Prunning I tend to dead head more than cut back roses severely. I belong to the camp that believes that a well leafed out rose is a healthy one. When I dead head I cut just before a bud-eye that faces out in order to keep growth from growing inwards and eventualy rubbing against eachother and damaging the plant. The only time that I severely prune back a rose is when it is well established (2+ years in the ground or pot) and when the temperature is at it's coolest. This year has been favorable since January and February have been consistently cool. Watering I have an automatic sprinkler system (like most people in SF) that gets its water from the lake behind my house. During the dry cooler months that we've been experiencing I tend to water every two to three days. During the hot summer months I water daily, so long as we haven't had rain (which can happen). I am always looking for the most effective and conservative method of balancing water conservation with raising healthy roses, so I've tried several watering methods. Regular sprinkler heads wet the foliage too much and create massive blackspot challenges. Drip emmitters tend to clog up easily. The second to last system I converted to was Spot Spitters, which are relatively inexpensive small hose end emmitters that fan out and cover a large area without getting the leaves wet, but I found myself constantly adjusting and balancing the water flow so I'm currently converting to soaker hoses. Thus far they seem to be the best option, although I won't be able to gauge their success until this summer when watering is at its most crucial. Feeding I've been known to dable in almost everything available. My constant program is a mixture of the granular Miracle Gro for roses stuff along with some Sol-Po-Mag (or K-Mag under another brand) as a ground fertilizer and my folier feeding consists of water soluable Miracle Gro in the hose end resevoir mixed with fish emulsion. The neighbors might complain about the smell, but your roses will thank you for it. Another item I use from time to time is the Rosetone (Rosetome sp?) which is a propietary blend of inert ingredients (including the special ingredient: chicken poop) That I find helps my roses grow healthy leaves and bigger rose hips. If you'd like some super advice on feeding/watering programs that work well in Florida visit the Central Florida Rose Society's webpage. Here is a link that might be useful: Central Florida Rose Society

Ricky's Swap a Que is April 19th. There is a current post about that one. I am having a swap in Deland on April 25th. Karalynn is having a swap (I think she is in Citrus county) on May 9th. Also, the Volusia County Master Gardener Plant Faire is April 4th. Here is the blurb on it: Plant sale: Thousands of plants will be offered at the Volusia County Master Gardeners' 11th annual Plant Faire from 8:30 a.m. to noon April 4 at the Volusia County Agricultural Center, 3100 E. New York Ave., DeLand. Admission is free. There will also be a silent auction, book sale, seed sale and vendors offering other plants and garden-related material. Master gardeners will be available to answer questions. Melissa

Apparently I need to read up on the lizards as I did not realize some were native and some were not. We have a ton of them here.....pure green ones, green ones with red throat patches, brown ones and some that are brown with zig zag lines on their backs.....no clue what they are cute little devils. We have bunches of the bluetail skinks? as well, sorry I don't know their real name. We use to have the geckos as well, the ones with the huge round eyes and real light tan to white bodies that only came out at night. Sadly The very cold winter year before this one seems to have killed them all.

While all of Florida is shown on range maps for sawgrass, I have never come across it in central Florida, myself. It is abundant in the Everglades, of course, and I suppose it crops up around here somewhere, but I really don't believe it would be a grass you would spot around Seminole County regularly. I could be wrong, of course, not being an expert on grass, but my best guess is the one you are asking about is something else. So...let's get us a picture. First thing you do is upload your picture to an online host like Photobucket. (It's free). Once you have your picture on Photobucket, you put a check mark in the box under the thumbnail of the picture, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click on the button that says Generate HTML & Image Code. A page will come up with 5 different codes. Highlight and Copy the second one and paste it into your GW message, et voila! Your picture will show up when you submit your post to GW. An easy way to share pictures here on a regular basis is to set up on album just for GW on Photobucket, and always load your pictures to that album. I have a folder on my desktop especially for Garden Web, and that's where I store mine on my computer. Then I upload from that folder to Photobucket, then do the copy & paste thingie, and the photos are then in your message. Hope this helps! Looking forward to seeing your mystery grass. Marcia