April 23 - Everything's coming up ROSES!

SO many blossoms! The secret, roses experts tell me, is to keep your roses fed and watered. Maybe I'll be better at that this year. My roses can only hope.

"Golden Showers" is a climbing yellow florabunda with no smell. A thunderstorm this week broke one of the canes, but another will grow back. The fragrant David Austin lavender rose is "Othello," which vigorously grows quite tall. It's loaded with blossoms. They start off as a dark pink and turn lavendar. The pink is another climber with huge blossoms. It's flanked by the brilliant "Blaze," a red with only a faint smell.

At the top of this page, you see the beautiful multi-colored "Double Delight" that I learned about when I was working at Chinqua-Penn Plantation in Reidsville. A stroll through it capped off every afternoon. The large rose has a very strong rose fragrance. My own collection is rounded out by a salmon tea rose and the famous dark red, "Mr. Lincoln." Sniff most anywhere right now in my back yard and you'll smell roses.

The tomatoes we planted on March 14 have buds just waiting to pop open. Two days of steady, soaking rain helped everything - including pollen-clogged noses. Callie Baby, my short hair Calico has been checking on the 'maters.

The gardenias and Myers lemon trees are loaded with of blossoms. Smells pretty good in the greenhouse, too!

In the middle of all this, Joel and I have been on the road going in opposite directions. While I've been calling on media throughout North Carolina, he's been their focus - huge articles in a Triad publication, called "Yes! Weekly" and then today on the front page of the Triad Careers section of the Greensboro News and Record. Log onto www.yesweekly.com to learn about his songs. Maybe I should play the opera version for my plants!?