I don't have any blog but did buy my own domain for the sole reason that I have more control over presentation and put up a few slideshows of this and that. But I'm not really getting my full money's worth out of it. It's a .com, but I've never sold anything off it, but it loads faster and is down much less than some of those other sites. I also use it to temp store my photos to embed in posts or sometimes send family & friends links to them rather than a lot of attachments, giving them more control if they want to bother with it or not and not clogging up their inbox and slow downloads big emails take. I did start a blog, but don't know enough about roses and decided best keep my opinions about other things to myself and not provoke people, not that anybody on this forum does that. I did start keeping a diary on my computer. I will try to get back to your blog but looked at too much today and talked too much. You have a lot of knowledge and experience to impart, was wishing I'd saved all your beautiful artist's drawings and photos of your arbors and trellises on your heavy metal thread, just for me to refer to, not to post anywhere else. I even seriously looked into taking a welding course, but at my age, I think working in that heat and equipment would be too hard on me with my physical limitations and dangerous to try at home.

I was in this position a few weeks ago & between posting here & reading just about every single solitary "which white/off white paint should I choose" thread here & over the internet it finally came down to this: I ordered/bought a few jars of paint samples, slapped them on our walls and a canvas board with samples of colors it would be adjacent to and looked them over in daylight, evening light, cloudy days, and incandescent light. I ultimately chose something that wasn't even mentioned here (Valspar Kabuki Clay and their bright white) so DH feels like I wasted hours of time online reading "stuff" that didn't help me. While I acknowledge I may have spent way too much researching "white", I don't completely agree with him that it was wasted time. Based on people's feedback, I did further research on the info given which helped me narrow my choices back to the, um , 3 off-whites I chose in the first place. Hmmm...well, what can I say - I guess I need to learn to trusts my gut feelings but I sure do love peeking into your color choices & homes.

Thank you everyone, and especially those of you who have posted photos. I have been on a little hiatus because I had some minor surgery, and to be honest I forgot that I posted this! I truly understand what most of you mean when you say that you should not prune until the roses are about 3-4 years old, I know they need their energy stores, I know that they have awkward teenage stages (hey, who doesn't?). The thing is that most of the ones I am having troubles with are Austins, and just judging by how much growth they put on last year, if I went this whole year without pruning them I think by fall they might be gathering up mailmen and loose dogs that wonder on to my porch. I suppose I am of the same mindset as Lori_elf, to help inspire new growth I want to get rid of some of this awkward growth that will not support strong, large canes, even if they seem a little young for it. I always get a little confused when talking about the ages of some of my roses anyway, Munstead wood for example is going into it's second year in my garden, but I purchased it as a large (4' at time of purchase), grafted, 3 gallon plant from my local nursery, so it obviously spent at least a year with them, if not more, so would you consider him to be 3 years old at this point? or still just going on 2 because that is how long he has been with me? Not that it really matters all that much because when I judge them, I don't really consider their age as much as I consider their overall size and the vigor that I have witnessed under my own care. For example, I have two Jude the Obscure plants which I got last spring, both have been living in pots that are 12" across since their initial transplant. One plant was a band from from Heirloom and it was purchased earlier in the year, the other was a gallon sized plant purchased from Chamblees purchased a little later in the year. The band from Heirloom really took off and put on a lot of growth last year & is now about 3' tall, he is the one with the odd candelabra situation. Even though the Chamblees specimen was supposed to be a "gallon sized plant", he has grown much slower, but has retained more of a pleasantly round & even shape, it is a little over 1' tall. I feel comfortable pruning the Heirloom specimen because the largest cane is very thick & long, the plant is tall and seems very healthy. I would however not prune the Chamblees plant, it is still very small and looks very young at this point. I think this is due to the unusually small root ball it had upon arrival, both plants I bought from Chamblees did (the other being Molineux) which is why I probably won't be ordering from them again, they were puny as gallon sized plants and have been surpassed by every single band I purchased from Heirloom at this point. I did prune both the roses that I mentioned in the original post, but I did it gently, not removing the entire candelabra, just a few of the smaller branches here and there, or the most awkward growth on the cane in question, so that the new growth that they put on this spring will help them evolve into more balanced, rounded shrubs. I don't have many roses large enough to prune, so these two being some of my only decent sized shrubs (3-5ft tall) I really wanted them to be presentable, even if it sets them back a tiny bit, I need something pretty to look at while I'm waiting on my herd of 1 year old gallon sized babies to mature. I really don't think it will cause them much of a problem, because as I said, almost all of my Austins have grown very quickly and vigorously so far, and I already see Jude swelling into large buds in all the places I was hoping he would, so I think he will do great this year, still waiting on MW, but I think he will do great as well. I'll try to snap some photos today. Thanks again for all your responses! Jessica.

My long term battle with midge goes on, too. The midge fly maggots (rarely just one maggot per infested tip), are so deeply imbedded in the compact, tightly leafed layer of the tip that the possibility of oil getting to them at all or in an amount that is lethal is very low. The tip resists oil sticking, and if you could get thick oil to stay at the tip long enough for it to seep between the tightly packed layers of growth to where the midge maggots are imbedded, the oil would likely injure the delicate tip considerably. Systemic insecticide: sprayed for foliar intake, or soil drenched for root uptake, or granularly applied to the rose bed soil as a nymph/cocoon killer through fumigation and/or dilution through water solution direct contact with the cocoon, does work. Moses