Sammy, thanks for your response! I do love the flowers and can ask the person who gave it to me what its variety is. It came from a GW, Mid-Atlantic Gardening Board Spring trade a few years ago. It is the darkest, reddest rose without pink in it. Which is why she gave it to me. I'm not a pink fan. "Pickers" are what we grew up calling "thorns." I forgot not everyone calls them pickers. I have nothing with pickers! Not even some of the incredible, red Bayberries simply because of their thorns. I am going to go out and give this bush the stare down. But the ground it's in is hard and not terribly rich. I'll start with water and fertilizer. Ants: One of the banes of my existence. I was given 11 dumptrucks of dirt when my next door neighbor dug out a driveway. I really needed that for grading and was trying to figure out how to pay for it. A blessing. A month or two later, I had my fumigator over for April termite treatments. He looked at my yard and asked, "What are you growing?" I replied, "Ants." There were so many ant hills on this dirt, the dirt looked tilled. He was astonished and said in 25 years of this line of work, he'd never, ever seen anything like it. Despite him treating the dirt, and my 3 years of trying to stave off the millions of ant mounds,not only in the grass, they pop up in my Japanese Maple pots, around and under every hosta and hellebore, and God forbid I don't wet down and cover with potting soil any dead leaves. Under my siding, steps and flowerpots. I've come to hate stepping on that soft ant hill dirt. They've moved east across my acre and are making their home in my other neighbor's yard and garden. My point in all this is I've been spraying. I never thought about granules. What do you use? The Ortho stuff? Sorry. I always have a story. I'll get to work on my rose.

Pug... The ssp. tenuipes I have came from HD and is an EA plant. New growth is copper if given enough sunlight. It's a beautiful plant!! Cena... My ssp. tenuipes is budding up right now. I can't wait for it to bloom. I got a couple of blooms on it late winter or early spring this year and it was such a TEASE!! Beautiful AND frgrant! I can't wait... But you're right - this is a species that is an aggressive climber, and you have to keep it whacked back to keep it in check. But what a beauty! Denise in Omaha

Thanks for checking in on our progress, patty_cakes! Unfortunately, with all of the rain we've received over the past month or so, progress came to a standstill and we are still waiting for our foundation to be poured! Construction crews all over this area are so far behind on jobs, and I'm trying to have patience. At least we presently have a house in which to live. I know that there are many who work construction here who depend on having those regular paychecks and when they stop rolling in, they really suffer. My heart goes out to them, and I'm trying to keep this all in perspective! As it now stands, our projected completion date is mid-October at the earliest. We have made all of our selections for the house, and I think I've got photos of most everything we've selected here in my "idea book." (Can you view it?) My vision was to keep things as classic and timeless as possible. We've chosen hardwood flooring throughout, with the exception of the bathrooms and the laundry which will be tiled. My kitchen will have white cabinets (with a couple of lighted Flemish-glass fronted cabinets to display my blue and white Cornishware), black granite countertops, and a glossy white subway tile backsplash. We've added crown molding throughout the house. Will have a stacked-stone fireplace in the living room (which is open to the kitchen - a concept that will be quite different than we are used to!). The bathrooms will be simply styled with white subway tile in the showers, white integrated counters/sinks, and we'll have brushed nickel hardware throughout the house. The walls will be painted a very neutral off-white -- certainly different from the Crayola box that our current house used to be! I'm yearning for simple, classic, clean. And new. Never, EVER thought I'd be saying that, but well ... here I am. :-) We'll be buying new furniture once we're in. I'm leaning towards a sectional in the main living space, and we'll need new bedroom furniture for the master and the upstairs bedroom. The little "game room" upstairs will be a space for TV watching and reading, and I'd like to furnish it sparsely but comfortably. I plan to use my paintings as pops of color, and it will be fun to figure out where to hang things once we move. I'll have to sell a few pieces, but I think I can use most of my favorites. We have already committed to plantation shutters in all of the rooms requiring window coverings, and I'm really happy with that decision. I've loved that look for ages, and am also just tired of dealing with curtains. Right now it still feels a little like a dream that's a long way off ... But I know we'll get there eventually!

do you have a piece of preglued wallpaper you did not use. Doesnt need to be the same wallpaper. If you do, cut a few strips and soak in warm water until the glue is activated. Then slip the glue side of it to the back side of your wallpaper , press down and then pull on the cut strip to transfer the glue to the back of your wallpaper and reseal. Or you can buy wallpaper paste and a small brush and do much the same. But the strips of wallpaper trick is much faster and easier.