A library has many books on your topic.

Maxwell, I'm sorry. I did appreciate your post and am going to follow your advice. Right now my life is so stressful that I didn't realize I hadn't thanked you. Time is flying by so fast and my job has gotten to be extremely stressful, so I have been getting on the forums every now and then to ease the stress. I know that is making me get further and further behind and I shouldn't be doing it, but I get a lot of good advice and your advice to me was very good. Thank you again for taking the time to respond to my post. And That bank sending my account out for collection when I had mailed my payment on time and made a special trip to the post office to do it, really added to my stress. Judith

Lisa, I think you will have great success with Lady Ashe. All climbers take their time getting going. Go with the flow. It seems at first they are duds, but watch out, they are slow to mature, like large/giant breed dogs. Climbers are famous for a huge spring flush followed by a disappointing show for the rest of the flowering season. Lady Ashe is a work horse regarding strong follow up flushes, unlike any other climber I know of. I think a strong hybrid tea presence in Lady Ashe's ancestry is why. Lady Ashe apparently has hybrid tea genes in her background. I say this because after her first flush of the season, during which blooms come in clusters of 3-4 buds, the following flushes are 95% one gorgeous bloom per approximately 16" long, straight stem. They are perfect for cutting, unlike so many climbers' blooms which either nod or have very short necks. Also, Lady Ashe has excellent petal substance, a high petal count with high centered, layer cake blooms. Her lateral flower stems are like rebar, stiff and strong. Her new basal canes are flexible when young, and easy to train, but once mature, be prepared to have a small battle trying to he some cooperation out of them. The flowers never, ever nod. They also last a long time on the bush and equivalently so in the vase. My Lady Ashe is mature now, at year 6. In my zone 5/6 garden, she has been 12 feet wide (6 feet in each direction), filling the upper half, 2 feet, on a 4 foot high fence. She has not spread much in the last two years, just hulked-up nicely. I do not expect her to get any larger. In your CA garden you can safely expect your Lady Ashe to exceed mine in size. By how much, I cannot say for sure, but I would estimate at least 25-33% more. The caterpillar damage you showed is disheartening. Caterpillars targeting rose buds is a hard to treat. There two approaches you can try. Spray just the caterpillar vulnerable parts of the bush, just the shoots developing buds, not the entire bush. Try either of these two insecticides: SEVIN - spray every 5 days. Spray the bud growing tips only, during the caterpillar season. Sevin is a nerve poison that must land on the caterpillar's body to kill it. It is not a stomach poison, so Sevin on the plant will not kill the caterpillar as it chomps on the rose buds/leaves. BAYER COMPLETE INSECT CONTROL - Spray every 7 days during caterpillar season. Just spray the bud growing tips. Bayer is both a contact and stomach poison. It is systemic, so kills the caterpillars when they eat sprayed foliage. Its systemc action does translocate to new or expanded growth. That is why weekly spraying during caterpillar season is required. Your aim is to kill the caterpillars when they just hatch and are tiny, before severe damage occurs. When tiny, they do little significant damage, but as they grow (and do so very quickly), the damage done increases exponentially. With Sevin, you hit the tiny, baby caterpillars' bodies as they hatch. With BAYER you not only kill them as they hatch by the spray hitting their bodies, but any that escape will die when they begin to eat the leaves/buds. These leaves/buds have absorbed the systemic insecticide and are lethal to the caterpillars. There are no organic, i.e., insecticidal soap, neem oil, etc., I can recommend. They are very damaging to new rose growth/foliage, especially with your intense heat and sunlight. I did not see saw fly larvae, a.k.a. rose slugs, damage in your photos. These caterpillars primarily make patterned windows and as they mature, patterned holes, in rose leaves. I have not experienced them attacking buds, but I can imagine they could. I hope your Lady Ashe exceeds your expectations as mine has for me. Moses

Laura as a retired federal employee when I retired I had the option of either having a pension or purchasing an annuity. While different employers offer several different types of retirement plans I can not say which ones you have available. With all of the differences along with some states having their own plans is why if where you work can provide estimates of each of the various pension options available you should look at all the options. You should be able to shop for an annuity outside of any pension plan that is offered by your employer. You may have already done so. As an example. The annuities I had available either had a flat payment for as long as you lived. A payment that started out low but increased a little over time. A couple that I did not even look at paid out only for a certain length of time. A couple had a provision that if I died before a certain percentage was paid out to me a payment would be made to my heirs. If I had selected an annuity I was told that I would pay state income tax on the payment. I selected the pension because although the immediate payment was lower if I lived long enough the payment would increase. Until my total income reaches $85,000, pension, SS, and 456/401 I pay not state income tax on that. Of course the state legislature can change that in a flash. I pay a little state income tax but not as much as if all of those things were taxed.