep them spritzed; easy enough, since I check them every day anyway.) As soon as you see roots, prepare a "real" pot with good potting soil & re-plant your rose, still in its now-soggy peat pot, in that. Baby your rose until it grows up somewhat; this will be an "own-root" rose, & its root system won't grow as vigorously as the grafted varieties that we buy in the nurseries or mail order places. The roses that I rooted last summer are still in pots, & I protect them from the worst of our heat. They should be ready to plant next spring. If you want to root some roses this summer, go right ahead: the ones that are rooted in the warm months will do fine. If you start them too late in the year, they aren't strong enough to last over the winter.