The Weeks rep will be the guest speaker at our Rose Society meeting on Wednesday. That will be fun. I feel so smug since I bought Ketchup and Mustard before anyone else around here! What a scoop for me,

Well, that snow forcast did not happen here at my house. OK, by me. I didn't need any snow anyway.

Cindi - yay!!!! *jealous*

We have SNOW! yay! It won't last long but it's soo so pretty right now.
And Toni, thank you again for posting info about the Edmunds sale. The free shipping deal was the clincher.

Early daffodils are blooming here and it is gorgeous mild spring type day.

Quite a few of my roses are blooming - at least a little. Some never stopped. We have been having a very warm winter, and it's raining!

At our rose society meeting the other night, I tried to get people interested in the Edmunds sale. I couldn't believe how many people told me they're not buying any more roses. They have rose rosette disease in their gardens (so do I) and they think all their roses will eventually succumb. Is this true? I have maybe 1 rose per bed, so 5 roses out of 360 that have it now, and I'm cutting those roses out.
But I'm not giving up on roses entirely....or am I just throwing my money away on annuals that are doomed? Say it isn't so!

What a shame! Rose rosette disease is highly contagious, Cindi, so you should dig those out and get rid of them right away, along with any others that show the symptoms from now on. I don't think it will necessarily wipe out all 360.

As for the annual thing, I know what you mean and it all depends on the price. I buy Bougainvilleas and Mandevillas every year that never come back, so they are essentially annuals in my garden, but they don't cost as much as roses do.

Wow. Bougainvilleas are way more expensive than roses here.. and they're DEFINITELY annuals here!

I buy them and the mandevillas in 1-gallon cans for about $5.00.

zuzu, I just got 7 more roses from Melva in TX. to add to my collection.
#1 White Pearl in Red Dragon's Mouth (Chi Long Han Zhu)
#2 Laure Davoust
#3 Debutante
#4 Morey's Pink China
#5 Heideroslein
#6 Rush Family Gallica
#7 Arcadia La. Tea
In late spring she will be shipping The Chestnut Rose to me.
If all goes well, I will have them blooming for the Ventura County Fair this year or at the latest next year.

While in Tulsa this weekend, at the daylily gathering, I went rose shopping. Found Austin's Princess Alexandra of Kent and Deja Blu. It's going to be in the 50's and 60's all week so I'm planting them out tomorrow.

Sweet, Marti! That's a nice selection.

Wow, Cindi. I've never seen Princess Alexandra of Kent yet. I'm looking forward to photos of it. Are you going to start taking pictures of your garden this year? Actually, you might always have taken millions for all I know, but I know you don't have any in the database.

And I got another 2 inches of snow.. spent Saturday up in the mountains checking out some Ice Castles (http://www.icecastles.com) and going to Leadville CO.. I am waiting patiently for the weather to warm up enough and STAY WARM so I can get my roses from Melva too. But I got another couple of months for that.

Cindi - LUCKY!! I love DejaBlu.. one on my wishlist.

We have had several days of nice weather, I spent the last 4 days pulling weeds and planting several things, feels good to get more roses, iris, shrubs and daylilies in the ground! Today is overcast and drizzly so probably too mucky outside to garden.

Got an order in from Brushwood, a couple of clematis, Romantika and Diamantina and I also got Jasminum officinale 'Fiona Sunrise'
http://www.gardenvines.com/sho... pictured below with pretty lime foliage.

and Gelsemium sempervirens 'Margarita' http://www.gardenvines.com/sho...

Got the shed painted yesterday, a dark olive tan color, still deciding on the trim. This will also be the new house color too when we finally get around to having it painted.

Sue - that's pretty close to my house's color! I'm getting it painted this year. Thinking of a bright happy amethyst color. I don't have an HOA, so I can paint it any color I want.

We went up to Silverthorne, CO on Saturday, then over to Leadville. While in Silverthorne, we went specifically there to the Ice Castles. Here's some pics I took.




This is the entrance:

Holy Cow! That's beautiful!

Wow, those ice castles/icicles are incredible! I've never seen anything like it! Is it something someone works to create, or do they just naturally form like that?

One year, we went to a ski resort that had ice castles carved specifically for perfect acoustics. They had a woodwind group performing. It was stunning.

Betty - They're created. At night, the caretakers turn on the "grow fields" where sprinklers spray fine mists over wire to create the icicles. Not hard work, just extremely time consuming 'cuz you have to wait for the ice to freeze, then break off the icicles & freeze them to the place where they're going to go.

www.icecastles.com