Plant a Rose with Personality

Here's a different take on how to choose a rose variety. How about one named after your favorite famous personality or movie star. These roses also make unique gifts. There are many "named varieties" to choose from. Here are some of our favorites:

'Phyllis Diller' is one of the newest personality roses. It's a vigorous grandiflora with huge sprays of yellow blooms.

'Barbra Streisand' is a beautiful, rich purple hybrid tea with a lovely nose.

'Barbara Bush' is a hybrid tea with coral pink blooms marked with white. To get even more presidential, combine it with 'Ronald Reagan,' a beautiful, red hybrid tea with a white reverse or the intensely fragrant, red hybrid tea 'Mister Lincoln.'

'Bing Crosby' is a deep orange hybrid tea with light, spicy fragrance. Bing's good buddy 'Bob Hope' is a cherry red hybrid tea.

'Chris Evert' is a hybrid tea with bright orange blooms blushed with red.

'Della Reese' is a wine-red hybrid tea with intense fragrance.

'Dolly Parton,' also a hybrid tea, has voluptuous coppery orange-red flowers with a spicy clove fragrance.

'Diana, Princess of Wales' is a regal hybrid tea with flowers of pink and cream.

'Elizabeth Taylor' is a hybrid tea with hot pink blooms.

Ingrid Bergman' is a radiant red hybrid tea.

'John-John' produces beautiful yellow flowers in small sprays. It's an excellent landscape floribunda with very good disease resistance. It seems like a perfect match for pure white 'John F. Kennedy.'

'Judy Garland' is a floribunda with bright yellow blooms that blush to orange and red.

'Marilyn Monroe' is a shapely hybrid tea with creamy apricot flowers touched with hints of green.

'Princesse de Monaco' is a lovely hybrid tea with clear white blooms edged in soft pink.

'Rosie O’Donnell' is a vibrant, bright red hybrid tea with a yellow reverse.

All right, you get the picture. Personalities aside, plant roses in full sun and well-drained soil. To fertilize and protect your roses from insects and disease, use Bayer Advanced™ All-In-One Rose & Flower Care Concentrate. One application applied to the roots feeds and protects for up to six weeks.

Growing Grass in Shady Areas

If you're having trouble growing a healthy-looking lawn in shady areas, the first step toward a remedy is to make sure you are growing the right type of grass. Although all grasses grow best in full sun, St. Augustine and Zoysia grass are the most shade-tolerant, warm-season or Southern grasses. Fine fescue is the most shade-tolerant, cool-season or Northern grass. So the first step may be to replant shady areas.

The next best step is to increase the light that reaches the lawn. That usually means pruning trees so more light gets through their canopy. Mowing the lawn higher will also help, as will proper watering and fertilizing. Because of the decreased light and competition from tree roots, watering can be especially tricky. Water deeply and then allow time for the soil to partially dry before you irrigate again. Aerating will help water penetration. To control moss and algae, which also love the shade, use Bayer Advanced™ 2-in-1 Moss and Algae Killer Ready-To-Spray.

If your best efforts still result in a thin, unhealthy-looking lawn, consider replanting with shade-loving ground covers, such as ajuga, liriope, vinca, ivy, hosta or pachysandra.

Cultivate to Stimulate Young Transplants

It's vegetable and flower-planting season in many parts of the country. If you want to get your transplants off to the fastest possible start, cultivate often. Cultivating is easy and is one of the more enjoyable gardening practices. Simply, it's gently turning the soil around transplants - fluffing it up so it's less compacted. Cultivating aerates the soil, allowing it to warm up and dry out more quickly. Cold, wet soils are the main cause of stalled transplants. It slows rooting and prevents the uptake of nutrients. Frequent cultivating also keeps weeds to a minimum, which means less competition and more vigorous growth.

Nurseries and garden centers carry many tools, such as hoes and hand forks, for cultivating. But a simple trowel is also a great cultivator. Just push it into the ground an inch or two and twist. You're cultivating.

Shortly after watering is the best time to cultivate. Just be sure you don't get too close to the base of plants or you might damage roots. Cultivating is also an ideal time to examine your plants for signs of early insect damage. To eliminate pest problems use Bayer Advanced™ PowerForce® Multi-Insect Killer Ready-To-Spray. Read the label and follow the directions.

More Tomatoes than Anyone Needs

Every year when we get our new copy of the Tomato Growers Supply Company catalog, we're amazed at how many exciting varieties of tomatoes are out there. This year's catalog literally lists hundreds (too many to count). There are not just early, mid-season and late varieties, there are oxhearts, small-fruited and beefsteaks, paste tomatoes, heirlooms, bicolors and black, green, yellow, orange and white varieties. They also carry a huge variety of peppers and eggplants, and growing supplies. Anyone who loves tomatoes has to visit their Web site at www.tomatogrowers.com.

Here are a few tomato varieties that caught our attention in this year's catalog. 'Honey Hybrid' is perfect for anyone who loves sweet tomatoes. It produces rich-flavored, 8-ounce fruit all season long. If you live in a hot summer area, you might want to try 'Solar Fire,' a new variety from the University of Florida, which keeps producing in the hottest weather and has excellent disease resistance. 'Believe It Or Not' is for large-tomato lovers. It produces fruit weighing up to 2 pounds apiece and they have excellent flavor. 'Copia' is a beautiful, bicolored tomato with red and yellow stripes on the outside and delicious, yellow flesh, striped red.

Start your tomato seedlings indoors (Tomato Growers Web site has easy-to-use products can help) and plant outside in full sun after the last frost. Water and fertilize regularly. To protect plants from insect pests, use Bayer Advanced PowerForce Multi-Insect Killer. Nothing kills bugs faster.