I have those growing all over my neighbourhood wild and in the next town. Some are in front of people's houses, there's some by the train tracks, just about everywhere and no one seems to care about them as much as I do. They are black raspberries pretty much all over near me, but the yellow ones were a surprise. I didn't know they existed until I saw them by the train track. I thought they weren't ripe yet, but they are wonderful! They are also in front of some guy's house with black ones, so perhaps it is a mutation. How long do they take to ripen? I can't wait any longer. I want to eat those berries. I wonder if it's possible to grow them on my apartment deck... There's also some berries that aren't black berries but something else. They are sour. I don't like them and there are black berries behind the supermarket.

Pegging works well if the plant has two properties: 1) the bush tends to be a non-"upright" variety, i.e; it produces canes at an angle from the base instead of straight up-ish. 2) the canes are not "stocky" at their base, i.e.; thick or thicker than your thumb. If both conditions exist, it should be fairly easy to peg the canes. Start out being conservative and peg the canes down to about a foot or more above the groud and see what happens. Try to get the "bowed" part of the cane into as much of an arch as possible. That way, almost every leaf junction will sprout a new cane skywards. If the cane is flexible enough, peg to the ground with the end of the cane turned upwards. Rest the end on a hard surface so the end won't rot into the ground and risk disease entering the cane from the tip end. If you feel adventurous, cut the cane midway throgh at the part where it touches the ground. Dust it with growing medium and bury the cut part slightly into the ground. Hopefully, the cut part will sprout roots and you will have a new own-root plant!

Oh my gosh! You are all the best! Thank you so so so very much for responding at all, let alone for the serious help that you have given me! I seriously thought I'd be left talking to myself thanks to my ill-conceived title there. Petaloid, ironic about the Disneyland banishment although, I suppose Disneyland is perhaps the best place for al fresco ablutions. ;-) First off, thanks so very much for the tips: I'll check Ph and see if some iron-deficiency treatment is in order. From what I'd found online, some deficiencies are marked with the same indicators as an excess of an element so I didn't really know how to operate! Starting with the soil-PH check is a good idea to know what sort of deficiency they might be prone to The sea-weed and the teas for foliar feed sound like a good tip for me to look into - would gardening centers be the place to go to for such things? Regarding small worms - in the spring that is precisely what I'd been finding and precisely what I'd been doing. I could have fed an aviary with what I was deworming every day. But I don't see anything wormy any more and yet the chomps continue to come. That said, the insects that I have seen in my roses have been: (a) some flying buzzing bee or wasp like creatures which may well be the leaf-cutters and (b) gak! earwigs! I've not been able to sort out if earwigs (which have crawled out of a growing rose flower!) were a problem or not - I heard tell that they like rotting stuff and I rather take exception to them finding my beautiful growing roses rotten. Jaxondel, you're not the first person I've heard say that disbudding may help a plant. But I've often wondered how many roses was too many for the plant to handle and what people have systemmatically found. Thanks for the suggestion: of course, I do love the previous answers that a flowering plant is a good thing ;-) Still, I'd love for you to look at my pics and let me know if I have too many flowers on my plants. If you don't mind, I'd like to just show you a few specific concerns I do have, while a full set of pictures are located at this link. Regarding the slits I was talking about on the stems, this is it: Is this a "stretch mark" or something else. It isn't jagged for sure. Two of my roses have this quite low down - about an inch or two above the mulch level. I forgot to mention this earlier, but I also have some stems that seem to be browning from a cut down. One of them had a hole on the top which I read here might suggest canker damage and to cut it away. So I cut down past a node or two to where the stem was green, cutting some new growth away in the process. It has continued to brown and is now brown past a node that has sent up two branches! This is an Abe Darby: This is Portia and the picture shows a growing stem that has green and brown bands all the way down to a bigger stem it branches from. That bigger stem (cut low during the spring pruning and usually covered with mulch) I see has some of the same brown marks as the branch I'm speaking about) That main stem has two branches off it - one of them is quite a big one too! Lastly, the bug damage - clearly at least two different sorts of insects at play here: This one has been munched on by something. But I also show the underside to ask if the coloration there is another indication of another problem? And then there's this on several leaves on all my roses: . Could this be ants? I found an ant colony very close to the roses and today when watering the roses, I see that I "disturbed" several of them. So clearly they've been hanging around in the soil of my roses.

did I step in anything? am I un-wittingly spreading poo anywhere? I really like that liquid poo idea - the complexity of poo - wonder how they do it? ... do they just put manure in a bottle, add water and shake? :) Wes, I'll leave the fertilizer master-planning up to you - Just tell me what I need and I'll defer to your understanding of poo, acid, and ... well, I'm sure you've got experience with all these things so you can lead from your many years of experience in the field. Just tell me what I need, and I'll come with my checkbook or card to transact accordingly. Mikey, first weekend in March - better not attempt to compete with Easter weekend; that'd be a whole other set of difficulties to planning - don't ya think? :) So that said - I know where your street is - Not so sure I can find western MA where Wes is. So, I'll meet you near you (or at your place) depending if you trust me not to come with various sharp implements to steal your plants while you're sneeze tripping to various parts of the country. I'll drive your way, you drive his way, and let Wes tell us both if he wants to car-pool or not? I'm sure I'll be the life of the party - But - depending on if you two are high caffeine types - you may not be able to handle my bubbly nature without prepping. :) Road trip? :)