I am Karl Bapst, and I live in Northwest Indiana, Gardening Zone 5.  My wife, Nancy, and I have been married since 1971. We have 6 children, all out of the nest. We have 21 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren. I survived a bout of acute leukemia in 1982 and am currently recovering from a massive stroke suffered in March of 2002.

I am a Life Member and a Master Rosarian with the American Rose Society. I am also a Life Member of the National Home Gardening Club, an Advanced Master Gardener, and Master Composter through Purdue University, and member of the Duneland Rose Society of NW Indiana. I would welcome questions pertaining mainly to roses and composting but I have general knowledge of most other plants and access to answers to questions concerning many of them. I gave horticultural programs to various groups but have curtailed that somewhat.

I moved in August of 2001 to a home in the country 40 miles south of Griffith, Indiana where I grew over 500 rosebushes lot of 60 by 135 feet. My house and 2 1/2 car garage also sat on this lot. I had a shade garden in an area I shared with a neighbor where we couldn't get anything else to grow. I also had an area on the north side of my house which would not support roses due to a lack of enough sunlight but it supported plants which grew nicely in semi-shade. A well installed in 1989, due to a large city water bill, to water some 95 newly planted roses, led to an eight zone automated watering system using schedule 40 PVC pipe and Dramm nozzles. I also utilized some drip watering on my back deck and in the front for hanging and potted plants.

I had a 24' by 26’ wooden frame polyhouse built over three rose beds and my pond.  I covered the frame with plastic in the winter. The small pond consisted of one and a half whiskey barrels for water falls, two small plastic formed ponds and a short connecting waterway. The pond supplied most of the heat during the winter nights and sunlight supplied the rest. I heated the pond in the winter with an animal stock tank heater which kept the water at 40 degrees. I overwintered goldfish and water plants for years and had frogs all winter long. Roses do not bloom in my zone 5 location until the end of May or first of June but I had roses blooming on April 1^st in the polyhouse. I also had 3 compost bins and two compost barrels built from 55 gallon barrels. I composted all yard waste including my rose clippings and used a battery powered lawn mower and edge trimmer.

My new home sets on a ¾ acre oak wooded lot in the small farming community of Wheatfield, Indiana. I removed half the trees on the property to open up a slightly sloping hillside to the sun for the roses. 

After 30 years as a supervisor at Ford Motor Company's Chicago Assembly Plant, I retired on June 1, 1998. After retiring from Ford, boredom caused me to get a part time job at a Wal*Mart Garden Center in 2001 where I worked until suffering the stroke.

After a week of getting stabilized I spent 4 weeks at a rehab facility. This was followed by 4 weeks of in-home physical therapy where I learned to walk and get around the house. I progressed to the point that I was able to return to my yard and polyhouse in the spring of 2003.

I'm so busy that I need a planner to keep track of everything I have to do, something I was able to get along without before I retired .

The stroke left me unable to hold a job but having turned 65 in June 2003, I think maybe it's time to stop and smell the roses before I'm pushing them up. 

When we moved I potted up and moved all my roses which over wintered in a big circle in the front yard covered with a foot of oak leaves. My intention was to planting them in their new homes in the spring of 2002. Due to the stroke which left me paralyzed on my left side I was unable to do as I planned.   

Well meaning friends and associates from my church, friends, rose society members, Master gardeners, and various neighbors had a planting party for me in June of 2002 and got them all planted. Many of the original roses did not survive the transplanting due lack of water and the hot dry summer. My wife's determination kept me from losing them all. She spent most of that summer pulling hoses, watering, and weeding the flower beds.

Even though I still couldn’t use my left arm and walked like a drunken sailor I    ordered roses for spring 2003 delivery to replace some of those that were lost. 

My son-in-law helped me reconstruct my greenhouse in the fall of 2002. Each spring I get 200 or more rooted hardy rooted cuttings from Great Lakes Roses in Michigan. I repot these into larger pots to mature in the green house. These are sold at rose society events, to folks who stop to admire the roses, and at a farmer’s market. A new well was installed to help to supply water to a sprinkling system that enabled us to retire the garden hoses and help the watering chores. I operate the lawn tractor and weed and care for the roses from the seat of a Rascal Scooter my son talked me into buying after I left the hospital. I’ve worn out one scooter and am on the 2^nd.

Although I can walk a little, the scooter provides mobility for me to get into the rose garden, greenhouse, and yard.

It also allows me to travel. Nancy and I have been to 2 American Rose Society conventions in Philadelphia and New Orleans. I can still drive so we’ve also traveled to Florida a few times, flew to Hawaii, and will be going on an Alaskan cruise this fall 2006.

I should add that without my wife’s help weeding and being my left hand when it’s needed, I’d be unable to do a lot of what I do!

This year we’ve completed a shade garden with a pond that we can see from our kitchen table and cleared an area close to the house for a butterfly/humming bird garden.

The stroke has forced me to find other ways to accomplish things I took for granted before. It’s taught me to adapt but it hasn’t kept me from my passion and hobby of growing Roses.