I'm having the almost the same issue with zucchini. I only got 4 zucchinis. Down at the base of the plants, there appear to be a few female flowers, contrasted with many male flowers. Tomorrow I plan to try to pollinate the females(using a little brush or even one of the male flowers, stripped back). I've got many bees, but they're more interested in the many tomato flowers nearby, and I'm guessing that once a bee goes to the male zucchini flower that he's not going to the female zucchini flower afterwards. Anyone else have ideas on the subject? Good luck if you can try this, by the way.

My mother had several plant collections, she collected rare alpine plants, most of which were 2 to six inches tall, and I never did appreciate them, but I loved her Primula collection, odd gilded Victorian primroses, hose in garter prims, Japanese primroses, drumsticks and species. My first love in my own garden was the Lily, I loved the trumpet and oriental lilies for their rich deep scent. I lived with more than 200 different modern rosebushes for five years and only one was fragrant Double Delight, and I could not stand the gawky bare limbed growth habit of those H.T.s and Florries. THEN LUanne changed my life with one suggestion "since your'e looking for fragrance why don't you try growing Old Garden Roses ? I did and never looked back. I was enchanted to know that I could and would grow the white 'Rose of York' and the Lancaster Red Rose, cloned from descendants from the same plants that bloomed in medieval Europe. The white Musk rose that Shakespeare wrote so sweetly of, is in my garden now about to bloom. The history and mystery of Old Roses endears me to them, I love knowing that I see roses blooming that I grow the white rose of York, known since the 1400's in England, and that white rose and the red rose of Lancaster was likely to have been seen by both Shakespeare and the Tudor family back when knights fought in tournaments, and some people truly believed that unicorns might exist, the wild eglantine one sees in Queen Elizabeth 1's portraits, painted in the 1500's, are a symbol of virginity and I have held the wild eglantine in my hand, so small and frail and perfect, and smelled the welcome scent of its leaves on a moist breeze. - the rare and only yellow garden rose, brought from the middle east, seen in the paintings of the dutch masters was so rare in the 17th century that one painter had to wait months for a yellow rose bloom to appear in the marketplace, so he could fulfill his patrons request for a yellow rose in a still life. The many Tea roses blooming in my California garden, and the Banksiae have ancestors in China, and I would love to see them all in their native habitat. I love roses best with companions, the photo posted recently with hollyhocks and red Valerian in profusion with one Le Vesuve in the center is my idea of high beauty; lush colorful companions with a queen in the middle. O, Splendor, O, Joy!!! The leaves,up to 15 leaflets upon one stem, fern shaped leaves of Scotch Burnets, pleated rugosa folaige, the scent of the Incense Rose leaves, more strongly scented than many a flower of a modern rose, the flagon shaped hips of Alba Semi Plena, and millions of R. moyessi hips, hips as large as cherry tomatos on Magnifica rugosa, tiny sprays of black hips an ornament many Spinosissima roses, the lush grow of de la Grifferaie' blue-green leaves of the Alba roses, pretty arching growth of a pegged Hybrid Perpetual Ulrich Brunner fils' , and many scents of the different rose classes, , classic Damask, to the sexy scent of Tea roses has opened a world to me that I could not dream to comprehend before I knew of any rose other than 'Peace'. -and best of all, the people I meet at Old Rose events, and here on gardenweb that share their love of roses with me. Thank you all for sharing your beautiful writing, Lux

yes, both of these roses are growing in china. The rose growers there don't like labeling their stuff. So I find it really frustrating to look at. It is especially hard to tease out which ones are the modern imports, which ones are the modern chinese cultivars, and which ones are the old chinese roses. I'm sorry I don't have more pictures of the second rose. I can only find the vendor picture, which is why I was a bit suspicious of its claims. Thanks to everyone for helping out! I'll look into the bengales. Bengales make it more possible that it might have been growing in china for a long time...

We bought 5 sets of Noma C6, 70 light strands last year. When we put them up again this year, three of the sets had only half of the strands working. I didn’t keep the receipt, so after checking some sights, I did this, and IT WORKED! I first attached another set of lights in sequence and they lit up, so I knew the wiring was good. I then pulled out and checked each bulb in the unlit section, testing them in sockets that worked to make sure the bulbs were good. I had bought a couple of extra bags of C6 lightbulbs (5 per bag) when this issue was first discovered. I came to realize there were two sizes to the green bases of the lights when pulled out. A few were slightly wider than the others. The smaller ones would fit in all the bulb sockets, but the wider ones only fit in certain ones. After much fussing and frustration, I came to realize that the wider ones had to be placed in the first and last light socket of the strand, and also socket # 35 and # 36. If a smaller width one was placed in any of those four, the strand would go out. And Voila, all sets work again. If you have a longer strand, I presume this would still apply. The first and last, and the two exactly in the middle will need the bulbs with the wider plug in base.