Rotted Dead People

Stop and smell the roses

ONE OF THE GREATEST pleasures of a summer garden is a perfect, fragrant, colourful rose.

If you’re thinking "I know, but they’re so hard to grow," you’re wrong.

Many people get turned off growing roses because they’ve had too many failures with those notorious "rose in a box" selections, the cheap, wax-covered varieties sold in garishly illustrated boxes or bags at discount stores.

Most of these roses are grafted the stem of one variety attached to the roots of another. You’re far better off buying roses from a reputable nursery where the operators have healthy stock grown on its own roots.

Every July, I make time in my hectic schedule to visit my friend Catherine Neily in Falmouth, who has a phenomenal rose garden. Aside from purchasing healthy stock, Neily has a few tips for gardeners.

"Roses need lots of sun and good drainage, which is why most of our beds are raised," she says.

You can grow roses in less than full sun but most varieties will not bloom as prolifically. Neily gives her roses a good pruning every couple of years and removes dead or damaged stems each spring.

Roses also are heavy feeders, so she gives them plenty of food, including well-rotted manure, kelp and alfalfa pellets. While she does face challenges from deer browsing on her plants, she’s philosophical about that. Deer, like goutweed, will always be with us.

Since mine is an organic garden, our roses get the tough love treatment. I apply compost, well-rotted manure and Seameal, Seaboost’s dried seaweed product, and prune them in the spring.

After that, they are pretty much on their own. If leaves get chewed, the plant grows new ones. If the plant dies, I remove it and plant something else.

There are thousands of choices when it comes to selecting roses. What you choose depends on how much time you want to spend working with your plants. If you’re beginning with roses, the best advice is to stay away from the fussy hybrid tea, grandiflora and floribunda roses unless you’re prepared to pamper them.

Look for the Canadian-bred Explorer and Parkland series, which include Morden Sunrise, AC Marie-Victorin, Henry Hudson and Hope for Humanity. These are tough, disease-resistant roses that are grown on their own roots when sold by good nurseries.

The rugosa roses are a class known for their thorny branches and highly fragrant blooms. You’ll often see these growing around old farmsteads or on beaches because they’re salt tolerant.

Will new FDA labels on cigarettes curb smoking? | Cigarettes Flavours

On Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug administration unveiled the nine graphic health warnings that will be required to appear on every pack of cigarettes sold in the U.S., and in every cigarette advertisement, no later than September 2012. The labels feature bold images of rotted teeth, blackened lungs, dead bodies, and crying women — among other things. These images, and accompanying messages like “Cigarettes Cause Cancer,” must cover half of each cigarette package and make up 20 percent of each tobacco ad.

Experts are hoping that the large, graphic images will help prevent children from smoking, encourage adults who do smoke to quit and ensure every American understands the dangers of smoking.

“I’ll be glad when the new advertisements appear on packaging,” said Donavan Young, a non-smoker interviewed in Tobacco Road Outlet (TBO), in Rockingham. “But I don’t necessarily think it will stop smokers from smoking.”

Jamie Shepard, TBO clerk, and Will Currie, owner of The Smoking Cork Wine Shop, agree that the labels probably won’t deter smokers.

These conspicuous warnings represent the most significant changes to cigarette labels in more than 25 years, according the the FDA.

Each warning will be accompanied by a smoking cessation phone number, 1-800-QUIT-NOW, in the hopes of increasing the likelihood that smokers who want to quit will be successful.

Americans have been steadily smoking less since the 1960s, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said 46 million Americans — one in five — still smoke and about 443,000 Americans die every year of tobacco-related illnesses. The CDC said smoking is responsible for 90 percent of all lung cancer deaths in men and 80 percent among women.

Tobacco companies oppose the new warnings and, in a statement to the FDA, argued that the regulations violate the constitutional right to free speech.

Big tobacco could soon be joined by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), which is considering fighting the federal government’s new mandate with a lawsuit.

“We are still discussing whether we go directly with a lawsuit or whether we will enter of friend-of-the-court filing,” Dan Jaffe, ANA’s executive vice president for government relations, said in an interview with Ad Age. But “we will certainly join with others in opposing this proposal.” Jaffe added that the ANA thinks the proposal is unconstitutional because “the government on its own … can’t put words in the mouths of advertisers.

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