Okay. I restored my previous edit. I hope Trish doesn't mind. She had added the codes after publication.

Looks like it worked.

Zuzu - Thank you. It kinda hurt my feelings that others' pictures were used as I really wanted to show what people could do in a not-so-perfect environment and as careless as I am with roses. If a n00B like me can grow roses these, why can't anyone? Of course, mine don't look 1/5th as nice as Rita's, but, then again, I don't put in 1/5 the effort, either. LOL

Again, thank you.

Toni, you have many more gardening challenges than I do here.

I understand completely, Toni, and please don't think that this was done in order to bypass your photos and replace them with "better" ones. Trish adds the hyperlinks so that people can go straight to the entry in the database if they want to know more about the rose.

Rita, you are such a sweetie! You always have a kind word for everyone.

My roses never have the color saturation that Toni's have. I love how her article says that the photos are from her Colorado garden, with no photoshopping. Cool weather brings out better color, that's for sure! What a great motivator!
Mauve roses are much more likely to die in my yard due to cold, but this year I listened to Toni and mulched the snot out of them!
I hope to grow more of the lovely purplish roses now that I know how to take care of them. While they are the weakest growers, they reward me with the strongest perfume. I keep telling myself if Toni can grow 300 of these at high elevation with her short season and extreme freeze=thaw cycles, then surely I can too.

Toni is definitely an inspiration.

Snow again here and then freezing rain on top of that. Now it is just plain rain. But we had 6 inches of snow before the rain. Enough already, I am so tired of this winter weather.

ok ok ok, enough with the smoke blowing. LOLLL y'all are making me blush and that ain't a purdy sight.

Rita - Trade ya. I'll take your 6" of snow, you can have my -12 that I had this morning.

I really wish I could send some of this snow away. Everything is covered here. Shrubs, trees, everything has a blanket of white from the prior snow and now just more piled on top.

- but it's so pretty...

Ha! Bah humbug in the pretty. It is a mess to deal with and gonna take a long time to go away. Plus we are supposed to get more snow on Sunday so it is not gonna go away soon.

Poor backyard birds having to deal with this mess, nowhere to hang out and not much food around. That is why I always put out seed for the birds.

I'll take some of your snow Rita. Please don't put it on the driveway

I will just shovel some into a truck and send it your way.

Paul - CO is before UT, so I get it first. LOLL!!! And what I always do is shovel the snow on the sidewalk/driveway onto my yard. Makes for much higher piles of snow in my yard than in the neighbors, but they don't have the plants I do. I hate seeing water go to waste...

Want to send truckfulls of snow to all my ATP friends that need it. I just can't believe how much snow is piled up here in my yard from the shoveled paths. It is gonna take weeks for all this too melt. And we are getting more snow Sunday so how knows when it will even start to melt.

Rita - Well, you could have this going on:

http://www.thedenverchannel.co...
DENVER - Tracking an Arctic air mass now moving into Colorado and we're expecting it to remain bitter cold through the end of the week.

This edition of cold air will keep us trapped in a deep freeze for Wednesday and Wednesday night, too. Highs Wednesday will struggle to reach the single digits above zero, 5 expected in Denver, and then another cold overnight for Thursday morning with lows again 5 to 15 BELOW zero. Although a good deal of cloud cover will remain, the chance for more than flurries isn't expected.

By Thursday and Friday the coldest air will slowly slide away, so hitting the double digits looks possible Thursday afternoon with about 10 above for Denver. Friday could climb back into the 20s with a new storm system moving by just south of the state.

That system will spread heavy snowfall across southern Colorado Friday and early Saturday, but looks to only bring light snow to the northern Front Range. As that system moves out by Sunday, it'll be replaced by calmer weather and increased sunshine.

Temperatures may rebound to above freezing by Sunday, lasting through early next week.

Toni, I am always amazed by your awful weather. I would have to move, couldn't stand it.

This sums it up right now.



Brr...

This morning I was out there brooming off the driveway again. DH & I shoveled it last night and we got just a very light dusting since that time (about 8pm last night). It was -10 and I was wearing just a sweater & slacks & light snow boots. But I knew it was brutally cold 'cuz my boogers were freezing in my nose. If I'd spat onto the driveway, it would have frozen instantly. But here's the flipside of CO weather... look at the dramatic differences in temperatures! 20 tomorrow, 40 on Friday, up to 50 on Sunday, then BOOM back down to below freezing again. Bleh. I just wish that it would pick a season & STAY with that season. If it wants to be cold, fine, be cold. If it wants to warm up, fine, warm up! But these 57deg for the high to below freezing for the low in 1 day? Sucks.



Cindi - I'm glad that you mulched the snot outta your roses! I didn't.. I was bad this year & didn't mulch as heavily as I should have. Let's just see how much winterkill I have. I know I'm going to have to prune down to the ground this year. When I read Rita's article that she prunes down to 18", I almost cried.. sometimes some of my roses don't even get that tall!! *sigh* I'm going to make it a point this year to feed very very generously this spring, if spring ever does arrive this year. But it's still too early.. spring usually doesn't think about showing up until mid-late March. So I still have 6-8 weeks to go before thinking about a thaw going on. I'll probably have snow on my yard until mid April and some places in the back yard until mid May.

Toni!