That mini is gorgeous. What a find! It drives me absolutely bonkers to find a great plant without a tag. A grocery store florist near me gets beautiful little minis in, and I take pics of them and spend hours searching for a match online. All my beds are at capacity now, so I'm looking at minis to complete the edges. That same grocery store has bagged roses, and for the first time I'm seeing minis in bags. They have good-sized "Powerhouse", "Deja Blu", "Double Take" and a few others.
Heirloom sent an email this morning with a sale on minis. Toni, are you listening? They have Whimsy for $6.50. Shipping adds another $2...then that $5 packing fee makes me want to find a few more to make the average price more acceptable...
I lost all the roses I bought from Heirloom a year or so ago. They were just too tiny and I didn't want to grow them in pots until they were big enough to survive Kansas. I'm hoping the minis they send are a not barely rooted cuttings the way the others were?

Front yard-

Cindi - None of the minis on sale there are something I'd want to order. Last time I ordered from them, I had the same problem as you did.. itty bitty bands that had a heck of a time surviving. Of the 6 I ordered from John's Miniatures, 4 survived. I haven't had any luck with Herbie. I've ordered it twice & bought it locally once and every time it's croaked. Maybe it's the spot I've planted it in? It's got bad soil? It's right smack between some other minis... I need to do some amending to the soil in my mini bed anyways.

Mike - Reason why Midnight Blue looks so closely to Route 66 is their parentage.

Route 66:
seed: [Sweet Chariot (Miniature, Moore, 1984) × Blue Nile ®] × Purple Splendour
pollen: [International Herald Tribune × Rosa soulieana Crépin] × [Sweet Chariot (Miniature, Moore, 1984) × Blue Nile ®]

Midnight Blue:
seed: [Sweet Chariot (Miniature, Moore, 1984) × Blue Nile ®] × Stephens' Big Purple (Hybrid Tea, Stephens, 1985)
pollen: [International Herald Tribune × Hybrid of R. soulieana] × [Sweet Chariot (Miniature, Moore, 1984) × Blue Nile ®]

Only difference is that Route 66 has Purple Splendour & Midnight Blue has Stephens' Big Purple. Plus the pollen is *slightly* different with Rosa Soulieana Crepin versus Hybrid of Rosa Soulieana (Crepin?)

On a different note... I get to go Rose shopping today! yay!!! And I finally got SOME blooms in my yard! True, they're only hyacinths, but at least I have SOMETHING blooming other than vinca! Vinca's retarded.. it blooms year round.

Thanks for doing such a great geneology search for Route 66 and Midnight Blue, Toni ! MUCH appreciated.

Grocery stores and Trader Joe's sell a LOT of miniature roses here in little 3" pots. I've purchased a few in the past and they prompty croaked. They appear to be planted in solid peat moss and look really nice...for about a WEEK...and that's it...even when not allowed to dry out.

We don't have Trader Joe's here, sadly, but when I went to San Diego to visit my daughter last November, I bought some of those roses from Trader Joe's and brought them home in the suitcase! I bare rooted them and planted them right away, and they are still growing!

I bought a mini rose from HomeDepot for V-day and kept it at my office. It became dry & crispy within a week, even though I was watering daily. The humidity in my office is almost non-existent. So I took it home & put it on my kitchen window sill where my African violets are. It took about a week, but it came back and now has a big fat bud on it! It's just too hot & dry in my office for most plants. I think I could probably kill a cactus in here... Once the weather 100% warms up (after perhaps next Wed.. one weather group says possible rain/snow, another weather group says just rain & no snow.. not going to get cold enough) I'll plant it in my mini bed.

Another fun trip with Zuzu today to our favorite local rhododendron nursery but first I had to take a few pictures in her garden, I'll just post a few now, more tomorrow.

Kitties!
Fandango and Mauka


Fatty


Buzzy


Mambo


Snowball viburnum


Pink got washed out but this is Cecile Brunner

I love looking at my garden through your eyes, Sue.

FINALLY.

SPRING'S FINALLY HERE.


Buried within all the dead stuff is one of my little bitty forsythias! And it's FINALLY blooming! I can FINALLY start to work in my yard!!!

About time!

Zu - your yard..

Love the kitties and the view!

Zuzu, your garden makes me weep! I hope to have a garden of that magnitude someday!

It would be a dream to even tour a garden as beautiful as Zuzu's. It's hard for me to even imagine roses that huge. Wow.
Our weather is so wacky here. We've had sunny warm days followed by snow and hail and freezes, then more rain and wind, everything mother nature can throw at us. My peppers have decided they can just root in the dirt on my living room floor. Maybe this weekend I can plant some of the many plants that have arrived here. Maybe. i did get 15 roses planted before the rain came.
Today I broke down and hired a gardener. Good grief. I thought if I didn't, i wouldn't get everything in the ground before it got hot. He's going to build a low stone wall around the formal rose garden and get rid of the old ugly railroad ties. My order of 75 trees from Forestry will be the next project. I have enough projects to keep an army of gardeners busy!

Calif_Sue said:Another fun trip with Zuzu today to our favorite local rhododendron nursery but first I had to take a few pictures in her garden, I'll just post a few now, more tomorrow.

Kitties!
Fandango and Mauka

Sad to say, that was Mauka's last picture. She was a sweet kitty, but she had been battling FIP for a couple of months and I found her body in the garage this morning. She was in good spirits and had a good appetite up to the end. I feel sorry for Fandango. They have been inseparable for the last few years.

Oh, Zuzu, I am so sorry. I hope one of the others becomes a new buddy for Fandango.

zuzu said:

Sad to say, that was Mauka's last picture. She was a sweet kitty, but she had been battling FIP for a couple of months and I found her body in the garage this morning. She was in good spirits and had a good appetite up to the end. I feel sorry for Fandango. They have been inseparable for the last few years.

Awww.. *cries*

You bury your baby in your garden?

Pictures from around the garden today-

Yes, she was buried in the garden, and I had some nice new plants from Annie's Annuals to plant on the grave.

Mauka was a feral kitty I acquired several years ago when coyotes began to attack her feral colony. She was wary of me at first, but she loved my other cats, and she eventually tamed out nicely and became a purring machine.

Ahhh, that's so sad, I am glad I got that last photo of her, I thought it was so sweet how the two huddled together. It was the first time I got a good look at her, I liked her dark marking down her spine. Glad she had her final years in a safe environment with a good companion too.

Oh ZuZu so sorry