I just add this message to respond to the notion of a rose sale or auction. Following the lead of Jeri n Clay, the Ventura County Rose Society put on major rose auctions of rare and unusual roses for about ten years; first, annually, then later every two years. As an educational device, the auction was a great success for those putting it on. As someone who started out as a contributor to the catalog that accompanied the auction and wound up writing most of it, I learned a lot. (Most of it had to do with commercial viability.) As a financial effort, it was also a great success. HOWEVER,it was every bit as labor intensive as the traditional rose show, involved enormous amounts of energy and time (gathering and storing of roses, mailing off winning bids to those out of state, etc.) and engendered some antipathy on the part of rose society members who did not want to be involved in what they regarded as scut work; (unfortunately, a lot of life involves doing scut work.) Eventually, we gave it up with 2011 being the last of the auctions. Over the course of the years we probably distributed over a thousand roses, most of which were OGRs or unusual and rare (Clark roses from Austalia before they became easily available, frix.) The only way for the enterprise to operate was to open up a national audience in order to find buyers for roses not well known--even if said roses were perfectly suited to the Ventura County climate--e.g. chinas, noisettes, and teas. The trouble is that the audience for OGRS and unusual roses tends to be spread out across the country in numbers not large enough to sustain viable commercial operations. I might add that the practices of many rose societies in permitting widespread use of cuttings from rose shows, celebrations and the like cuts down on the potential profit or even transactions. I am reminded that Frank Benardella used to dip his show roses in Round-up so as to discourage people from using his entries as sources for free roses... Jim D

JoeRay, I guess no one told me that. So much for text book wisdom. I've acutally seen that written before but until you try something and prove it yourself you really don't know. Both are bunch grapes as opposed to muscadines which appear singular and in small groups. I'm not much into grapes. These have a unique flavor that make them a winner in my book. If left on the vine longer they become almost black and sweeter but as soon as they turn the color as pictured, they are good to eat. The skins are bitter on the red and slightly so on the green. The green was bought at Lowes as a Thompson seedless, which it isn't, or perhaps the climate here make the skins tough. "gene"

It feels good to be back and Thanks for the Welcomes!!! ...my new place is to the S. E. of Deland. ...I still have my bamboos, bananas, palms, cycads etc. and am going to be transporting a bunch to the new place...as soon as I get it ready. ...the new/old house definately needs a redo or a bulldozer. I'll have to think on it for a while. ...I found a local that said he'd be more than happy to take care of my beetle infestation...:>)... ...p.city, I don't know much about native plants, but there might be a few out there. You're more than welcome to come out and look around with a shovel and dig up anything you find though. ...a Hanoverian is a German Warmblood that dates to the war-horse of the middle ages. Cort Freemont is his registered name, but we call him Monty. His daddy is Contucci and his grandaddy is Caprimond and his momma is from the Watch Me line. He's going to be trained for dressage... ...I definately have some "Work" ahead of me and I'll be taking some before and after photos for your entertainment...Later...Z

Good looking helper you have there! Since your tomatoes are tall, just dig trenches the length of all but about the last 6 inches of your plants and around 6 inches deep where the root ball will be, tapering the trench up on the top end. Remove all leaves except the ones on the top 6 inches and gently curve the stem of the tomato up at the top end when you plant it. The plant will then form roots along the stem that is buried, making it able to endure our heat better. Mary