Welcome! We are about seventy members from the western suburbs of Philadelphia and all over the Delaware Valley, from people with one 'Peace' by the mailbox to people with three hundred bushes and no lawn left. We meet once a month, put on a show every June and every fall, and talk about roses far more than our families would like. Everyone is welcome. You do not have to grow show roses, or any roses at all yet, to join.

I'm Lee Alessi, and I edit our newsletter, The Darby Creek Bud, and this page. I'm a dental hygienist by day, which means I spend my working hours telling people to floss and my evenings telling them to spray. I have sixty roses in a suburban backyard. My husband Chuck keeps saying the yard is full. Chuck said that at forty roses, too.

What a summer. First the drought, with the whole region under watering restrictions and half the society out with watering cans at dusk. Then the Japanese beetles, which came in late June and stayed through August and seemed to love the dry weather as much as we hated it. Every light colored rose I own was chewed to lace. 'Iceberg' looked like a white doily by the Fourth of July. Then on September 16 Hurricane Floyd's rain came through and ended the drought in one day, and knocked the petals off everything that was open. Roses are not for the faint of heart.

What to do about beetles, for next year, from the collected wisdom of the society:

• Hand-pick them early in the morning while they're sluggish. Hold a coffee can of soapy water under the bloom and tap. They fold up their legs and drop right in. It's oddly satisfying.
• Do not hang those bag traps in your yard. They do catch beetles, but the scent draws in more beetles from all around than they catch, and the extras end up on your roses. If you must use a trap, hang it in your neighbor's yard. (Kidding. Mostly.)
• Cut the light-colored blooms and bring them inside when the beetles are bad. White, yellow and pale pink roses seem to draw them the most.
• Treat the lawn for grubs. The grubs live in the turf and come up as beetles. Milky spore works, slowly, over years, and works best if your neighbors do it too.

Black spot is a fungus, and in our hot, humid summers it is the number one reason people give up on roses. It starts as black spots with feathery edges on the lower leaves, the leaves turn yellow and drop, and by August you have a bare stick with a flower on top. I have strong feelings about this, so here they are:

1. Prevention, not cure. A spot never goes away. You protect the new leaves. That means a fungicide spray every seven to ten days from the time the leaves open in spring until fall, not once you see spots. Once you see spots you're already behind.
2. Pick up every fallen leaf. The spores spend the winter on the old leaves and splash back up onto the bush with the first spring rain. A clean bed in November is half the battle in June.
3. Water the ground, not the leaves, and water in the morning so anything that does get wet dries by night. Soaker hoses are your friends.
4. Give them air. Don't crowd them. (Chuck would like me to read this one twice.)
5. If you don't want to spray, that's fine! Plant the tough ones. 'Bonica' and many of the newer shrub roses shrug it off. Just don't buy a hybrid tea, skip the spraying, and blame the rose.