Hi there! Happy Spring!

Spring is off to a good start here - hope that we'll have a summer this year. As I mentioned in another thread last summer was a no show so we're really longing for a proper summer this time around.

Somehow hot wind doesn't quite compute with me - here the wind is always, always cold. Sorry for the lost evergreens. I guess there are always some obstacles - no matter where you live.

Andi - where does your viking blood originate, if you don't mind my asking?

Sue - your garden is amazing!! Wow!

Picked up some roses last night at HD.. had a coupon of buy 2, get 1. So got a "Grenada" (looks right, smells right), a "Frau" somebody or another.. and a no-ID mauve. I think the mauve might be Melody Parfume.. looks right, smells right.

I got that coupon too and all our sorry store had were Knockouts and four lonely mislabeled Arizonas - white?

Took these shots this morning, we're supposed to hit 90-91 today.

I planted Rose (Rosa 'Ghislaine de Feligonde') two years ago, it's surely hit it's stride!


My Romantika clematis from Brushwood is also 2 years old, planted with Poet's Jasmine (Jasminum officinale Fiona Sunrise) who's gold foliage really sets off that deep purple.


My brightest and best rose, Rose (Rosa 'Gebrueder Grimm')


The always unique Clematis Franziska Maria™ is blooming with Rose (Rosa 'Lady Emma Hamilton')


Now earlier shots of Caramella showed it over 6 feet tall, I didn't cut anything back this past winter. Between some windy days and the weight of the huge clusters of blooms, you can see right in the center of the bush were the thick stems are bent over. A week ago, everything was standing up just like that one section on the far left.


Looks good from this angle


Yesterday's heat already zapped a few blooms.


Cafe


Sally Holmes along the back fence

Calif_Sue said:we're supposed to hit 90-91 today.

I had frost this morning. Look at the days in green.

I just can't even relate to that kind of weather, having lived here almost all my life except for my first year in Toronto, Canada.

We had hail over the weekend, 12 hours before our main iris show and Rose Expo. aaargh.
I had selected some nice stalks and good roses to take in, and went inside to get the pruners. A half hour later, they were in shreds. We did get a bit of rain out of it, though. The hail completely covered the ground. Most was big marble size, some quarter sized. It has not affected the new blossoms, thankfully! I went out of town Monday and Tuesday, and when I got back, the iris and roses looked fine. The hostas are still holey, and will be all summer.
The grass is so green and tall all of a sudden. Tonight I went to mow, and mowed over my best garden hose that was hiding in the tall grass, and worse, it ended up wrapped around the rotors of the mower. Then, I discovered my cell phone had fallen out of my pocket. I searched every place I had mowed and had to email my daughters to ask them to call the phone until I found it. An hour later I found it inside of the mower, caught on the framework, undamaged. The mower itself is badly damaged from the hose. I really dread telling my husband about this. If I don't get the place mowed tomorrow, the grass may be too tall for this big riding mower! We'll need to find a baler or a brush hog, which is something we don't own, that I don't want to own.
ugh.

Cindi - That's horrible about how the hail ruined everything right before the show.. tonight I saw a massive storm building up north slowly making it's way east & was hoping that it'd miss you.. it's gonna be a nasty one & I believe that some tornadoes might spawn out of it. It looked horrible... & beautiful at the same time.

Planted the 6 roses I had on hand tonight. Ground's super easy to work with right now due to the sloppy snow we got a couple of days ago. Super wet all the way down at least 18" (how deep I was digging the holes). And, on a positive note, Della Reece survived!! I was super worried about her as that's one rose I did NOT want to lose, and I found bright red canes & leaves from her base this evening! However, on a sadder note, I think that Duftrausch is definitely dead, lost my Adobe Sunrise (I don't like Star brand roses), and I think all the little Chamblee roses I got from a co-op last year didn't make it. They were pretty tiny and the 2 I've found were rotted all the way through. The Palatine roses I put in the ground a couple of weeks ago are still just sitting there.. but then again, that might be a smart thing due to the wacky weather we've been having. I don't think I'm gonna order any more roses from anywhere any more.. they just don't seem to be able to survive my weather. I've lost almost 60% of what I've put in the ground as far as mail orders... and that's not a good percentile.

On a positive note, my lilacs are loving this snow!! I got blooms all over the place on almost all my 2-4 year old lilacs! The babies I put in last year, not so much. But, one of which I need to inspect more closely tomorrow.. it has 2 sets of blooms on it. I bought it as a Charles Joly as that's my absolute favorite, and it has a CJ sprig of flowers on it. But, I swear I saw a panicle of white blooms on that same plant! I'll have to take pics tomorrow.

Cindi ... so sorry to hear about the hail storm. If we get hail up here, it's always small and doesn't do any damage.

Toni ... you may not want to hear this, but I have found that if I grow my new roses in containers to get a larger root mass before planting them in the ground, they take off better and are healthier plants all around.

The ten roses Kim propagated for me and brought to me in November, 2012 that I planted out last spring had a root mass that filled a 3 gal nursery can. All of them made it through the high temps of summer and a dry winter very well. The only one that has been slow to take off is Sharifa Asma. I also don't let them bloom the first year they are in the ground.

Just a thought.

Smiles,
Lyn

Lyn - I don't do containers very well.. I forget to water them! I've tried doing that and it just didn't work out. But it's OK, I'm running out of space anyways.

I looked at the tag of the "Frau" rose last night. It's Frau Karl Druschki. Rose (Rosa 'Frau Karl Druschki') However, I think definitely mine's mismarked because 1) doesn't have the cabbage look & 2) has a wonderful spicy rose scent. Imagine that.. a mismarked rose at Home Depot? Who'd thunkit...

Toni ...

I don't do containers well, either. Especially in this climate. I truly understand about forgetting to water containers. I actually set up a small drip system for containers so I could grow roses up so that they had a larger root mass before planting.

If you do find a rose that you just have to have, t-mail me and I will share some of the things I've learned about gardening in lousy soil and a harsher climate, for me, that you might want to try.

Smiles,
Lyn

Lyn, I'm going to try that method. I noticed that every single one of the cheap bag roses I bought this year are super vigorous and already blooming. It's the first time EVER that I have had success with them, and the difference is, I potted them in good potting soil. They are so big now that I think I do need to put them in the ground. I'll let each bloom one bloom to confirm identity, then cut off later blooms so it can focus on root development.
Toni, I also lost every one of the coop roses, and I bought 12. gulp. They were barely rooted, and I made the mistake of planting them in the ground right away. I mulched them really well, but I was gone so much last fall that I didn't keep up with watering. Those babies didn't stand a chance.
The lilacs are so pretty this year that it was hard to resist buying more last week when Edmunds priced them at $7. They send quart size starts, but that's what mine were just a year ago, and this year they are 3' tall and they ALL bloomed!
I'm voting for Beauty of Moscow as my favorite. Yummy.
Lowes has gallon Hostas on sale 3/$10 today. My hostas that were in pots over the winter all croaked. The ones in the ground survived. A hosta guru spoke to our club and told us to grow them in pots if tree shade was all we had. He said they just can't compete with tree roots. I think the difference in our area versus his is, our nighttime temps in the summer are still very high. Those roots don't cool off when they are in pots. I'm going to mulch and water better, and see if they can make it under my apple tree. I picked up Whirlwind, Earth Angel, Patriot, Blue Hawaii, Paul's Glory, Twilight and Barbara Ann. All were lush, with several eyes, and roots coming out the bottom of the pot. Heck of a deal.
The mislabeled Morden Sunrise I saw last week was sold out. I missed out.
It's cloudy and cool today, perfect gardening weather. Feels like it could rain, so I rush a bit more.
I tore up the lawnmower last night, so that chore is off the list for today. There's still lots of pruning to do, and beds I have not raked out or weeded. The hardy hibiscus are starting to show life, so spring is truly here!
Funny how the roses are blooming before the hibiscus even wake up.

Cindi - I bought I think only 6. I've uncovered 3 from the gazillon tons of mulch I put down and they're all rotted. Not just dead, but rotted. The root system on each one was just sooooo small. I've only gotten Chamblee roses from the co-op and both times same thing. I figured that the first time it was 100% my fault but this time, I'm going to say it was the roses and not me. For once. I need to find the others. I didn't flag them (I usually put those little yard flags on teeny babies), so I'll just have to wander around and poke through 12-18" of mulch hoping to find them. LOLLL Found 1 of them by accident last night, and when I "dug" it up, the root system was about the size of a half-dollar. Really really pathetic. I should have potted them up for the winter. Oh well. And, I too have had good luck with the bodybags I bought this year! I bought 3, 2 are growing like mad, 1 never broke dormancy.

I was born in NYC, but my family is Norwegian.

Where did you get a b2g1 coupon for home depot? I was just there today, but didn't see any coupons in the sales flyer. Of course, nothing I needed/wanted was on sale this week. Of course I looked at the plants. I got two roses - a gorgeous Yves St Laurent in a 2 gallon pot from Weeks (which I have been wanting a long time) and a body bag Tiffany. I haven't had luck with either body bag roses or the Tiffany rose overwintering, but I love the Tiffany rose My late Westie was named Tiffany which is part of the rose's appeal for me). It was cheap enough to treat as an annual. I will overwinter it with care and try rooting some cuttings.

They also had a couple of apparently own root Romantica roses in 3 gallon pots and gorgeous gardenias which I didn't get. I don't drive, and took the bus today (They call it the Pocono Pony, isn't that cute...not). There is a three bag limit and I had three bags and a toilet seat that didn't fit in a bag this trip, so I wouldn't have been able to get three roses this time. However, if they are b2g1, I will make another trip! It would be even better if I can get a ride with someone this weekend.

I also got a beautiful warm pink begonia and some veggie starter plants since I didn't start seeds this winter/spring because I was moving. I think I shared the moving saga. Moved last summer, landlord sold the place, moved again to a nicer place in a friendlier neighborhood and hope to stay for a while. Two moves and a polar vortex is a hardiness test for roses, but most of mine survived. William Baffin has 6' tall canes without die back. The rest died back near the ground, but are showing new growth. A couple have healthy looking roots, but no new canes or leaves, yet. Everything is really late this year, forsythias are still blooming and lilacs haven't started blooming, yet. I don't give up on roses unless they have black canes and bare, brittle roots.

Oh, Sue, I love your Carmella. I have only seen that grafted at Edmunds. I also love your Lady Hamilton. Purple and coral/orange are a favorite garden color combo for me too.

I grow Carefree Celebration (a cousin of the knockouts which I also saw at Home Depot today if any one is looking for that one - a coral colored rose by Radler, the knockout breeder, which has been hardy for me for several years in zone 6a) with Johnson's blue geranium. I posted pics of those before in my old garden. They survived and will be growing together again.

Andi - Sign up for the HD email and you get bombarded with sales stuff.

http://pages.homedepot.com/gar...

OK ... now you have got me going. I hate giving growing advice to gardeners who are gardening in really different climates than what I have personally experienced, but my training about roses is very different than even very experienced rose gardeners. I had to learn the botany of roses and more, just to be able to talk to Ralph Moore and Kim Rupert because they did not dumb it down for me and I didn't understand what they were saying more than half the time when I first started working with them. Time to do my homework.

Ralph often said that if you grew a good root mass for a rose, it could withstand both heat stress, cold stress and water stress better than if you just popped the roses into the ground. That goes for both budded and own root.

When I was talking with Berling a couple of weeks ago, who worked for Ralph for 25 years before she started her own nursery after he closed Sequoia, she repeated his advice and said, "Grow roots the first year."

I never put manure or compost in the planting hole. The feeder roots of a rose are in the top 6 to 10 inches. If you put the manure and compost in the bottom of the hole, the rose won't use it because it only has anchor roots down there. With manure deep in the planting hole, you are taking a chance of damaging the roots with "salt burn". This is because all fertilizers are some form of salt. The soil bacteria works on the organic fertilizers to break their salts into a form that the rose can take up as the nutrients they need through reverse osmosis. The soil bacteria are most active near the surface of the soil.

I do use manures and compost on top of the planting holes along with mulch. As Kim says, "That's the way nature does it."

I always do a perk test on every planting hole because we can get 50 inches of rain in one season. If the hole doesn't drain, at least over night, the chances of having root rot after a very rainy winter are much, much higher.

During high temps, I do a deep watering once a week and what I call a feeder root watering mid week. When the temps are lower, I only do a deep watering once a week. The deep watering takes care of the needs of the anchor roots and the feeder root watering is providing water to the roots near the surface which take up the most moisture for the plant.

I also have to wash the roses down daily during the dry high temp period of summer to control spider mites. I usually do this in the afternoon and the roses will take up moisture through their foliage.

Since my night temps cool off at night, this is sufficient in a climate where my summer temps are usually in the high 90s and low 100s during the day. Yes, I can see some of the roses wilting in the afternoon, but that is because the transpiration rate from the foliage is higher than the rate which the plant can pull moisture up from the root zone. There's no fix for that except for shade. With the cooler night temps, the plant has time to catch up and by morning, the rose is no longer wilting.

I water deeply the day before I feed the roses because this reduces the chance of any fertilizer burn. In other words, take care of the roots. I don't do foliage feeding during the high temps.

I don't have die back in this garden, so others are more experienced than I am in this area. However, if the material you are using to protect the plants stays wet, you have a higher chance of disease and rot.

Your primary protection is to make sure you bring a healthy rose into winter.

This is just general information. I am trying to summarize what I have taken away from years of rose discussions with two men who are way out of my league as far as rose knowledge is concerned. If you have more questions, please feel free to ask.

Others who grow roses in your climate can probably tweak the information I have shared above.

I have a list of modern roses that are most likely to be cane hardy up to zone 5 without serious winter protection. Yeah, that's based upon lineage and does not take into consideration things like wind and hail storms. No, my list does not include recent introductions because I stopped buying new roses a while back, so I stopped researching ...

I hope this information helps.

Smiles,
Lyn

Good advice Lyn!

I bought 17 roses from the Chamblee co-op in the fall of 2010. They all got potted up, no way would I ever plant then directly in the ground that small, some were very tiny. I only lost one. Some took a while to grow, maybe not the best candidates for own root. Two are still in pots as I haven't quite decided where they will go. They just progressed to larger pots as they grew. The ones planted in 2011 and 2012 are all huge. Westerland is easily 6x6, Molineaux is almost 7 ft. tall, Graham Thomas has reached the top of my satellite dish pergola this year, Cinco de Mayo is 4x5 and a bloom machine.

Sue ....

I should have added, "There are a lot of right ways to grow roses." ...

People have been successfully growing roses in all climates without knowing the botany of the plants, or any of the science I had to learn.

I don't know it all and never will know it all. I do think knowing the botany helped me create this garden with lousy soil and a climate so very different from any climate I had ever experienced. If anyone can use the info above to grow better roses, then I have followed another one of Ralph Moore's mantras ... "Knowledge not shared is knowledge wasted."

Smiles,
Lyn

I think the one fact that y'all aren't seeing is winterkill. Cindi & I are colder zones than CA, plus higher altitude. I think I may be sitting the highest as far as altitude than anyone here, with the exception of Tabby, who's also in the Denver Metro. I sit at about 6100 ft. My climbing roses never get taller than 5-6' because of winterkill. Even Charles de Mills, who's protected by the house, and Theresa Bugnet, who's also protected by the house, never get taller than 6' because of winterkill. Theresa didn't get too bad of winterkill this year.. had to chop off about 3-4'. CdM was down the ground. Again. And he's 100% protected because he's actually under my porch! And I obviously am not going to plop 6' of mulch onto the roses and am too lazy to do the "Minnesota Tip" (http://www.bachmans.com/Garden...).

Let's face it. I'm lazy. I'm a very lazy person and don't want to spend the time & effort in containers. Just not worth it to me. If they grow in the ground, that's awesome. If it doesn't, then it doesn't.