May is a rose month in the lowcountry and it keeps me very busy this month.

First we had our rose show at Johns Island library. I meant not to get involved with some of the activities of the rose society this year since I finished my four-year term as president last December. But unknowingly I was sucked into it. I ended up planning the event – getting the venue, doing the publicity, making the rose schedule and getting some sponsors. We didn’t go for a full-pledged rose show but just a mini show. The new president wanted a Fall rose show but since May is the peak rose season in the lowcountry, I suggested a mini show. Although somehow my roses peaked out two weeks before the show. The weather this year is just crazy.

For the last four years, we have been doing a rose display at Johns…

Photo Credit – Flowers My Inspiration

Class:   Floribunda

Parentage:   ‘Robinhood’ x ‘Virgo’

Date of Introduction:   1958

Hybridizer:   Reimer Kordes

Registration Code:   KORbin

Syns:   ‘Fee des Neiges’, ‘Schneewittchen’

I first saw ‘Iceberg’, a white modern, cluster-flowered rose (floribunda) in California about fifteen years ago. I was amazed then at how popular ‘Iceberg’ roses was in Southern California at that time in spite of the rose being 40+ years already since it was first introduced by Reimer Kordes. They were everywhere. We saw a lot of them at private gardens and even at the wineries in Temecula.

The flowers are semi-double, 20-25 petals and well formed, pure white with occasional pinkish tints in the bud state, especially in early spring and autumn when the nights are cold and damp. The blooms are produced continuously in clusters of up to 15 per spray, long lasting, both on the bush or as…

By scientificamerican.com

During the glacial or ice age periods, the sea level was lowered because the ice sheets were formed upon the surface of the land. The huge ice sheets contained a considerable portion of the earth’s water. Much land was formed providing land bridges between continents for human and animal migrations permitting extensive interchange of faunas of North America and Eurasia.

The ice sheets made profound changes in the landscape and physical features of the regions it covered. The ice, which encroached gradually on regions previously warm, must have submitted all living things to new and unsettling conditions. In consequence some animals became extinct at this time, others moved southward.

When sea levels sank during the last Ice Age, a series of land bridges cut through the shallow waters connecting the Philippines with the rest of the Southeast Asia, one running through Palawan and Mindoro to Luzon, another through…

Excerpts from Col. Irvin Alexander’s memoir, “Surviving Bataan and Beyond”, edited by Dominic J. Caraccilo.

A Japanese tank column advancing in Bataan, 1942. Wikimedia Commons

As soon as he hung up, General King sent for General Parker and his chief of staff, telling them that General Jones reported he did not have a single organization that was capable of making a march followed by an attack. Then he announced, “I have decided to surrender Bataan, for I have nothing left with which I can block the Japanese advance.”

He telephoned Corregidor, asking for General Wainwright, but the general not being at his desk, General King apparently speaking to the chief of staff said, “All right I’ll talk to you. Tell General Wainwright for me that I have decided to surrender Bataan. The Japanese attack has broken through the center of the line, they are pouring on all trails toward both…

After a successful day of bombing Clark Field on December 22, 1944, the 22nd Bomb Group returned to the area on December 24th. There, they were going to target Japanese aircraft located in revetments and parking areas. Several miles outside of Clark Field, the B-24s and their P-47 fighter cover were jumped by 20-40 Japanese fighters. Two Zeros dropped air-to-air bombs, which did not damage any of the B-24s, and neither did the phosphorus bombs that were dropped by the Japanese fighters. Above the 22nd flew a lone Betty bomber, which was most likely radioing airspeed and altitude information to the antiaircraft batteries at Clark Field. This proved to be a problem for the B-24s, as they were greeted with heavy, accurate antiaircraft fire from the Japanese.

Right after 1/Lt. Cameron B. Benson released his bombs over the airfield, his B-24 was rocked by an explosion in the rear fuselage…