Ortho has a hose end adjustable sprayer that has worked well for me with the Ortho product and the Spectra products as well. Saldut, I have to wonder what your preocupation with OGRs on Fortuniana is. If there are a class of roses that we Floridians can grow on their own roots it is the time tested OGRs. You are right about Nelson's Roses having a good selection but I would look up the mother-daughter team that is Blooming Idiots. They too are located up in the central Florida region but their specialty is pure OGRs (on own root, though). They've never had a problem growing great big OGRs in our soils (nor have I for all that matter, and I can kill a bush with the best of them). Your not getting a prompt response from Cool Roses doesn't surprise me. Debbie is the one that handles the e-mails and sometimes she gets too busy with the other stuff to get around to answering the cyber mail. I would recomend giving them a call. It's the fastest way I've been able to get ahold of them. As far as your BS problem goes...Nothing works for me as well as Banner Maxx and Dithane. Always remember that you need a contact fungicide and a systemic one to give the ole BS the one-two punch. Also consider, however, that with the heat we've been having that spraying could cause more problems than solve them. I'm waiting for a few good cold spells to cut everything back down and start up my spray program again (thrips are my constant demons). Another good preventative is to pick off the leaves with BS and throw it away in a trash can instead of letting it fall into the soil at the base of the bush. Hope this info helps.

Just got back from my vacation in Florida. I was very lucky I got to see several different types of plumeria. Kim was right, the local botanical garden had some real beauties. I was able to see plumerias growing in the neighborhood where I was staying. I was able to smell the wonderful fragrance they have. Some of my plumerias have grown to tall for me to store in my house, so I'm trying to grow cuttings, they have leaves now. Thanks for the great advice. Had a wonderful vacation On Singer Island. I loved all of the southern flowers!!!

In general P is not deficient in most garden soils (again that's talking without knowing your particular situation). In addition roses do not seem to be heavy P users (cereals are). Most gardens could easily flourish without any P addition. P also does not easily leach with rain. Excessive P can affect greatly the availability of other nutrients (mainly iron but others also). All this is just theoretical and greatly depend on your pH also. But this is the general idea. Applying a foliar spray of N and Mg wil probably quickly fix some of your issues (in the space of a few days). If your soil is Mg deficient then you should apply Mg in the soil also. I'm pretty sure you will need to add N too (easily leaches out and is the single most important nutrient in a garden environment and the one most commonly in deficit). But you won't know if the soil is deficient in Mg until you test it. What I'm trying to say is that a plant can be deficient of a nutrient while the nutrient exists in the soil and there are other reasons that can bind it in the soil so the roots cannot uptake it or the roots cannot uptake it because of wrong soil conditions (wrong pH). Professional produce growers get both the soil and the leaves tested to know exactly what's going on. The leaves green up again if they are not beginning to senate.

I concur with others who have noted that growing anything in pots on a rooftop in Los Angeles can be challenging. The relentless intensity of the sunshine is not something East Coasters are used to. Hollywood is a pretty warm area, too - not quite as hot as the Valley, but it is pretty far from the sea breezes and marine layer, and it is at the base of hills that trap a considerable amount of heat. Sunset Zone 24. And roofs can be the hottest and brightest spots of all. If she's in an apartment building with a flat roof, I'd check to make sure she's even allowed to have plant pots up there. I would hesitate to recommend she try to grow anything but succulents and cacti, if even those would survive. I lived in Hollywood for some years, and didn't have anywhere to garden but a bit of courtyard, so I had potted ponytail palms and Euphorbia trigona and things like that. A good garden center closest to her would probably be Anawalt Lumber, which is a very good local home improvement store with a good nursery section. They're usually pretty solid on advice. http://www.anawaltlumber.com/ I also used to be quite fond of Sunset Garden Center, in Silverlake. http://www.sunsetblvdnursery.com/about.html For cacti and succulents, she can drive out to a great specialty nursery, California Cactus Center in Pasadena. http://www.cactuscenter.com/ Rolling Greens in Culver City is a very nice spot for large containers at the high end of the market, but they are expensive and somewhat chi-chi - may not be what you're looking for. There is also a good cluster of Japanese-owned garden centers over on Sawtelle Blvd. in the West LA "Japantown" neighborhood. Good for big clay pots. I used to be able to find good big pots/containers at the Armstrong Garden Center on Wilshire in Santa Monica. Now I'm getting all sentimental about my former home...sniffle!