I'm a relatively new gardener, so take my humble opinion with a grain of salt, but I think that landscape cloth is pretty much the devil's work. We had it put down by our home's former owners all around the beds on the side of the house. The problem was that eventually you get a whole ecosystem of really rich material growing on top of it, but not blending through into natural soil layers like nature intended. Moreover, it DID stop most of the roots from growing through it, so the roots on top were spindly little things going all throughout the top of the cloth looking for a way down (and these are roots from big hardy bushes that couldnt get through). Then to make matters worse, the roots underneath the cloth had grown to press up against the cloth, creating weird air pockets under the cloth, which is terrible for the roots. Long story short, I wouldnt touch the stuff with a ten foot pole. We put down chicken wire made of metal below our beds as a precaution. But anything, even nothing, has to be better than that cloth.

Great thread. I've made many mistakes over the years. When I needed drapes for 5 very tall and wide windows, I thought I would save money by making them myself. I ended up buying 30+ yards of a synthetic moire on sale at a chain fabric store, along with drapery lining, and after making up one panel, found that even with lining, the light coming through the fabric made the color brighter and kind of gaudy. The bolt is still in an upstairs closet, and I found 96" crushed voile panels online that I like very much for about $20 each. Lesson: keep it simple. A couple of years ago, I hired a local designer mainly to help me choose paint colors and advise on accessories/tweaking. In the master bedroom, I had some custom green silk drapes that I never liked that much, and she talked me into spending the money to have them interlined and a printed fabric border added, along with custom shams with the same fabric. I had already spent $2000 on the drapes, and now I spent another $1000, and I still didn't like them. I took them down, and they and the matching euro shams are in the closet in the guest room. I put up natural linen-look semi sheers from target, and I like them better. Lesson: keep it simple, and don't throw good money after bad. We weren't using our formal dining room much, and the same designer suggested moving the dining furniture into one end of our large living room, and making the old dining room into a den and the old den into a home office, which was really needed. Since I wanted to replace the old LR sofa anyway, I moved the den furniture into the living room and had a custom ($$$)sofa made for the new den. It was not a huge space, and we tried to keep the sofa scaled down. When it arrived, the fabric was gorgeous, the style just what I wanted, but the seat depth was so shallow that it was not very comfortable. I had also slipcovered the old den chairs to go with the new sofa ($$). I ended up moving the new sofa to the living room, where it was more appropriate for perching ladies than lounging TV viewers, and now none of the colors I had chosen (with help paid for by the hour) for the LR and new den would work. Plus, the newly slipcovered den chairs (on swivel rocker bases, I love them) don't work that well with the old sofa color. Fortunately, I hadn't painted yet. Lessons: Don't buy furniture without sitting on it. Choose paint colors after you are certain of your fabrics. Don't let your designer talk you into stuff you don't really need. Keep your major pieces fairly neutral. The worst was the master bath update. I had chosen tile for the walls and floor, and the tile vendor gave me a couple of names for the installation. The guy with the higher quote was very highly recommended but I went with the other guy because he said he could also do some other work I needed done. Even though I had a gut feeling I was making a mistake. He did a horrible job on the tile, broke my toilet, and disappeared. I had to buy more wall tile and pay another contractor to replace it, and I'm still stuck with a bad job on the floor. Between the cost of doing the job, redoing the job, and buying a new toilet, I could have had the better contractor do the job, and replaced the vanity and sink as well, and upgraded to a better tile. Lessons: A jack of all trades might be a master of none. Go with your gut. Ask contractors for their license numbers and CHECK IT online with your state to see if it's in effect. I've made more, but these are the recent highlights, LOL. I feel better having confessed them here.

I was on a searxh fpr a grey granite, too. Took Dh with me 2 different days. (Have white cabinets, but I didn't want a dark counter top. Have that now and can't stand it- too often I'll find places missed during clean-up that I couldn't see). He was SO much help- he picked out Blue Bahia. Yep, most expensive granite they had. Plus I didn't want blue. And we have a long countertop (133") without anywhere to put a seam that would look right. I finally went with my sweet wonderful DIL- we found granite heaven! OMG, they had some beautiful stuff (stuff I was afraid to even ask what level) Some turquiose slabs with true gold veins, another one called Blue Sky (I was almost willing to go blue for that one- truly the color look of the sky with puffy clouds). Found 5 we liked, took back DH & DS, showed them ONLY those. We ended up with Parisdiso Bash. It was meant to be. It's even long enough to not need a seam on my long counter. Keep searching for what you LOVE. When you see it, you'll know it. Angels will sing, you'll be doing the happy dance and you won't feel the least bit worried about your choice.

I'm not quite understanding what you mean by packing them in compost fertilizer and peat moss? Is that what you planted them in? I live in 7b, so I don't worry about winter protection so much, but my soil is clay so water can retain in a hole if I don't plant them correctly. First when I dig my hole I dig it very big, normally 2 feet 6 inches deep by 2 feet 6 inches wide. I discard the soil from the bottom of the hole, as it has less nutrients, then in a wheel barrow I combine 1/3 soil from the hole, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 organic mix. mix it all together to go back in the hole. We get very heavy rains here and I find they drain nicely. Watering every other day is likely too much right now, as its not hot out, so like Meredith recommended I would cut down on the watering. I didn't hear you mention putting the original soil back in the mix, to me that would be important, and make sure when you amend you soil its combined well before putting it back. My next recommendation that likely has nothing to do with you water problem is don't fertilize your rose when planting it. Wait for your rose to get established and start showing new growth that wasn't there when you planted it that would be the best time to start fertilizing. Liquid fertilizer at half strength is what I use the first year, or if you use fish fertilizer full strength. I want my roses to work on building a good root system this year, not give me lots of growth above the soil.