I read this in my Rose Society's Newsletter: This spring I had to prune many of my older hybrid teas to the ground. Some of the young roses on ‘Fortuniana’ I left longer and just removed the really bad-looking canes. My logic for this is that ‘Fortuniana’-rootstock roses grow best when left tall and it might be too much of a shock to remove all of the old canes. Right now they are all putting out new growth, much of which is probably “fool’s gold”. Canes that are damaged and not outright killed by winter will always put out new growth. The problem is that this growth will likely be weak with lots of blind shoots and poor blooms if they bloom at all. But on these younger roses, I am hoping that the leaves will at least make enough food to give the bud union some extra “oomph” to pump out a few basal breaks before May. If they do, then I will prune out the weak, damaged canes so that all of the rose’s energy goes into the new strong canes. course this assumes that the bud union is healthy enough to do just that....no sure thing at all after the winter of 2013-14. How can you tell if the cane is just damaged and not killed? After the dramatic plunge from temperatures in the mid-70s in late December to near zero in early January, canes that were killed turned black, meaning that all the cell walls burst inside the cane and in the cambium layer. Some “good as dead canes” also will look shriveled and desiccated. Damaged canes will have mushy brown pith or dried-out, shrunken pith with gaps in the center of the cane. Canes that have only slightly brown centers can go either way and might be worth keeping. The most deceptive canes to diagnose are ones that are bright green, bright red, or a combination of healthy-looking green and red. These canes are often very large and beautiful looking. They formed late in the year when weather conditions were ideal for rapid growth. Sadly though, the reason they look so young and healthy is they did not have enough time to harden off before the severe freezes that occurred. Blame the warm December for that. These canes have “zero” chance of surviving and must be cut off at the bud union. When you cut into one, the center will have nothing but brown “gunk”. There is nothing there worth saving. This is the reason we do not fertilize after early September. We do not want to encourage these “monster basal breaks” to start growing. Growing conditions are perfect enough in late September and October without any extra help from over- enthusiastic rosarians. I am even considering changing my own practice on this matter to not fertilizing with a high nitrogen fertilizer after the third week of August. We always thought that the excess nitrogen from an early September fertilizing would be long gone by the time October rolled around. Maybe it really isn’t! I used to start planting roses for clients in late March. But with freezes in March and early April, I have pushed back my planting date to around April 10. On that day, I can look at the forecast for the next week to see if a severe freeze is likely. If not, I start planting. Of course if we see a severe freeze on May 1, that might be the signal to stop growing roses altogether. Let’s hope we don’t ever find out. Okay, so now it is early May and we have a good idea which roses are going to recover and which ones are goners. What about ones that you are not really sure about? Do you dig them up or give them more time. Here are my rules of thumb for that... If it is a rose I was already considering getting rid of, then bring out Mr. Shovel. If there are no new basal breaks and the rest of bush does not look good, feed Mr. Shovel. If the rose did not do well last year, let Mr. Shovel feast. If there is at least one decent new basal break or low lateral cane and I like the rose, I give it more time. If the rose is one that is hard to find and I like it, I will give it a bit more time even if it has not put out any strong new growth yet. If the rose is a large mature rose which has done very well in the past and it is a favorite of mine, I will keep it and give it the entire summer even if canes continue to die back in June. Why keep this one? A few years ago there was a big Thanksgiving freeze. I protected my roses well and thought they all survived the winter in good shape. Come the following spring, big canes on my best bushes started dying back. This continued into July, so I shovel-pruned and planted new bushes there the following year. That fall there were two roses, ‘Pat’s Choice’ and ‘Affirm’, that I never got around to digging up because they had large bud unions on ‘Fortuniana’. They still looked terrible and I did not want to go to the trouble of winter mulching bushes that I was going to dig up anyway. So I just decided to let winter finish them off and I would replace them next year when I had more energy for such things. To my surprise, these two roses that I had left for dead put out dozens of strong basal breaks. By summer, these bushes had recovered every bit to their former size and continued to be two of the biggest bushes in my garden. Now they have suffered heavy damage again and I have cut them back again. I am anxious to see how they recover this time. If you have decided to let a badly damaged bush recover, here is what you do. First, keep it well-watered. Water every day if possible in hot weather. Fertilize with your favorite liquid fertilizer like Mills Easy Feed, Peter’s 20-20-20, MiracleGro, etc., according to directions. Pinch off all flower buds as soon as they appear. Do not let them bloom at all! This will divert all the energy into making new canes, not mediocre blooms. It is imperative that you spray religiously. You need every last healthy green leaf to make food for the recovering rose bush. Pick off Japanese Beetles as you see them. You will not have many because they are drawn first and foremost to the blooms. And there will be no blooms on these recovering roses...right? Do not spray for beetles...period! Over-spraying for beetles will encourage spider mites and your precious recovering rose does not need to deal with mites. If you do get mites, wash them off the undersides of leaves as soon as you see them. Use a water wand to wash each leaf. Do this for a few days in a row. This will also double as your daily watering for the roses as well. Stop regular fertilizing by late August, although you can use superphosphate, root-stimulator, or even Mills Magic Rose Mix (the dry stuff) as they have very little nitrogen. This you can do into early September. Just remember, use nothing with more than 5% nitrogen. If you are lucky, by September, the bushes will have recovered enough that you can let them bloom and pick some blooms for the house. If not, they may need more time. One final option for your freeze-damaged rose is to dig it up, put it in a five or seven gallon pot, and baby it with lots of water and fertilizer. Bring it into a warm garage or greenhouse in the winter and presto...you will likely have a nice looking rose to plant next spring. I do this all the time with clients’ roses that I remove to make way for the new roses that they want, even if the roses are in ghastly shape that only a mother could love. I pot them up in five-gallon nursery pots, using a nice Fafard potting mix. I put them in a half sun/shade area of my yard so they will not burn up in the hot summer sun and then take care of them for the rest of the year. In late fall, I move them into my greenhouse and by spring, quite often I have nice looking roses that can be planted into someone’s garden. This does entail a bit of extra work though, so be sure you want to go to the effort before you start. The final thing you will need to do is to provide winter protection for the recovering rose. I have started using the Nutra mulch from Green Bros. Earthworks for my winter protection. It is a nice brown fine-textured light and fluffy mix that is easily applied. It also will help feed your roses as it breaks down the following spring and summer. Mound it up high around the canes and pray we do not have a repeat performance of this year’s disastrous winter. My final note on rose damage deals with what to do with tree roses. To my pleasant surprise, the past three winters have not been too hard on my tree roses, even considering how cold my garden is compared to much of metro Atlanta inside the perimeter. My tree roses include ‘Lasting Love’, ‘Julia Child’, ‘Moonstone’, and ‘Sedona’. There was virtually no damage at all on them since 2010. This is surprising since the bud union is three feet above ground and totally exposed. There is really not much I could have done to protect them this year with the exception of draping frost cloth over them and putting a small heater underneath the frost cloth. In northern gardens, rosarians sometimes loosen one side of the roots and lay the entire tree rose on its side and cover it with mulch or soil. I will say this now...that is just too much work and it would not have helped this winter! If you had actually tried this, you would also have had the unpleasant surprise of seeing new shoots growing vertically from the canes that were lying sideways at ground level. This would have been bizarre indeed! Gardens in the north don’t have three weeks of temperatures in the 60s and 70s to deal with, so they do not get shoots growing straight up. But we do! That is all for now. May your roses have survived winter’s ravages and thrive throughout the upcoming summer months. From the April 2014 issue of The Phoenix, newsletter of the Greater Atlanta Rose Society, Bobbie Reed, Editor.

Sorry if I came off as so negative with my advice, certainly you have gained a wealth of personal experience that has now elevated you from a "newbie" gardenener to one more experienced with the trials and tribulations of invasive weeds, and poor winter drainage. A bit more about using Roundup in case you didn't know: 1. Works best when bermuda grass has not been cut back, but is full and lots of surface foliage 2. Apply when bermuda grass is in active growth(usually once it has hit 75F temps for a couple of weeks 3. Roundup works best when you have consistent warm weather so that it actively gets translocated to the roots 4. When bermuda grass is invading from the neighbors gardens, you need to do regular weed patrol to keep on top of runners that spring up from under the fence, probably at least every couple of weeks About the annual bluegrass: 1. If you are planting out small seedlings that can't effectively compete with weeds, try cutting an 18 square of weed fabric and pinning down at the edges around any new seedlings, this is what is typically done with revegeatation seedlings/trees planted out in grasslands, they need help creating a clear zone so that they can get large enough to compete with the weeds/grasses 2. Mulching deeply to keep bare soil from being exposed greatly helps with inhibiting weed seeds that need light to germinate, such as the annual blue grass 3. If you are trying to reseed poppies and other wildflowers, you can keep smaller areas weedfree and scatter saved seed, but will need to be vigilant about weeding seedlings of weeds as they come up Watering new plantings; 1. Standing with the hose and giving things a splash of water just isn't enough with valley heat and small seedlings with their limited roots 2. Better to give things a really good soak twice a day if starting seedlings when the weather is still hot, and use mulch to minimize soil evaporation 3. You might consider creating temporary shade structures using bamboo stakes and shade cloth if you can't resist starting seedlings outside the ideal fall planting window 4. Ideal time to plant out small sized native species is in the fall, once it starts to cool off enough in your area that you won't be getting any more 75F and above days, this makes a huge difference in heat and water stress for small plants Drainage issues 1. You are absolutely right that if you didn't know how poorly drained your intended garden was going to be, you wouldn't have known that it would be a problem. 2. You now know that it may be worth investigating first before you start planting; ie, look to see if there are rain gutters or downspouts off the roof, where they drain, if there is enough slope to the ground that water can drain away, etc. It may also be helpful to ask the neighbors, landlord, former tenants, when you have a chance to do so, if there are any drainage problems with the site Weeds; 1. You now have the experience to be a better judge of whether your intended garden area is surrounded by weeds, and if so, you now also know that it is always a good idea to try and get rid of the stored seed bank before you start planting 2. Getting rid of entrenched weeds may mean using Roundup at the right time of year to effectively kill them(and use the full strength applications and repeat usage after clearing away killed weeds, watering for at least a couple of weeks to initiate new growth, wait until weed regrowth is at least a couple of inches and spray again. You may need to do this 3 or 4 times over 3 to 4 months to get rid of all the weeds. 3. It may be useful to cultivate/disturb the soil several times to expose weed seeds to light, hoe them off or spray with herbicide, and repeat several times if you suspect you have a real weed problem. This could even mean that you don't plant your garden until 3 to 4 months of weed treatment. Dogs and new plants 1. it may be preaching to the choir, but small plants and dogs who aren't trained to be careful around small plants, or don't get enough walks/excercise to keep from being bored when left alone all day, are not a good mix with new plantings, especially at small vulnerable sizes. It only makes sense to give the plants some protection from dogs if you can't mitigate their behavior, dogs will do what dogs want to do without work on your part. Maybe I have just been lucky with the dogs I have owned, but I started training them very young to be careful around the garden, and not destroy young or old plants. I also had the time to take them on long walks every day, and burn off all that excess energy, which is important when you have a labrador retriever. Now if I could just train the raccoons not to damage plants in my garden.. You have gotten some valuable experience in gardening by the "trial by fire" method, but it can also be useful to ask questions when you aren't clear on the methods, take classes, and keep reading up. Obviously there isn't just one way to garden, and I certainly don't claim to know all the answers, but over 40 years of gardening, over 30 years of them professionally, mean that I do have a very good handle on how to handle weeds, drainage, soil amendmending, etc to fit within the budgets and efforts of my clients, and can tailor solutions that will work within different circumstances. It is always about tradeoffs, and I am not against using weedcloth as a first line of defense to be set underneath deep mulch when I can't eliminate the weeds in the first place, it has been my only workable method to minimize bermuda grass and Oxalis pes-capri infestations when I didn't have the time or budgets necessary to really control them before new landscape plantings.

Years ago when my DM moved into assisted living,I found all those newspaper clippings, birth and death announcements, and postcards....her memorabilia and photos while doing that dreaded job of clearing out her house. I boxed them up and took them home where I photo copied, cataloged, transcribed most of into a geneology program and folders. Originals are still in photo boxes. I think I did photo albums for 7 family members, trying to share photos of themselves and their history. Computers and copy machines are magic wonders. Now, our history is spread around in the hope that someone else will continue to save and share those things. It took, at least, one whole year, with my dinning room table ebbing and flowing with such a multitude of 'stuff'. I have not looked at it again for the last 10 years, but it is done. And now a new phase is about to begin. Yesterday I sold my long cherished Sterling Silver flatware. I can't remember when we last used it, but it did represent a time in my life when I was young and expecting to live that "Leave it to Beaver" life of pearl necklaces, elegant dining, dressing for dinner, etc.etc. ....long gone days that were quickly replaced by being a mother in 1955 when we did not have washing machines, dishwashers, disposable diapers and being a military wife was very foreign to me. My DD tells me that I have had a 'charmed life' and I do not deny that at all. Married 58 years to my high school sweetheart; 24 of them with the USMC and luckily traveled to foreign places with him. Twenty 24 years with the State of California...again, living in many diverse locations in the state where he was born. We never had an abundance money; our children knew that if they wanted and needed something we would do our best to provide it. They began working as soon as they could and their lives have not been as blessed as ours. DH and I are in our 77th year and struggle to do the stuff we did so easily just a few years ago, so it is time to start re-evaluating what we have and what we do with our "stuff". We have so many memories attached to so many items that are cluttering up our lives. Those memories have caused some sleepless nights but the best thing for me has been a new insight of my mother. She would be 100 years old this October and in releasing that silver, I was taken back to the day we picked it out to put into my 'hope chest'. I didn't think of it then or since, but how proud she must have been to see her little girl attaining some of the dream that she never dreamed could happen to her. The sad thing is that I don't think that she even thought that...it just was. But, as a poor farm girl in Ohio, she and my Dad and two little girls DID set out on a cross country gamble, looking for a better life in 1938. They really did succeed in launching me out into a world they could have never imagined.

UKYankee... Hi, and welcome to the forum! I rebuilt my pond last year, so its less than a year old now. It's roughly the same size as yours. Blanket weed is a big problem right now... previously I used barley straw with great success, but this year it seems to have no effect. Or perhaps the blanket weed would be even worse without it. I'm not too worried though - I suspect that my pond has not achieved a natural balance yet. Probably too many nutrients from the soil with all the new plants I added. It will probably take another couple of years before it settles down properly. I'm currently pulling out great swathes of it by hand regularly, but once the tadpoles start hatching I'll probably just leave it. As for green water, you can try a UV unit, but personally I have had no success with that method. I just got a thick suspension of dead algae instead of a thick suspension of live algae. Maybe I didn't get the right size of filter or UV unit, or the flow rate from my pump was too high or too low. Whatever, it had no effect on water clarity and just increased my electricity bill. So, when I rebuilt my pond, I went with a big DIY filter instead, based on the Skippy filter. Do a web search and you'll find Skippy's site whch has details. It's a "natural" solution, which may suit your philosophy. Takes a lot of space though (compared to commercial filters). Other things to counter green water is to have plenty of plants, especially a) a good coverage of floating ones (or ones with sperading leaves/pads), which will provide shade and therefore reduce algae growth and b) ones which grow rapidly and use up nutrients fast eg. watercress. Again these are "natural" solutions. I buy bunches of organic watercress from the supermarket, and throw it in the open top of my filter where it grows like mad. I buy lots of floating Water Lettuce and Water Hyacinth each year (they die in Winter), and the lily pads help as well. I have water soldiers too. I've had duckweed in the past which worked great, but was so rampant that I had to scoop out a bucket load almost daily. My current fish love to eat duckweed though, so that doesn't work any more (same result with azolla :-P) So far, floating plants and the new filter have kept the water clear, but the real test is yet to come this Spring and Summer when the temperatures rise and we get more sunlight. Well, whatever you do, good luck!