We'll look forward to seeing pictures of Summer Squash Island, Rita.

Skiekitty said:Zu - Was wondering if anyone here was in the fire dangerzone. We've got horrific smoke problems here. I'm looking out my window here at work & the sky is that slightly orangish tinge from the smoke.. and it's from the fires in California this time. We've had some hellacious months of smoke this year.. and none of it is from fires here in Colorado! Odd! But the drought.. that's horrible. We're not in as dire straits as California/Washington are, but pretty gosh-darned close to it.

Toni ... I've been living in smoke all summer. We had five fire complexes in Trinity County started by lightening. Thank God the big ones were on the other side of the mountain or down river, but the smoke seemed to settle in Weaverville ...

Skiekitty said:roses refusing to bloom due to drought & starvation (haven't fed since May)..

Luckily enough most of my roses survived without me babying them. I lost a few.. some didn't even break dormancy from winter. I didn't even get all the roses in the back yard pruned this spring.. bleh. But there's gonna be next year & I am not going to let things go to someplace in a handbasket!

Most roses and a lot of other plants won't bloom much when there is a lot of smoke because of the lower light levels. My doc lost his whole grape crop because of the smoke.

It's a good thing that you weren't able to prune your roses during a drought period. That encourages new growth and adds additional stress to an already water stressed plant.

It's lousy that you had health problems this year, but other than your weed problem, I think the roses that survived will probably be OK. I hope you are feeling better.

zuzu said:We'll look forward to seeing pictures of Summer Squash Island, Rita.

Won't be any where near as pretty as Rose Island was. But I am just getting too old to keep up. A few less garden beds are not a bad idea at this stage in life.

I have the same amount of roses as I had but it just looks like less due to that bed being gone.

Now that Palatine has nothing I want this year, I'm watching the other nursery websites. Unfortunately, Rosemania won't be updating its rose list until October or November, and I don't know what happened to S&W Greenhouse. They used to start taking orders on September 1st, but they aren't showing anything for sale this year yet.

I'm supposed to be getting three or four (or five or six) roses from K&M, but I might also place a small order from Regan Nursery. As much as I hate growing plants with stupid names, I think I would really like Yabba Dabba Doo.



I also need a new Betty Boop. I planted mine years ago, before I resorted to using gopher-proof cages, and the predictable thing happened: A gopher ate all the roots and the entire graft. I replanted the remaining stump in a gopher-proof cage, and it grew back, but it has never performed as well as before. I think Regan is offering it grafted, although I'm upset to see that Regan is suddenly offering so many own-root roses, including some of the Austins I want.

That is a bright happy rose! I think I'd look over the stupid name for that one too.

How does Regan's sell own root plants- are they in pots?

Their container roses have to be picked up at the nursery, so I think they send them as bare-root plants. They ship their bare-root plants in January and February, so it shouldn't be a problem. I'm sure they'd be much larger than the own-root plants sold by Heirloom and the other exclusively own-root nurseries, and I've bought bare-root own-root bushes in the past, but they've been OGR's or landscape shrubs. I want my Austins to be grafted.

Zuzu,
S & W is no longer selling bare root roses. They have roses in pots at the nursery for $8, and after those are gone, they are through selling roses. Sad news, for sure!
Palatine had 7 I couldn't live without, and I'm fighting the urge to call and add another 3.
We used the tractor and yanked out 3 roses yesterday so I do have a few more spaces. New Dawn has drawn blood from me for the last time, so as soon as I find good long leather gauntlets, I'm pruning that one out. It was supposed to go over the arbor, but it insists on covering the walkway instead. The canes are so huge I can no longer bend them. Some of the canes are 15' long.
My Carefree Marvel that turned into a monster rambler is now down to stubbs. It rooted every place it landed, and I ended up with 5 plants. The original plant had RRD, but for some reason, none of the other baby monsters ever showed symptoms. The prickles on that one are ferocious! It even climbed up into the maple trees in the same berm. It's going to be a chore to dig out those roots because they are woven into the maple roots, and that bed also holds some of my best daffodils and tulips. I don't water that area because of the bulbs, so i don't understand how everything there is so vigorous.

Thanks for that sad info, Cindi. I guess I can stop checking the S&W website for updates. I'll miss that nursery. It was on my list of second-tier nurseries along with Rosemania (not as good as Palatine, but better than Edmunds').

S&W was the only other nursery that always carried Yabba Dabba Doo, so I guess I will be placing an order from Regan before the rose disappears from commerce or is only offered by own-root nurseries. Regan has some interesting new Star roses for 2016. Two that look good to me (Sultry Sangria and Polynesian Punch) are on this page of the Star site (page 2 of the New Plants, in case the link doesn't take you straight there):

http://www.starrosesandplants....

Candy Cane Cocktail and Apricots n' Cream are also nice, but I have lots and lots of roses that look like them already.

All of my gardening projects have been rudely halted by a nasty recurrence of BPPV. It usually clears up after three nights of Meclizine-induced sleep and a few applications of the Epley Maneuver, but that usual remedy has failed this time. Today it was so bad that turning my head in any direction whatsoever, but especially up or down, resulted in crippling dizziness and intense nausea. I couldn't even water the garden because I'd have to look down to locate a hose. Luckily, I have 22 hours of "The Pallisers" on tape, so I immersed myself in Victorian-era parliamentary politics instead of going outside.

That sounds terrible! Wishing you a speedy recovery.

After a couple of months of dry weather we had a couple of days of nice rain. Now it is cool and dewy and looking and feeling like autumn. Time to sort through bulbs I dug and divided in late spring and get ready for the arrival of a couple of bulb orders. Also expecting a few peonies to arrive in a couple of days. There is a bittersweet excitement that comes along with fall garden activities; sad to see winter coming, but love the anticipation of new spring beauty

zuzu said:All of my gardening projects have been rudely halted by a nasty recurrence of BPPV. It usually clears up after three nights of Meclizine-induced sleep and a few applications of the Epley Maneuver, but that usual remedy has failed this time. Today it was so bad that turning my head in any direction whatsoever, but especially up or down, resulted in crippling dizziness and intense nausea. I couldn't even water the garden because I'd have to look down to locate a hose. Luckily, I have 22 hours of "The Pallisers" on tape, so I immersed myself in Victorian-era parliamentary politics instead of going outside.

Oh Zuzu. I hope you mend quickly, that sounds terrible.

Zuzu, hope you will feel better soon.

It is with great regret that I have to give up on Angel Face. I tried four times, but the poor plants could not survive for more than two years. It did not help that I covered them with manure and oak leaves. Angel Face is simply too sensitive for my garden. I am so sorry, because I love everything about this rose - the name, fragrance, color...

Thank you, Jasmin. I'm gradually getting better. The morning attacks are the worst.

I've never been able to grow Angel Face, so I understand what you mean. I tried it grafted and own-root, but it lasted only a year or two before giving up the ghost. I love the bloom, so I also tried growing the climbing version and even a standard, thinking the addition of the "tree" graft would help. Nope. It won't grow here. A couple of my neighbors have had the same problems with it, so it just refuses to grow in our neighborhood.

Maybe it's those oak leaves. We have a lot of scrub oaks (Quercus garryana) in our neighborhood, and their leaves can have allelopathic effects.

Zuzu,

I've been trying for 7 years; with manure, with compost, with and without oak leaves, with hay, etc. Nothing seemed to work. The oak leaves were just normal oaks; other roses love it.

Thus, I officially give up on Angel Face.

That's interesting about Angel Face. It fizzled out here too, but did last for several years. I had some grafted plants that weren't great quality to start with (a friend gave me bagged plants from a box store), and gave them little care, but the poor things did produce a handful of blooms for 5 or 6 years.

On the 9th of this month I posted Golden Fairy Tale had reached 5 1/2 feet, today it is over 7 feet tall- I can't reach the top of it anymore. Those tall canes were all vertical and almost parallel, but now they're spreading out, making it at least 5' wide. I'm actually kinda hoping for a little winter die back on it- I never thought I'd say that! I think this one may qualify as a house eater in areas with mild winters.

What would you grow instead of Angel Face?

zuzu said:Thank you, Jasmin. I'm gradually getting better. The morning attacks are the worst.

I've never been able to grow Angel Face, so I understand what you mean. I tried it grafted and own-root, but it lasted only a year or two before giving up the ghost. I love the bloom, so I also tried growing the climbing version and even a standard, thinking the addition of the "tree" graft would help. Nope. It won't grow here. A couple of my neighbors have had the same problems with it, so it just refuses to grow in our neighborhood.

Maybe it's those oak leaves. We have a lot of scrub oaks (Quercus garryana) in our neighborhood, and their leaves can have allelopathic effects.

It didn't last here either.

I have a lot of mauve floribundas that do well here, but I can't say that any look quite the same as Angel Face. I guess the closest are Blue Bajou, Grey Dawn, and Seven Seas, but they aren't readily available in commerce.



Novalis (aka Poseidon) is a nice mauve floribunda, and it's easier to find.



Singin' the Blues is related to Angel Face, but I don't think it's that exciting, and it gets attacked by every pest and disease around here.



My favorite mauve rose is English Perfume, but it's a grandiflora, so it has a slightly different habit from Angel Face.

I had one called Blueberry Hill that I replaced my Angel Face with many, many years ago. Now that I think about it I don't know what became of Blueberry Hill as it is not here and has not been for years. Maybe it died and I just forgot about it.

I have that one. It doesn't have blooms with the same shape as Angel Face's. It has fewer petals than Angel Face and the petals are in a more lax (messy) arrangement.