Sbcand, Roses thrive in neutral soil. If the soil is sandy, there is a great chance your soil is too acidic for the rose. One half cup of lime at the initial planting of the rose would have taken care of the acidic part of the soil. Every spring, I add 1/2 cup of lime to the top of the soil around my roses with my compost. I bought a double knock out rose this spring. I added the lime, I have no problems with it. I love that rose bush, it is care free. If the soil PH isn't correct for any bush, it will be unable to absorb nutrients from the soil. You could try adding 1/2 cup of FAST acting lime around the top of the soil of the rose and watering real good. They sell PH meters inexpensively at Big Home center plant departments, like HD, you could test it yourself, before adding the lime. My soil is awefully sandy, so one of my roses I actually dug out a hughe hole and placed Miracle Grow Rose Garden soil in (big bag), and planted it in that (Pope John Paul II white rose), and now I don't have to worry about PH at all because the garden soil, (not potting soil), is neutral for roses. GOod Luck!

Sorry, but it's probably downey mildew. Peas and squash seem to get it in my garden as soon as the weather starts getting hot and humid. There's some fungicides you can try, but usually (for me) the plants stop producing once the mildew gets going, so I pull them and put them in the burn pile instead of compost. Sorry.

I think that is normal, mklady. I have a big white mum in one of my beds. It always starts out yellow and only turns pure white when it is in full bloom. Then it goes through pink and finally to purple (where it is right now) before everything falls off. It made me really nervous the first year but now I kinda enjoy the show.

Irises do not change color - not on a permanent basis, anyway. It is possible that herbicide drift can cause temporary changes in iris pigmentation (do you use RoundUp or have a nearby neighbor who does?). If that is what happened to your irises, they will probably return to normal color next year, assuming they are not subjected to herbicide again. I don't believe there are any nutritional factors that can completely change an iris's color pigment, though growing conditions can certainly influence color saturation. It wouldn't hurt to have your soil analyzed for any possible nutrient deficiencies. The amount of available sunlight and ambient temperature can also influence color intensity to some degree, though not to the point of turning one color into an entirely different one i.e. purple irises turning white. There are, however, other possible explanations for these apparent flower color changes: Irises often do not bloom every year. It is possible that your dark colored irises neglected to bloom this year, while lighter ones (perhaps left by a previous owner) within the same planting area did bloom. If you dug your original irises from a bed where only purple irises were blooming, perhaps you assumed that you dug only purple irises. However, there may have been a number of other colors of irises in the original bed that weren't blooming at the time you dug but that did bloom later in your own garden. If you dug and replanted a bed within the last several years, it's possible a tiny piece or pieces of a previous iris planting remained in the bed and has now matured to blooming size. An animal or child may have uprooted a rhizome from elsewhere and dropped it into your garden without your knowledge, or a neighbor may have tossed unwanted rhizomes over the fence into your yard where they took root. It happens. Certain cultivars are far more vigorous growers than others, and in closely planted beds, the more vigorous growers will almost inevitably choke out the less aggressive irises over time. Your original irises may have been bee-pollinated within the last few years. The seeds from those crosses may have ripened, dropped, and germinated among the original plants, and now you have a bunch of new seedlings blooming within your original clumps. Iris seed does not grow true to the parent plant and may well have produced some new colors in your iris bed. On extremely rare occasions an iris may "sport", meaning the iris may produce an offset that differs noticeably in appearance from the original plant. HONORABILE is one well-known example of a cultivar that has produced several sports in its long history. The sport offsets, however, do not change the color or appearance of the original plant. The only way to get all of this sorted out is to place a tag around each bloomstalk to identify its color, then dig and divide all of the rhizomes 6-8 weeks after bloom, replanting each color separately about 2' apart so they won't crowd each other too soon. Remove any seed pods that may form before they have a chance to ripen to avoid a repeat of this problem in your garden.