I'm just retired...living alone with my 3 furbabies...with lots of free time. I clearly remember being a noob, and the help that was given to 'goober' (your words...lol) me. I was overwhelmed, lost, (couldn't even find my member page, and sure could not find my posts back)....the site just being so big and busy. I enjoy helping some and have made many nice cyber gardening friends as a result. I might add here, that often the emails via Garden Web do not reliably go through, but instead go into cyberspace somewhere. Since both Brett and Kathleen have their setting set up to be reached, you may want to email them privately (non GW) by getting their email addy from the form via the link on their pages. Opps...I see Kathleen put hers in her reply too. Sue

ONe of the most important things in growing big onions is to plant them out real early. Hard to have nice workable soil most springs in Ohio so I use this method. In the fall I till deeply where the onions are going to be in the spring. I till as much rotted leaves in as the ground can take. Then I rake long hills, pulling soil from both sides of hills. Leaving room to walk between hills. During the winter the ground will be frozen and thawed to break down the clods. Come spring these hills will be the first ground to dry out. If I see rain coming about the time to plant the onions, I will cover the hills with plastic. I aim for the first week of April for onion plants. When ready to plant, I knock the hills down with a tiller so that it is about 4 inches tall and 20 plus inches wide. I plant two rows of plants 1 foot apart.At least 6 inches between plants in rows. I then mulch with rotted leaves, make sure to never let them go without water for very long and keep the few weeds out that sneak up through the leaves. Works for me and I ain't going to change until something better comes along. Candy onions get huge with this method for me, anyhow.Where I plant onions the soil is clay type, but years of leaf mold has turned the soil blackish. I am going to try planting in a sandy loam that I have in raised beds this year and see if the oinions get bigger yet.Even if I had sandy loam on flat ground, I would still make hills in the fall so I could plant even earlier in the spring. Geezer

Hi Sharon, I plant them really shallow - the rhizome is just on the surface of the soil, and I bury the roots. I put no mulch over the rhizomes. To keep the new iris steady until they anchor their own roots, I peg the rhizomes down by crossing two pieces of short bamboo staking over them and pushing the bamboo into the soil (essentially an X of bamboo, with the rhizome under the bottom of the X). I leave the bamboo on the rhizome until the following spring (just in case frost heaving is an issue that winter). I don't fertilize them at all; they're just in normal to slightly lean garden soil. I'm liking the shorter varieties more than the tall ones right now, just for the staking issue. Some tall varieties are sturdier than others, though, and it's impossible to tell if they need staking until I grow them. As for the amount of bloom, I'm still figuring that one out. Last year I had poor bloom from all but a few of mine, even though I'd taken good care of them the year before. (I think the previous year's summer weather has a lot to do with their bloom - they like a HOT summer with a good baking, and we had a cool wet summer that year.) I neglected them terribly last summer (a lot of life got in the way). This year, I had GREAT bloom from many irises. Go figure. I do know they don't like compacted soil or having their rhizomes overcrowded - I have some I have to divide and loosen their soil a bit. They like "sharp" drainage. I hope this helps! Laurel 'Owyhee Desert'

Lilykate, yes we should spray for fungus and bugs but never seem to get the job done. Anytime Bob has time to do it, it's windy or raining. Maybe when he's retired we can take better care of the trees. On top of the worms in the fruit, we have problems with the Japenese beetles and the June bugs eating the fruit. They only attack when the fruit is ripening and fragrant. Fruit that ripens once those bugs die down will be ok. Kay, Therese Bugnet is indeed fragrant. Bob rarely grows an old rose that isn't. I love the smell of roses on the air. (Interestingly enough, I can smell roses, viburnum, lilacs, and many more on the air, but I can't smell a daylily even when I stick my nose right in the flower.) Debra, we just let our old roses grow wild in out of the way places (our garden is big enough for that). The flowers on Hansa and Therese Bugnet will be gone before the Japanese beetles arrive and these two are also immune to blackspot. These two are hybrid rugosa roses which as a class are immune to blackspot. As far as a search for more scapes, I found some. Kiss of Paradise has six scapes showing (and not just way down in the leaves). Lava Flow has a scape. I guess it will beat Buddy's Betsy this year, but Kiss of Paradise will beat them both. We found at least 6 more seedling (first years) with scapes. One is an offspring of Buddy's Betsy, which is always early here, and 5 are offspring of Stoke the Fire, which also has been early here. A year ago Bob purchased a seedling with a dark scape. It too has a scape. I need to get a picture of it. The scape is quite dark, especially at the top. Exciting times are on the way! Nancy