It's a lot of work, isn't it? I usually take the leaves off in the fall - I cut them right where they come from the cane. A shop vac sounds like a great idea! I was thinking it would be a great idea (but probably not practical) to hoist grow lights in the garage for early spring. Then I wouldn't have to keep pinching off new growth. Too bad about the ones in the ground. But there's still hope! Snow is a help - but definitely not enough where I am. LOL Anyway - as you said - Let the season begin!! Carol

Like most folks on this thread, I'll have to echo that teas (something separate from Hybrid Teas of course) don't necessarily thrive the further you get from zone 7. It's like anything else - you have to pick and choose among teas, and even then it may depend on local conditions like catsrose says from zone 6. I have had Madame Alfred Carriere for many years, and have planted some other noisettes or tea-noisettes recently (Blush Noisette comes to mind), and so far they've survived fine but are not cane hardy. The problem is that these seem to only bloom on old wood, so while MAC has absolutely massive healthy canes trying to eat my house every year, I've only had one year of bloom out of them in the past 6 years (a very mild winter where most roses had surviving cane). The same goes for many of my Bourbons and Hybrid Perpetuals, including Mme. Isaac Periere. As for teas, I've got some 6-7 year old ones that do fine for me and a few new ones planted. Some teas have died a miserable death (Monsieur Tillier comes to mind) and all of these are in a virtual zone 6 side of my house. The longest surviving ones are Mme. Antoine Mari, Mrs. BR Cant, Maman Cochet, and Duchesse de Brabant. Georgetown Tea was also good until it succumbed to user error. I wouldn't say any of these thrive in the ways expected for warm zone teas, but they make nice modest sized blooming bushes and recover reasonably well from being pruned to the ground even after all the protection I can give them. Bottom line is that zones 7 and to some extent 6 are probably the limits of where teas are likely to survive long-term, but they do need summer heat (we have plenty of that), rather than murky summer gloom like some regions can experience. I'm a bit of an anomaly in zone 5 and I'm fully aware that I'm zone pushing the teas. Nothing like a challenge though. Cynthia

My calculations based on Moore-Sikora tables is 50#/k (give or take a couple of pounds) if you use a 90-95 CCE lime like fast acting lime. If you want to go with their recommendation: for a 90-95 CCE lime like fast acting lime, you'd apply about 80#/k. Maximum recommended rate for fast acting lime is 48#/k in any 1 year total and no more than 24#/k in any one application. So 2 24#/k apps. To reduce adverse affects, apply early Spring (ASAP for you) and mid (if you get ground freeze) to late Fall (if you don't get ground freeze). Also avoid applying less than 2 weeks of another fertilizer application. If you feel energetic, you could do 4 12#/k applications 60 days apart, 3 9#/k apps every 60 days over two years, etc*. I prefer the two app. *You can go less aggressive and reduce the amounts and spread them over a couple of years which you will need to do if you go with the university rec of 100#/k (80 of fast acting). Your choice. Btw: TEC is Total Exchangeable Cations and CEC is Cation Exchange Capacity. They mean the same thing. Did you get a separate sheet with their NPK recs? The sheet you attached above just has dashes where the numbers would normally be. Good luck.

What a fall season: i had severe insect infestations this season indoors, still fighting fungus gnats. the fact that I side drill pots like steve has gnats running into the very bottom and sides since their elevated for drainage. Yellow stickers all over, just ordered mosquito bits, went through a case of peroxide. luckily no mites or scale, least its under control. Then right after fixing my basement ceiling and hanging new lights (to the day) my daughter drags a whole bunch of her problem plants down and put them in my space......I never got to properly arrange anything and got overcrowded temporarily and was treating her plants not setting up mine. Then I unknowingly created a hot spot when I extended grow area into a corner with interior brick walls, hitting near 100 degrees near the ceiling, leaf drop went crazy. I raised lights and pulled bulbs, moved plants around cut back light timers, played with the window and fan settings until I finally found equilibrium and now getting new growth. Compounding this almost all needed a repot which should have been done outside not inside when I had a hose. I may have two casualties a grafted morton and a miho wase that was roughly repotted....as far as the prague, one look at lauras and you can see that its spindly. A very vigorous trifoliate (or hybrid) rootstock that still goes dormant for a future cutting might be a valid answer as bob suggests. Right now I'm just hoping mine develops some more roots and gets through the winter.