trends and fashions, mariannese. At the moment, everything here is 'grow your own' with a sideshow of tropicals, prairie planting and ornamental grasses. A quick look in any bookstore will illuminate where the money is going in gardening - design is god. Not only nurseries, the horticultural trade as a whole is going through one of those reinvention moments. many colleges have downsized, teaching fewer modules in plant husbandry, nursey stock, even basic gardening, in favour of quick, money-spinning design courses. Everyone wants to be a bloody designer (We are....and we have seen some absolute cowboys who know NOTHING about plants). There are less apprenticeships. less facillities and many councils, parks and colleges no longer grow their own plants - they merely buy them in cheaply, two or three times a year, from massive greenhouses in the Netherlands. Therefore, the perceived need for knowledge and experience is receding while the nursey trade is vastly over-capitalised - almost impossible to get a small start-up going now. In the UK, the rose trade has largely been fairly steady although Beales, our foremost old rose grower, was in financial difficulties last year and have been forced to look at new ways to generate revenue (teaching courses, expanding the product range, taking on franchises selling garden structures and so on). However, I cannot help but feel quite optimistic for the longer term since roses have been around for hundreds of years while the same cannot be said about restios, bananas, echinacea and miscanthus and the rest of the fashionable plants. Moreover, in a time of anxiety and fear, people invariably fall back into nostalgia and conservative thinking....and there is nothing so redolent of english gardening as a rose. Individuals, sadly, will fall by the wayside and it may be that, for a time, we are dependent on amateurs and a few larger firms to supply us. However, these plants are out there - they are not going away and if the gardening world seriously addressed the issue of failing sales, they would be forced to engage in some imaginative thinking and address some of the many issues which troublwe people who would grow roses if they did not use so much water, pesticides and fertilisers...a matter of education and breaking down artificial barriers to full understanding. Not only that, breeders are also keen to address these troubling problems such as health and vigour, the way roses are planted within a larger scheme and the general good value of planting long-flowering shrubs - we will see a lot more ground-covering/landscape roses which, to my mind, will be a good thing as I am heartily sick of hebes and lonicera, aucuba and bloody skimmia - our usual municipal plantings. The rose industry is not dead or even slightly ill - it is just changing...and a good thing too.

Wow that's really good deal Ianna

Petals from the past is having their rose sale now. Buy 2 get 1 free, which equals $10 each. These are gallon roses! Jason Powell, the owner, grows them all no spray, so he's a great resource if you live in the area. Here is a link that might be useful: Petals from the past

Kentucky - I have been trying to figure out how to make some raised beds- or raised pots for the front yard landscaping. I don't want the look of basic garden vegetable beds for around the front of the house though. I thought maybe I could dig 2 ft hole and put a 2 ft raised planter on top of it, that night work. I iam also thinking about making very big planters (they are ridiculously expensive to buy. I am not sure about the aestetic for my front landscaping, but after considering many materials and my craftsmanship capabilities I have a plan. I will just have to try it and see how it looks. It could sit above ground, part in ground or in ground. My design is 2"x2" wood frame cube (or taller) dark cedar stained (ECO friendly and plant safe). Side and bottom panels of 1" hardware cloth. Inner lining of natural burlap. It would sit on 8" concrete blocks (in ground) with the hole side up foradditional drainage. Inside bottom filled with river rocks then another lining of burlap to contain the soil and the plant and finally mulch on top, of course. It would have to be big enough to allow 3'x3' space for the roots to grow in the soil area. Again, the aestetic is the probelm (aside form all the hard work and digging). I think it wold look descent but odd. To build a retaining wall for the space under the front window of the house would not look right eiterh at the height I need it to be. I think the real solution is to pay for a backhoe to come in here and excavate the clay and then have new soil put in - way too expensive for me right now. I do have one narrow strip on the west side of the front yard that I am lining with concrete blocks to build up that soil area. I plan on very tall trellises lining that hill (all my land is hilly) and covering them with rose and jasmine vines as a privacy fence. The probelm is the area is part shade - never sunny and that is not goo for any of the plants I like. I bought the Charles Darrow Hybrid Musk for that location as it is reported by others to grow and bloom very well in shade. I also have some varieties of Jasmine that might do in that spot. I am also thinking of Camelias and Sky Pencil Holly. My Hollies are about 1ft tall now. It will be years before they grow big enough.