While I already knew the differences between red juvenile foliage and photosynthesis vs. green foliage, I was surprised to hear that theory about disease resistance. I agree with Neal that it's a old wives tale. I did think there might be a slight chance of it being true, that's why I wanted to see what others thought.
I think Ralph Moore was probably right about his quote up above !
Thanks for the info. Lyn.

Mika: Do you have any photos of that ice room you stayed in ?
That Lady of Shallot is beautiful !!!

Thanks, Mike. Yes, we have some photos but I'm struggling to locate them - they're not very good (taken on phones and in poor light). They'll turn up and I'll post them, I probably saved them in the wrong folder.
You can see the current hotel at http://www.icehotel.com - it melts every year and they rebuild it, so it's never the same. There was an ice bar, in which everything (tables, chairs, even the glasses) was made of ice... very strange, certainly different! There were some interesting ice sculptures around the place and some fun activities (a day-long husky dog sled ride was my favourite, with a stop for a hot lunch at a cabin in the middle of nowhere).

One of the ice sculptures, not sure how it got into my 'Clifton garden' folder, and without the others!

AMAZING !!!
There's a huge wedding and special events venue near where I live. Caterers are always setting up interesting food displays and quite often there's an ice sculpture guy with a chain saw creating these masterpieces out of the blocks of ice.
It's fascinating to watch, especially the huge ones.

Very cool! There's going to be an ice sculpture at one of the weddings this summer.

Been working on the new bed for muted, autumnal tones and connecting it to the bed of fire colors where several new roses have been planted.

Calsurf73 said:While I already knew the differences between red juvenile foliage and photosynthesis vs. green foliage, I was surprised to hear that theory about disease resistance. I agree with Neal that it's a old wives tale. I did think there might be a slight chance of it being true, that's why I wanted to see what others thought.

I think Ralph Moore was probably right about his quote up above !

Mike, I knew you were experienced enough to understand juvenile foliage in roses, but think about how many people who are new to roses who will view that YouTube video and won't have your experience or frame of reference and believe that old wife's tale ... geesh ...

We've used the term "old wive's tale" in a disparaging way as if to discount the information. While I was outside working today, I remembered Sharon's article about planting by the light of the moon.

http://garden.org/ideas/view/S...

Then I kept thinking about how there was a time when people observed nature and kept note and used that information to plant wisely in the future for a better yield and passed that information along. We do it today. There are bulbs and crops we plant in the fall and bulbs and crops we plant in the spring.

There is so much misinformation on the net, I am very grateful there are sites like ATP available to newbies.

Look forward to seeing this develop Neal!

I have a few things blooming, taken with an IPhone so not the best shots:

Spent bloom on International Herald Tribune


First bloom on Honey Perfume


Louise Clements


First bud on Distant Drums with it's bronze foliage


Daughter of Stars


The cute iris confusa 'Chengdu' that I got from Zuzu


Osteospermum ecklonis Zion™ Copper Amethyst, just awesome color. It's in a pot on my deck.


Santolina 'Lemon Fizz' in the foreground and St. John's Wort (Hypericum Hypearls™ Madelon)


Rock Rose (XHalimiocistus wintonensis)


My favorite heuchera, Amethyst Myst


Lithodora (Glandora 'Grace Ward') planted on the raised beds with iris and our 5 eating grapes, they seem to like this area with good drainage.


Peruvian Lily (Alstroemeria Inticancha® Summer Breeze)


We extended the chicken run so they are not messing up the garden and my patio, I let them out maybe three times a week for a couple of hours late afternoon. My grandson brings them weed greens so they follow him when he walks by.

You're right. There's a lot of wrong info. on the internet about a multitude of things.
That's why I asked if anyone on here had ever heard that about the red foliage...and apparently, no one had ! LOL

Sue: WHOA ! Those chickens are HUGE !!!

Well, the white one is the huge one! She's an orpington and they are large birds.

So cool !

Oh cool chickens! We keep talking about getting a small flock, but I keep putting it off until I get some other projects under control.
Here's my roses this morning...four inches of lovely soggy snow, all gone by afternoon.

Love the sunny snow shot with the daffodils!

Me, too !

I meant to post my tulip picture!
The best benefit from the snow was, it cleaned the smoke from the air. Fires are still burning, but the sky was blue this afternoon for the first time in 3 days. Finally, I can breathe, and I'm not wheezing. I feel so bad for all the ranchers who lost livestock, lost their hay bales, and some who lost homes.

I was raised by Appalachian women who incorporated various lore into their gardening methods. I learned to approach the garden using observation and intuition. Various plants let me know when the soil is lacking something - daffodils or other bulbs may produce fewer blooms or something may show yellow new growth, etc. I love approaching the garden this way, I feel connected to the past in a sweet way, and to those strong women who have long since left this earth.

Cindi, I love the snow shots! Thankfully snow isn't typically damaging the new growth on your roses should be unharmed.

I think your new bed is going to be amazing, Neal; can't wait to see your buff/muted coloured roses there! There seem to be lots of logs in your photo - are you chopping down all your trees?

Mika, those logs were from a couple of trees that had fallen during storms- thankfully they were far enough from the house There are 2 large trees near the house that have big limbs broken that are still hanging up in the tree- those make me nervous!

While digging out the last of the forsythia and working up the soil a bit in the new garden area I was happy to see how dark and rich the soil is there. I ran into some twine and remembered that I had done some straw bale gardening in that area several years ago- those straw bales have made it nice and friable

Yikes, Neal, if your house is at risk you'd better do something about those broken limbs (and check if the others are safe). No point in having the perfect flower beds if you're too squashed to enjoy them!!

I envy you your friable, rich soil. In France the soil is horribly sandy (in many places, just about pure sand) and in England it's mostly heavy clay... so one extreme to the other. We have huge compost heaps in England, which helps but it doesn't seem to go very far. The older beds are not too bad -and for the past few years we've been using mineralised straw mulch against slugs and snails, so I guess that should eventually help too.

Not that I know what straw bale gardening is!!!