George, your pruning ideas sound good. I think I will prune this year after blooming is over and then start more aggressively pruning in the future starting next fall. Mad Gallica, these are both ownroot plants. Your description as "creepy-crawlie" stuff is exactly right, that's what the canes now look like (though covered in flowers), particularly the Belle de Crecy. I fed them well...MMM to start the spring and a toplayer of manure. Then Bloomkote Time Release (also from the Mills Mix people) a month later. Hopefully I will get those basals you're talking about. Olga, I also can't stand floppy canes. If early pruning will help to eliminate the problem and build a stronger framework...that sounds good to me. Off the subject of the gallicas but also with a similiar problem...I have an ownroot Abe Darby...planted as a band from Heirloom in 2004. It has only put on some bulk to its canes in the past year but is still under 3 feet high. It is in full sun and had tons of blooms this year for the first time, but was floppy under the weight of the blooms. It's kind of a sprawly, open growth pattern with maybe 5 main canes and not much going on in the middle of the plant. I tried to prune it the David Stone way this spring. I'm hoping to one day have a huge strong Abe Darby like I see in your pics but mine is far from that, even at year four. Any advice for me? Thank you all for your help. I truly appreciate your time! Shelley

Of that group, I've only grown Rosella and it was only okay. I grew it in the ground one year and in a container the next year, and it struggled in our heat and didn't produce many fruit. The ones it produced weren't bad, but they weren't anything special. The fruit were smaller in size than I expected, but it was a very hot, very dry year. I had high hopes for it and for other varieties from the Dwarf Project, but none of the ones I tried were really, um, good enough to knock any old favorites off our grow list. Your results could be entirely different because flavor is very subjective and each person's taste buds perceive flavor differently. Growing conditions vary so wildly here from one year to the next that I do try to give a new-to-us variety 2 or 3 years before I decide if it is worth keeping or not. In the third year I grew Rosella, it died abruptly before producing a fruit....and that probably was the last time I'll plant it. If a variety can't wow me in 1 out of 3 years, I'm moving on to try something else. And, I like the whole idea behind the Dwarf Project and I wanted to love the varieties I tried, but I couldn't.

Hi Shelley, How cool that redeeming some points will bring you a new gardening book! I have the first two books on your list, and I think simply for that reason, I'd recommend either one of them over the third choice. I've never seen the third book and know nothing about it, so do not feel qualified to comment specifically on its content.. Based on past experience, though, I'd rather have a book geared towards Texas than towards a broader range of states because the climate in Texas and the soil types there are very similar to those in Oklahoma. Having said that, any book geared towards gardening in the southern USA usually is more helpful than one geared towards the USA as a whole, so I doubt you could go wrong with any of the three books. It seems to me that choosing the book from this short list that seems like the best match for your interests would be your main goal. So, if you are more interested in edible gardening, then I'd recommend Greg Grant's book. I have it and I love, love, love it. On my bookshelf, it sits right beside Dr. Sam Cotner's book "The Texas Vegetable Book", which has been my go-to veggie gardening book since he wrote it, which I think was in the mid-1980s. I have yet to find any gardening book that has been more helpful to me than Dr. Cotner's book, BUT Greg Grant's book is a close second. I think Mr. Grant would be happy with my comments because he, too, has a sincere appreciate for both Dr. Cotner and Dr. Cotner's book, as you'll see when you read Mr. Grant's book. I love Dr. Cotner's book and have long wished for a similar book that addressed the basics of growing fruit in our soils and climate. Well, Mr. Gran'ts book does include fruit, and that is one reason I love this book so much. With Greg Grant's book, you get tons of info about growing fruits and veggies, and it is written in his down-to-earth folksy style. I have read Greg Grant's articles and his regular feature column in "Texas Gardener" magazine for more years than I care to count and add up, and he is high on my list of favorite garden writers. There are not many people on this earth (or, at least not many of them writing books) that are as knowledgeable and as experienced in gardening in our part of the world as Greg Grant. You cannot go wrong with his book. Now, about Howard Garret's and Macolm Beck's book. It also sits on my bookshelf along with other books they've written. If I was a non-organic gardener who wanted to learn more about organic gardening, I'd have to have this book. I already was mostly an organic gardener when I started listening to the Dirt Doctor's radio show in either the 1980s or 1990s, but didn't know as much about organic gardening as I wanted to know, so I have bought most of his books and read them over the years. This is a great book, written by two men who have long been at the forefront of the organic gardening movement in Texas, and I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to learn all the hows, whys and wherefores of gardening organically. For anyone in Oklahoma who is not familiar with Malcom Beck, I'd just like to say he is a Texas organic gardening legend and all his other books are well worth reading as well. Trying to choose 1 of these 2 books over the other is painful for me because I like both books so much, so I think it all comes down to the area in which you would like to gain knowledge---Greg Grant's book will tell you pretty much everything you need to know about raising edible crops in this part of the country, and the Garrett/Beck book will tell you how and why to grow edible crops organically. One strong advantage that Mr. Grant's book has over the Garrett/Beck book simply is that it was written very recently and includes recommendations of specific varieties that are available now, whereas the Garrett/Beck book is somewhat older so it doesn't list what I consider the latest fruit and veggie varieties. Whichever book you choose, I suspect that once you have read it, you'll want to read more books by the same author or authors, and when you do, come back here and I can recommend a few great books written by these 3 gardening experts. Sadly, Dr. Cotner is no longer with us, having passed away of complications from Alzheimer's Disease several years ago, but his book lives on. When Greg Grant wrote his book, the intent was to essentially provide updated info that covered the areas previously covered by Dr. Cotner three decades ago, and he has done exactly that---plus so much more. When my "Texas Gardener" magazine arrives each month, the first thing I do is flip to Greg Grant's monthly column to read it. Then I read the rest of the magazine voraciously. In addition to his regular column, he also writes articles on many topics for the magazine and I have learned so much from all his writings. And, finally, I feel compelled to mention one more book that sits on my bookshelf alongside the books by Grant, Beck and Garrett. It also was written by a long-time Texas horticulturalist/garden writer and it is "The Texas Tomato Book" by Dr. Bill Adams. Until i bought Greg Grant's book, Dr. Adam's book was my favorite "new" book on edible gardening in this area. You know how much I love tomatoes, and I strongly believe this is the best book ever written specifically on growing tomatoes (and other veggies that are their close relatives) in our region. If Dr. Adams ever writes a new book about growing fruit and veggies in this part of the country, I'll buy it the first day it hits the store shelves. Because our climate is so challenging for gardeners, books written specifically for this region have been so much more helpful to me than books aimed at the nation as a whole, and I have a great appreciation for all the great gardening books that are geared specifically towards our region and which were written by people who have made horticulture their life's work. The regional books on my garden shelf also include Neil Sperry's books, and I had to throw that in here because of my immense respect for him. Hope this helps, Dawn

I would like some more information about the plates - they remind me of Audubon illustrations. Were they made in Canada? They look nice enough to hang on the wall or display in a glass cabinet. The magnetic measuring spoons are intriguing as well. Nice to have the metric option. Lars