in the 70's no less!!! yeah, I'm tired, sore, stiff and drank a whole pot of herbal tea, so I'll be able to sleep tonight, if I don't pee the bed..lol I planted 20 of the tree babies I ordered from National Arbor Day..they arrived a few weeks ago and have been sitting in a brass spitoon for just as long. also planted 5 trees my cousin gave me yesterday from the park in Lacey for Earth Day.. 2 golden raintree and 3 ginko biloba.. then planted 7 tall cuttings from a lilac bush from a friend.. repotted a flat of violets, two shrubs I can't remember the name of..it has red berries and the leaves are a bright green. repotted two butterfly bush plants, that went into huge pots.. oh, got 20 Walla Walla onions from a set in deep pots.. about the time I was just finishing up, my 'significant bother' showed up to take me to my mom's place.. 45 minute drive, to get some things from her garage..my brother accepted an offer for her property and I needed to get whatever is left that I want. we drove up and opened the shed and someone had taken the cement mixer I wanted to get..to mix potting soil, with other things in it.. darn it! but in the pile of things that had been ransacked, I found a huge pile of magazines of porcelain artist magazines.. that was a goldmine find for me! I haven't even taken them out of the pile yet..I just got home a few minutes ago and I was doing a google search for some mountain shrub that has a certain kind of berry seeds.. and tiny pink blossoms.. I got a few gallons of porcelain slip and a few books on the abc's of studio procedure of pouring and firing porcelain...too cool... and also a huge boulder, just thick covered with beautiful moss. I carried that sucker to the truck..that's why I'm stiff and sore..geez that thing was heavy! so, I feel like I got a lot done and will pay dearly for it, in the morning, when I try and fail to get out of bed.. yeah Sarah..same last sentence for me...lifted and toted and just about KILLED myself...lol tomorrow it's supposed to rain..neener neener neener...we got a lot done today!

Talk about outside kitchen! Kitty, I always adore those outside kitchen in magazines, like the one with a barbecue pit, and stone/brick wall. They are so cozy! We can never have such in our cold winter, so it sounds wonderful. Even without a permanent gas range, the idea of a stone barbecue pit is awesome. All three of my neighbors neglected or gave away their gas-grills, and they cook on Webber charcoal grill instead ... they told me it charcoal gives better flavor. I agree 100%, we used to use charcoal for 40 years, until my husband bought a fancy gas grill, I'm not thrilled about the taste... even stove-stop taste better (more moist). I wrote to a friend about how to create her own Pinterst pinning board, using mine as a template. So I'll copy the instructions here: "About my Pinterest, last night I made salmon, a detour from the routine. I chopped shallots and green onions, fried them, then put salmon faced down on a saucepan. I cooked for 10 minutes, squeeze some fresh lemon - my kid & husband loved it. For the past 1 year, my husband HATED my salmon until the dinner last night from Pinterest. The original recipe called for "garlic, green onions, dill and lemon juice." It's easy to set up your Pinterest board: log on to Pinterest, they'll ask for your e-mail account. You choose your user's name, and your board's name. I put alias "Straw Chicago" instead of my real name. Then you get into my "Straw Chicago" board, and click "re-pin" on any recipes you like, it will pin those onto your own board in your account. If you click the "FOLLOW" button on top of my board, it will give you my new recipes in the 1st page of your Pinterest. You don't have to log-on to Pinterest once you create your own account. I put Pinterest onto my Favorite Bar tool, so I click on it to get recipes. Once you set up a Pinterest account, there are 2 pages: the first page will give you daily free recipes based on who you follow, so whatever new stuff I pinned, will show up on your page. The second page (under your name) shows what you choose to pin, and no one else's recipes will show up.

Glad this post has been helpful and thanks to folks for filling in points that I'd missed. Michael and Kate are right that burying the graft (the knobby part) of a rose is one of the better winter survival strategies for a rose, since the couple of inches that need to survive are under the ground, and the ground protects that graft. A little leaf coverage around the base, including well-shredded miscellaneous leaves as Seil says, can add all the protection many of us need. Since that leaf coverage also provides spring mulch around the rose, it's a terrific strategy for lazy gardeners like me! Jim, you are indeed cruel, but not necessarily too early in your post. We had 3 feet of snow in western Nebraska last week, and parts of the Dakotas and Colorado are still digging out. Toolbelt - don't waste any time kicking yourself over missed insights in past years of not knowing about GW. Just keep joining in the fun of the discussions, and sharing what you've learned with your friends and neighbors, so they get hooked on the rose bug too! Zaphod, all of these principles apply to band roses as much as any other type of rose, with the added caution that the tender canes are more susceptible to things like moisture and critter gnawing. I plant all my bands in the ground too, though I try not to buy them too late in the summer, and any relatively scrawny plant is going to benefit more from winter protection than a well-established rooted plant. However, even a little canker or squashing from your protection methods can be enough to make it give up, if it doesn't have much of a root system. My method stays the same, to put protection around but not touching the rose, and one-twig wonders, I may make that protection as high as the rose (not usually a problem for scrawny runts) but make sure nothing is touching the base. Beyond that, I keep track of how poor the growth is in its first year, and I might try a more substantial plant (or heaven help me, keeping in a pot over winter like Seil suggests) if it doesn't grow fast enough to survive as a band. Bottom line is give some basic protection a try, but don't kill baby bands with too much material over their little heads. Cynthia

Hey guys great to see you!!! Can't wait until it is in real person. I don't have everyone's email so I will email Gina today with our dates. Unfortunately it looks like we are going to be in LA during the week so lunch will be tricky and I know that dinner can be a bad time given other obligations. Hopefully we can arrange something but if not...............I will kill myself.