Hi Melisssa: sounds like my weather, it's windy here too. The 40 mph wind broke my new Crown Princess Mag. It's either the wind or the animals than do the pruning here for me.

I like fragrant peonies, and am excited that Myrtle Gentry, the most fragrant, sprouted.

I have bad hayfever too. One year I was stuffing my mouth with Pepperidge Farm cookies and had the WORST HAYFEVER, like blowing my nose every 2 seconds. The culprit? Cottonseed oil, which has the same protein structure as peanut. My kid breaks out in rash with both peanuts and cottonseed oil. I have severe hayfever when I eat anything with cottonseed oil (in crackers, cookies, baked goods).

By avoiding cottonseed oil, spring is great for me. No more sneezing and going through 1 box of Kleenex per week.

The weather has been confusing this winter and spring, hot one week, damp the next, and the roses don't like it at all. I have the worst infestation of disease I've ever experienced, rust, mildew and blackspot all at once, with some roses having rust AND mildew. Not a lovely sight in a spring garden, and I can only hope the roses can throw it off when the weather does turn hot and dry. Two days ago it was almost 90 degrees and today it's 60 and drizzling. I'm as confused as the roses. Still, when I hear about hail and gale force winds my problems don't seem so bad after all.

Ingrid

The up-side of drought.

A lot of beetles have several pre-beetle stages that live below ground. You may remember Japanese Beetles from the miserable photos from the eastern US. I had two really bad drought years. The JB population in my area took a major hit because the pre-beetle stages couldn't get through the solid clay. That sort of thing may have happeend with yours.

Hail - is a reason to grow a garden of old roses. Roses that bloom on old wood (as opposed to hybrid teas) survive hail better than roses that are all soft wood. And the leaves that survive the storm, if they are firmed up, those leaves will be good for the season, even if they are ugly to our eyes. The rose cares more about the leaf surface.

I've grown to a state of amusement at the variable sizes of rose leaves on individual plants. Looking at a cane, I can relive the growth conditions.

We've gone from summer and temps that hit 90F to heavy frost at 2000' over a ten day interval. Rose blooms have lasted a week or more. Long haired white cat tried to shed all her fur the second week of temps on the 80's and is now a mess of matted fur. Weeds are ahead of schedule, but the roses look great.

Pluses and minuses.

Let us hope for more normal weather patterns this season Melissa - last year we got all (your) rain up here - 3 times as much as normal, and we only had 1 day - ONE DAY - with temps over 25C/77F - defined as a summer day. And if that wasn't bad enough - in late May - I was in excruciating pain had to call an ambulance and have emergency surgery and didn't think I was going to survive. So gardening became a challenge and my dear friends were kind enough to drive me around - getting some good laughs - seeing me on morphine for a month, tumbling around rose gardens and rosariums with a strange gooffy smile on my face - sometimes falling over into a big rosebush - almost needing help to get detangled ...I count it among my blessings they didn't get that on video - then they had been on YouTube by now ...

The 2 week cold snap we got this winter - also killed over 100 of my roses - so I have some bare spots - in my garden this year - but have planted many new roses - I have to try most new Austins, Kordes and Tantau roses - if I think they look beautiful and are told to be very fragrant :-) - I hope they will do well - but as you know with new roses it will take 2-4 years to get to know their growth habit, health, hardiness and to see if they earn their given spot.

Have been down with a cold for 4 days - and had more time to read up on forums - and I will probably get the last 20 bareroot roses in the mail - tomorrow and me and some friends are going to a large Rose nursery on wednesday - to get more - roses and fill the trailer with black gold - Aged, composted cow manuere :-) I know of nothing that improves my rather heavy clay soil - than compost and aged Cow manure.

I have plenty of seedlings growing everywhere inside - My favorite Sweet Peas, Cerinthe, Amaranthus, Nicotianas and will sow Cosmos, Nigella, and herbs, outside soon where there is space and it will fit. It will be OK - and my garden and I will get through this transition period - Change is sometimes good.

I have a few Peonies (Lactiflora Peonies) that really are beginning to look well - and as you know they become better plants each year - I don't have many since they like sunny positions too - but I like the few I have Lady Alaxandra Duff, Shirley Temple, MME Jules Dessert, and Edens Perfume - and I enjoy their red shoots so full of promise, and their nice Autumn colours of their foliage. I also have a few tree peonies - a wonderfully fragrant pink one - a white one - and 2 I have not seen bloom yet - but have buds this year. I like them but really do not have room for them ...I do not know the name of these cultivars.

It has rained a lot the last 2 days - after having almost no rain the last 3 weeks - it was much needed -and everything is starting to leaf out and become green - so much to look forward - I wish you and others on the forum a great season ... If you truly want to torture yourself with anticipation go visit the rose galleries - I made that mistake yesterday.

It is a topsy turvey weather world we are living in right now, that's for sure.

It is sunny, mid-50s but extrememly windy here today. It is snowing not all that far East of me today. Not a little flurry, mind you, but "feet" of snow! I feel for all my East coast fellow gardeners.

And Southern California has rain coming -- at the tail end of April, when rain should be over and done -- after a dry, windy winter.

Jeri

Looks like weird weather all over the world-----Hopefully we will all survive along with the roses--

Strawberry I will check for cottonseed oil--- I've been having trouble with swollen lips which seem to be under control with meds----

Neils----take it easy and don't get carried away---sounds like you have a lot of work lined up----my gardening is very limited---just happy to be able to walk around and do some light pruning---

Florence

Well, your responses certainly made me realize how lucky I am, all things considered. The weather's bizarre all over for sure. Niels, we sure could have used some of your cool weather last summer--as I'm sure you would have appreciated a dose of our blazing heat of August and September. As for the cold spell in February: losing a hundred roses!! here all that happened was that the plants' leaves turned brown. You have my sympathies, and my respect for keeping right on with the business of gardening. Between your health and the weather it sounds like you had an awful year, and I hope this start of a new flowering season will be the beginning of a much better time for you.
Ingrid, fungal diseases right at the height of the flowering season are very disappointing, I know. I think it will pass when the weather gets back to normal. The only time I ever had rust in my garden was one year during a five week rainy spell in May and June, a period when the garden is normally going dry for the summer. 'Zephirine Drouhin' got a tremendous case of rust, defoliated, and then leafed out again and has been perfectly healthy ever since. Your garden will recover too.
Ann, I know. Nice to know that drought can bring some advantages with it, isn't it? This may be another side benefit of not irrigating as well. The hail doesn't look like it did too much damage, thank goodness; last year we have a memorable hailstorm in June that destroyed our entire fruit crop.
A lot of my roses have a somewhat pallid look that suggests they would appreciate some sun. We're supposed to have a few days of fair warm weather ahead of us, and I'm hopeful they'll bring the garden to a peak of smiling perfection coming on top of all the rain. Also I'm going to ask my husband to cut some of the lower branches off the willow that's growing in the middle of the shade garden, as I think it's getting out of hand.
Strawberry,
My allergy seem to be purely to pollen: it begins every spring and runs on through early summer. It is nice to know what you're allergic to, as you figured out in your case, so that you can avoid it. Though it's not simply allergy/no allergy. I never had regular seasonal allergy until I came to live in Italy, but here I get it dependably every year. Why? I do wonder if the heavy air pollution in this part of the world is part of the problem (the Po Valley has some of the worst air in Europe, and we live on the edge of it, fortunately at a somewhat higher elevation).
I like fragrance in peonies too, though will do without it in classes where it's just not found. For some years now I've been lusting after peonies. I began dividing mature clumps a couple seasons ago, so finding out I could propagate them, and I was told of an inexpensive source last year for herbaceous lactiflora peonies and made a large order. Peonies are satisfying because you plant them and basically forget them, and they just get better every year, forever. Great plants.
Seil, Jeri, Florence,
Weird weather, indeed! I hope this year stays a little closer to what I'm accustomed to think of as normal.
Melissa