Like so many others have said, this article is a propaganda piece. It's intent and design was to cast doubt on the credibility of gov't and bash "big gov't". I'm surprised so many folks take the bait and get all riled up. Fox News makes a living on this very tactic. They don't let truth or facts get in the way, just spin the story to further their political objectives. Crap like this is why this stuff is/was still being used 30 years after 26 countries and the USA agreed to it's phase out. I wholeheartidly agree with Joppa...guys like this need also to be phased out. Truth is, this guy has an old played out orchard, his kids aren't interested in furthering. Oppurtunity for a political spin piece from the deep south largely anti-gov't, anti-enviroment crowd. Drew51...You want proof? Go look it up and study it. I am sure you will doubt the science of all 27 nations anyway. Why is it that you feel you need to have it proven to you as an individual. Should the US gov't send a special envoy to your house armed with data/video/slideshows and other evidence to prove it to you? Maybe you require a representative from all 27 nations to do that. Do you have a degree in enviromental science and chemistry necessary to refute their data? Probably not.

All of us do things a bit differently, but here's my feedback. We just recently planted some potted up roses here, and also some others about 3 weeks prior to that. I know what you are going through in worrying about the effect of the heat on the rose for planting now. We've had mostly weather in the nineties, including the high nineties, but our newly planted roses are doing wonderfully well here in spite of it. Fingers crossed that yours will do great too. Books. If you're fairly new to roses, there are some cheap, cheap, cheap used books available at Amazon with advice on things like the planting hole. My favorite is Liz Druitt's "The Organic Rose Garden" because of its thorough discussion of organic nutrients to put into the hole and to use for feeding your roses. But another excellent book is Judith McKeon's "The Encyclopedia of Roses: An Organic Guide to Growing and Enjoying America's Favorite Flower" and it has all the necessary information. Judith McKeon's book is especially strong on illustrating the basics. Mycorrhiza. We use an organic product called "mycorrhiza" on the roots of all our roses. It's not essential, but one of the ways it helps the rose is in providing extra pathways for the rose to receive extra nutrients, including water. Planting a rose in the dessert in the height of summer heat, your plant can probably can use all the help it can get in taking in sufficient water. The product we used was BioVam from tandjenterprises.com and we were happy with it, though I don't know that one is better than others. David Austin also sells a product with mycorrhiza and it looks good too: "David Austin Mycorrhizal Fungi". You don't need much of this stuff per plant; once it makes contact with the roots, it spreads. Siting the rose. It needs some protection from too much sun in the near term, but probably not the long term. If it's a full-sun needy rose (almost a certainty), it would be better off located in a full sun spot or as close to full sun as you have available. Then you can use something temporarily added to help block some of the sun for the next few weeks while the rose is trying to adjust. Most people use a lawn chair for that, I think. (We never have that problem, as we don't have any spots with absolutely full sun, other than some spots that deer traipse through near our vegetable garden where we won't have roses anymore.) The planting hole. Don't step on the soil for tamping it down; it's too easy to break off your plant's precious roots that way. Just gently use your hands to tamp down the soil and let a lot of water settle the rest of the soil. Be sure to water your potted rose the day before you're going to plant, but never water it immediately prior to planting or soak a rose that's potted up; doing so leaves it vulnerable to losing large chunks of roots from the weight of the soil that might fall off. It's going to get plenty of water as soon as it goes into the ground. If the rose is pot bound at all, then you'll need to gently loosen and brush the soil away from the roots all along the edges and bottom, going inwards by maybe an inch or so. If you don't do that, the roots might circle round and round in the ground to keep growing in the same soil they've gotten used to, failing to venture out and get more moisture and nutrients that a larger site can accommodate. For the last three roses that we planted in the heat last week, they're all doing great. Two that started as bands in April that we had potted up into gallon containers weren't remotely close to being pot bound and they went into the ground intact. The one that we got from a nursery in April and were slow in getting into the ground was slightly pot bound, though, and we had to do the soil loosening thing on it. It's doing fine, but of course, it has been babied too, with its roots sprinkled with a little mycorrhiza during planting and then getting overhead watering once or twice a day. I'd suggest lots of organics for the hole; there's no risk of a burn or stress on the plant that way. If you get Liz Druitt's book, you'll see that you can use lots of different organics to add up in the long run to the macro and micro nutrients the rose needs. We use what we can find around here: lots of chopped up banana peels, bone meal, lots of composted oak leaves, some spaghnum peat moss, lots of alfalfa and cottonseed meal, composted cow manure, and a bit of greensand. Our roses do pretty much take off and start blooming like crazy once they get into the ground here, and that's true too for those roses we're planting in the very hot weather here of late. We never ever use anything on our roses other than organic products and they work well thrown on top of the mulch later in the year too. Watering. We water on top of the ground, and if we ever see powdery mildew, give the affected rose a good hard spray. The only roses that have ever gotten any powdery mildew here have been growing in far too little sunlight though, so you probably won't have that problem... especially if you can do the overhead watering thing when the sun isn't out to burn the wet leaves. Another benefit of overhead watering is that you'll moisten the mulch that way too, and that wet mulch will evaporate some of the water as the day wears on, thus reducing the dryness in the immediate area of the rose. And finally, if you overhead water or hand water with the hose sprayer, you stand a good chance of washing any blackspot fungal spores on the surface farther down under the mulch, where it won't affect the rose. (Note that this advice isn't standard within the rose world, but we've had excellent luck with this method--if you have enough water to be able to do this. Or at least do it initially, until the rose is established. You probably don't have much of a blackspot worry to begin with, though.) In the heat of the south and especially in the dessert it would be much better to water once or twice a day for the first couple of weeks until it's looking settled in and growing. That's assuming the rose has good drainage. It's more wasteful of water, of course, but I'd much prefer heavy watering on top of the mulch, not a drip, drip with crossed fingers that you've dripped enough to add up to something meaningful. With a rose that's just been transplanted, you don't want to take a chance on inadequate moisture. Good luck with your precious rose! Best wishes, Mary Here is a link that might be useful: The Organic Rose Garden [Hardcover] by Liz Druitt

The slightest of snows began yesterday afternoon and continued into the night. There has been just a little melting for several days and in many places, plants and wheat stubble are showing through the snow cover. On the daylight front, yesterday morning dawned with bright sunshine with blue, blue sky! There was no snow on Sunday but clouds kept most streetlights on until after 10 AM. Our light snowfalls are making a difference. Drought designation has dropped from severed to moderate. Locally, we have 75% of normal snowpack but in some of the northern Cascades, where fires have been so terrible the last two years, snow accumulation is 100% and above. We will now go into a short rainy period the WS says. I checked their forecast for a little higher elevation and it looks pretty good to a layman. Anything above 2,400 feet should receive snow, not rain. I know an elevation like that doesn't look like much to people in Colorado but that's just a little higher than where most people live and most cities. My home is right at 2,000, although I once lived at 2,500 feet near Pend Oreille Lake. I'll be watching this WS website this week (link) and hoping our 75% snow pack doesn't start rushing off towards the Columbia!! We may see more wheat stubble around here but predictions look fine for even the low hills and upper river valleys. Steve

Others have responded, but I’ll give you my take on your questions. >Based on my past readings, seems like ya'll rip-n-replace with a different rose if/when it doesn't perform ? Yes…and no. If a rose is not performing many of us take it out and try something else, since there is only so much room and many roses to try. BUT, how we define “not performing” is highly variable. Is it performing if it produces one flower the first season? Do you expect a rose bush to be covered with flowers all summer (if so, you’d be removing a lot of roses and getting very frustrated)? How long do you wait to see if a rose is performing? Many say 3 years, others will wait longer (I’ve waited 9 years for an orchid to bloom for the first time, and I’ve read of some rose growers who wait at least that long to see how it performs). Some people remove a rose that is not “performing” after a single season. Some people remove a rose that grows and blooms well, just because they don’t like the look of the plant/flower/thorns. But many of us also leave a plant that is not perfect for various reasons. First of all there is no perfect rose bush. We’ve got to accept that. Other times we might leave a rose because of sentimental reasons, or simply because it is so big that it would be a pain to remove. >I don't have the slightly clue how big, fast or bushy roses grow. It all depends on the variety of rose, and your climate. So when you describe your climate, USDA Plant Hardiness zones are only part of the picture. You will find that most people describe their location as well. Zone 7A could be high desert at 6500 feet elevation and 10 inches of rain and 5F lows in the winter and 105F highs in the summer (like me) or it could be in wet New Jersey. The same variety or rose may perform extremely differently when growing in these two climates. How big, fast or bushy? It all depends on the variety. Some roses grow no bigger than a few inches tall. Others can grow to more than 30 feet climbing in the trees. Some grow fast, some grow slowly. This depends on growing conditions as well as the variety. >With a grafted root, if I bury the graft slightly, will I see more than than the 5-6 budded canes come up from the ground (in my mind, with a own root, new stems develop from the roots from time to time). Not necessarily. How many canes come from the bottom (called “basal” growths or “basals”) is dependent upon the variety. It’s hard to make a rose that doesn’t make basals produce them. Some roses like Mr. Lincoln, seem to only want to produce one or two canes low down and then grow tall before branching much. An own-root Mr. Lincoln doesn't produce more basals than a grafted one, IMHO. >Moreso, as the roses become established and the primary 5-6 canes get older/thicker on the bottom, I often see roses in the neighborhood with growth/blooms on the top but no on the lower 2 feet ? Is this atypical of how roses grow ? I would prefer to not have *bare feet* as grows Again, this all depends upon the variety. This is why so many rose growers spend a lot of time researching a variety of rose before buying or planting. The best way to see, is to see a rose that is growing in your local area. There is MUCH more to a rose than how pretty the flower is. In general, those varieties like shrub roses and floribundas have foliage closer to the ground than the hybrid teas (not the same as tea roses by the way), but this is not always true. Some roses can be pruned to produce more branches low down. Others can not. I personally like seeing those tall tree-like roses with bare trunks just as much as the low bushy ones. Like crape myrtles, there are some tall ones with a lot of trunk, and there are short bushy ones. Keep asking questions, keep researching. Have Fun!