For those of us who cannot attend, are there any plans to publish all or part of the proceedings? I bought the book form of the 9th International Heritage Rose Conference Proceedings in Charleston in 2001 for a very reasonable price. It has given me many hours of enjoyable reading. Maybe if you did a survey to see if there might be enough interest to make the project viable?

I grow OGRs organically & no-spray, Nancy, and this year (my second year) I'm fertilizing monthly. I didn't last year because I didn't know what I was doing, was afraid of "over-fertilizing"! I think my roses suffered for it. They didn't look well in a number of ways. With our sandy soil and heavy rain in the summer I think we have to fertilize just to stay even. My roses are doing much better with the extra attention. And I was told (and ignored) that in Florida roses must be fed monthly; they're heavy feeders, especially Hybrid Teas. Since our roses don't go dormant or have the risk of freezing - and even though they slow down in the heat, they really are still growing & using energy, I think feeding in the summer is better than not. They suffer without food. And blooms aren't the only process in roses that needs support. As to thrips, I don't think I have them - at least I don't know what thrip damage looks like so I don't know if I have it. Could ignorance be bliss in this situation? Probably not. Sherry

I received my June package today from PlantLadyJan. Jan...thank you sooooooo much. I'm very appreciative of your letter and our conversations here on the web. And of course I am very touched by your package you sent as well. Do you believe in Santa? I think he has checked your profile twice at least and is making notes. He knows how devoted to this robin you have been, even though things aren't always equal or fair on all sides of things. Thanks for remembering the info about the chocolates. I thought maybe you were teasing me.....sending me the tag, but not the chocolates....lol. Silly rabbit,I am. Too hot to send chocolate in the mail anyway. Darn.....lol Thanks again for the package....and for remembering. Bonnie

Actually I use a wipe off calendar and it works well for me. Appts, etc are kept in my electronic gadget PDA? and before I was given this thing I had a paper calendar book that I carried in my purse. The wipe on/off calendar is so the family knows what's going on on any given day. My calendar board actually has 7 lines and I simply roll the months. As one week finishs I wipe and put the next week from the bottom in it's place - does that make sense? I had those plastic rubber things - like the decorations for windows, with the calendar month names that I would stick at the beginning of the month. If my DH or DDs/DS has something going on they add it to the board and then I add it to my PDA. That way I know what's going on with everyone. But it's an added visual each morning on what's going on for the day. I've been doing this since forever. I use a small one now but when the kids were little it was quite large - so the kids had space to write. A paper calendar never had enough room. But we also listed chores etc on the calendar. Oh and everything was color coded, each one of us was a different color.