Zuzu - Well, I just got new life insurance on my head, so now I am betting that the cats are conspiring as to who gets to trip me on the stairs. Quarter million will buy an awful lot of cat treats, doncha think?

Posted new pix of my roses this morning on Cubits... http://cubits.org/bluegardens/... May have contracted West Nile from all the skeeters I was fighting taking these pictures this morning! I was literally trailing a cloud of skeeters!!

Your roses are looking great - good pictures too - but I just can't get over the lush foliage! Mine are mostly bare sticks now.

Your yard looks wonderful! You want to see a real mess....check out my white trash bucket planting along the driveway!

Or peek in the garage, or my bedroom, kitchen or living area for that matter....

I am having a snack then going back out to plant some things.

Got my front porch area started. It faces north, so I have hostas and ferns.

I'm taking pictures as i go.

I am waiting for some shade to plant some daylilies, princess margareta and golden celebration.

Most of the roses are moving around in their pots as I decide where to plant them.

In celebration of Wildflowers week, here's a wild rose located in Zone 1A

Hooray for the wild ones!

Dang smoke !

There has a been a haze of smoke over our area for several weeks due to the wild fires in southern Oregon and a few down river from here and my roses just don't look right. They've been watered, fed, mulched, but are not sending out any new growth since I dead headed them a couple of weeks ago. They are dropping leaves, too.

The only thing I can think of that is different is that we have had had weeks of smoke in the air. So, I am going to go out and wash down the plants today.

Has anyone else experienced something like this ?

Smiles,
Lyn

Never heard of it Lyn, must be pretty bad though. You see ash on the leaves or outdoor things?
Just looked up the news and it's becoming quite a costly fire.

No, I can't see the ash, but I didn't see ash in '08 when we had three large wild fires in the back country in Trinity County, but there were significant crop losses that year. They had to let the fires burn all summer until the rains came because they couldn't get fire crews into the back country where the fires were active.

I can smell the smoke, so I am guessing the ash we are getting now is very fine particles. I am doing a lot of "guessing" trying to figure out why the plants are not performing as well as usual and the only variable I can come up with is the smoke. It could be lower light levels or ash. The day temps have been in the low 90s for a few weeks, which is cooler than usual, but not enough to cause what I am seeing in the garden.

It's weird

Smiles,
Lyn

After several days of frying in 90-degree heat, most of my rose blooms look deplorable. Some have exhibited more interesting changes, however. Honey Dijon, for instance, has lost its characteristic high-centered shape and looks more casual and "messy," like a Pernetiana.



Another interesting change can't be blamed on the heat. Autumn Gold suddenly has scalloped petals. The scallops are on all of the blooms -- the new copper-colored ones and the older light-apricot ones. I suppose I have to chalk it up to pest damage, but I like the scallops and I wish they'd stay.

Ohhh, I love the scallops too and that Honey Dijon is just absolutely lovely!
I am 2 miles away from Zuzu and we didn't get that 90 degree heat, morfe in the high 80's, we are a bit higher in elevation and get this breeze in the afternoon from the ocean that tends to keep us just a bit cooler.

I'll have to go out tomorrow and take pictures of my Lady Emma Hamilton, it is in glorious full bloom, a better flush than the first one!

It's been miserable here... in the mid to upper 90s here w/o a hint of a breeze, so everything's been frying. Having to water section by section every day and the skeeters are out in force like crazy. Was outside for less than 10 minutes & killed 12 skeeters (2 of which actually drew blood before I got to splatting them).

Lyn - We have smoke problems here all the time w/the wildfires up in the mountains & never has my roses been bothered / affected by it. Here's a thread I had last year about fires close(ish) to me... the smoke was horrific (DH nearly ended up in the hospital due to the smoke... he's asthmatic). The thread "This is gonna be a bad year for fires." in Roses forum

Zuzu - that scalloping is gorgeous!! Maybe they're mutating?

Lady Emma Hamilton this morning.



Caramella is about 6-7 ft tall.


Helen Hayes is also about 7 ft. tall

Wow.. gorgeous!! Must be nice to have perfect weather... LOLLL!! I'm super excited because a rose came back for me. She's about 6" tall and I have an inkling it *might* be Clare de Lune.. saw her growing a week ago for the first time and it's not because I missed her due to other things growing. There was just nothing there!! With about 1/2 of my roses a foot tall or less, I'm definitely going to have to heavily mulch EVERYTHING this winter. I'll be getting in a dumptruck load of mulch next month and, when it's closer to freezing, I'll put my bottomless buckets over the more fragile ones & cover them 100%. Only way I can get them to survive when they're this pathetic. Poor Vavoom is only about 8" tall and about 14" across... and this is 2nd year in the ground! Molineux, a own-root from RU, got to be almost a foot tall and very spindly. Bad thing is that she's about 4 years old!! So many of mine just didn't grow this year.. Purple Splash did do quite well (about 7') but Harlequin didn't get above 4' (versus last year, when she was about 6'). And Leonard daVinci is a whole 14" tall, along with Stormy Weather! LdV is from Palatine, but Stormy Weather is a 3gal rose put in last year. Neither really grew. However, I think that my Joseph's Coat actually took off.. now if I could just see a bloom then I can be assure that it is JC and not another Dr. Huey (Dr. Huey took over one of my last Sterling Silvers... Need to shovel-prune it soon.).

Thanks for the link, Toni It's just that I feel dirty when I am outside because of all of the smoke and am guessing that the leaves are impaired by small particles of ash, but I really don't know why the roses are acting different. At least it made me feel better to wash the plants. I usually have to wash them a couple of times a week to avoid spider mite infestations. Right now, it's so ugly, I just don't want to go out there.

I am thinking some of the roses that are struggling for you just need the extra push of a more vigorous root stock. I don't think they were ever tested own root. You don't have to let Dr. H take over a rose, if you remove the suckers, but I am sure you already know that. It's hard to find a well prepared budded rose these days. They used to be far more careful disbudding the eyes of the rootstock so that you didn't get suckers. There are times when I yearn for yesterday. However, I have finally found a nursery that sells well budded roses, so I may pick up a few. It's hard to pass them by.

Sue ... those photos are beautiful. My temps have been in the low 90s for the last week, but are headed up again , but the roses are stalled, so there are no blooms.

Smiles,
Lyn

Wow, Sue! What an eye full! I am hoping for a long autumn here to revive my sad roses that have stagnated in the triple digit heat. Meanwhile, I will enjoy yours! Thanks for the great photos.

Gorgeous, Sue!

The thing that's so amazing about Helen Hayes is that yours and mine were rooted cuttings from my grafted one that was gobbled by gophers. What's even more amazing is that the grafted plant dated back to my poverty-budget gardening days almost 30 years ago and came from Michigan Bulb, of all places.

You just can't keep a good rose down!

You are right, Zuzu. Some of those roses never needed grafting. They were just fine without being grafted.

Smiles,
Lyn

It's also extra-hardy, in case anyone in a colder zone is interested in it. It was one of the roses in the sub-zero package Michigan Bulb used to carry.

Zuzu - A bazillion years ago when I was a kid (1988), we moved from a large city in NM (population about 100,000) to a microscopic hamlet in NM (population 20. Yes, 20. Not 200, not 20,000, but twenty people. period). We moved in the middle of the spring (June) and so it was too late with the move & unpacking & getting settled & stuff to try & plant anything. However, that fall, my mom started getting all these seed catalogs. One of which was Michigan Bulb. She ordered 2 roses (a red & a yellow), some red hot pokers (Kniphofia), shasta daisies, and other plants. Only 1 of the roses (I believe it's Dr. Huey), the red hot pokers, & shasta daisies survived that year. In fact, they're still alive to this day (and grown VERY wild). That's when they used to send out plants worth planting. I ordered from Michigan Bulb last year.. what a joke. Ordered 2 different buddlejas, a rose of sharon, some veronica, & a clematis. The veronica came in slimy, the clematis was a pathetic stick with 2 leaves, the rose of sharon was a dead stick with no leaves, and the buddlejas were about 2" tall. Nothing survived (obviously).

Skiekitty said:Can everyone believe it? It's almost over! Wow! The year's already over half over!! WOW! Does time fly when you're having fun?

So having fun? Not me, that's for sure.. too many weeds & not enough blooms!

But here's a Colorific from this morning. *swoon!*

the rose is awesome, How beautiful it is!