Hoovb: "It's all about the journey, not the destination..." and Lottirose: "My garden is not and never will be a showplace, but it is my bliss.". Both wonderful articulations of my feelings. My garden movement I think is pretty minor, but a constant slow flow. I cannot shovel prune anything - just not in my nature, but I do move plants that are not doing as well as I'd like, or I don't think belong in their current place for one reason or another, to a less obvious place. I find myself moving more and more companion plants, and making more room for roses in the prime garden spots. The one rose I moved to replace with another (moved a Crimson Glory to put in a Sunsprite instead, as I thought she'd look better there) - I find myself apologizing daily to Crimson Glory as she doesn't like her new spot. I think in future, any roses happy in their spot will remain in their spot, despite my opinion. Daily dead-heading and weeding mostly gives me the sense of activity I need for constant input into my garden. I do keep visualizing more places for more and different roses as I plan to further expand. One think I have learned about the perception of my garden, is to keep my less pleasant relatives out! I had my cousin and his wife visit the other day, and somehow looking at my superbly beautiful garden (in my eyes that is) through her eyes, dimished it greatly. She had a critical eye, and lots of suggestions on how it could be better. Opinions I likely would have welcomed from any of the true rosarians on this forum, but were not appreciated from one with less than constructive intent.

I just uploaded a few photos from our trip to NYC during Thanksgiving. I didn't use the bulk uploader and I got alot of errors for photos not loading. What I noticed different is if I uploaded to a generic album, ie PJFarm and then wanted to move them all to a new album specific to what the pictures pertain to, it use to open a window which would allow me to either move to another existing album or create a new one. I noticed it didn't allow me that option of creating a new album this time. I had to create the new album and then move all the photos. A two step process instead of just 1 step. Maybe I missed something? I also have ad blocker for Firefox but there is an ad streaming when you upload. Can't figure out yet how to turn off the volume yet. Julia

I hope Paul can clarify what he meant on number 3... I didn't get that either. Before I respond to the other point, let me say that I agree with Ken's primary response to HVX in hostas and testing - it doesn't make much sense to test an inexpensive hosta with a strip that costs almost $6. If it looks virused, it probably is... toss it. But the latest info - that the virus can persist in the soil for 18 months and we don't know how much longer - that opens up a new possible reason for wanting to test. I think if I have to remove a plant, I'll probably replace it with something non-hosta and avoid the issue altogether - but I can see someone wanting to know for sure if they are dealing with HVX out of concern for the soil in that section of their garden. Many folks are dealing with limited space. I think the false positive question is important, because I think people are pretty OK with disposing of diseased plants, but the idea that the strips might tell them to throw away healthy plants might motivate people to not test - after all, if you can't trust the test, why bother? So as the false positives... like Ken, I'm more skeptical than most... but the science of the strips suggests false positive are almost impossible IF the testing strip is correctly used. Two facts support that. First, the results of the strips match extremely well with Elisa testing. (from wikipedia..."Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), also known as an enzyme immunoassay (EIA), is a biochemical technique used mainly in immunology to detect the presence of an antibody or an antigen in a sample.") The strips were designed to be the field equivalent of the typical Elisa test done in a laboratory - though in a lab, they are likely to do a whole panel of antibodies, not just a specific one. They use antibodies in a similar way to the Elisa testing. Short of an electron microscope, this is the standard set for testing for virus. In fact, it is the standard screening tool for human diseases like HIV and West Nile. In both kinds of testing, false NEGATIVES will occur (plant testing healthy even though it has the virus.) This is most likely due to the plant not having built up enough "viral load" to show up in testing. I don't know how long a period this can be... my impression is that the virus spreads throughout the plant fairly rapidly... but I believe Dr. Lockhart has had the experience of testing a plant negative and then having it test positive later... so not many false negatives, but there will apparently be some. Second, the antibodies on the test strip are quite specific to HVX. Agdia markets a line of strips, each designed to test for one specific virus. Once the chemicals mix with the plant juices and mark the virus, that is, for all practical purposes, the only thing that can make those antibodies react to give a positive reading. The "positive" band on the strip is designed to react ONLY with HVX. The rep says they've tried - and they can't get false positives unless they do something mechanically wrong. Certainly, nothing is perfect... and the science of HVX is changing as we acquire knowledge... and I wouldn't assume that a negative test guarantees my plant doesn't have HVX... but I think if I got a positive test, I would approach it as a sure thing and destroy the plant. This sales rep was a pretty interesting kid. He seemed to be more interested in the science than the sales. He didn't hand out any literature... I had to take it myself. He talked about his visits to the ports of entry where the European import plants are checked... and his work with the inspectors to get them away from just checking samples from each shipment to checking shipments by cultivar - the inspectors didn't realize that the way hostas are harvested and processes, the infection is more likely to be spread among the plants in one cultivar than being spread in the shipping container among the plants. Easy enough error to make - our usual model for virus spread is person-to-person... Anyway, all he wanted to talk about was the virus and what we know so far and the science of the strips - I had to ask him about the pricing...

Yes.........you can't put a http(url) link within the message area but you can put it in the Optional Link URL box. To place it in the message area use this code: a href="http://ERASE THIS AND PUT PAGE URL HERE">Click hereIn order for me to show the code I had to eliminate two symbols.... which you will need to put back in when you use the code. In front of the first 'a' type . Make sure http isn't in the link twice, which happens when you copy/paste the complete url. After pasting your link, click Preview and you will see 'Click Here' underlined as your link. Or, you can erase Click Here and type in anything you want. For more info check out the link below. Here is a link that might be useful: HTML codes