Cindi, Congrats on getting things mulched before the hot days of summer! I finally broke down and hired someone. If it works out well this year, the mulch will go down a little earlier next year. And maybe the water bills will be smaller. Thanks for the comparison of shipping prices.
I, too, will focus my rose-buying next year on Palatine. I'll probably buy a few roses from DA. I'll definitely try Chamblees for one or two. RVR will probably figure in there a little; at least as long as Chic is alive in my garden. For the several cultivars that can be found nowhere else, it will be RU. I'm definitely hoping, though, that the number of roses I buy next year and thereafter will be small compared to what I've been buying over the last two years.
They predicted highs here this week of 100F, but it hasn't gotten over 95F. And it's supposed to cool down to the low 90s soon.
Toni, Thirty percent survival rate is a lot higher than I have averaged here with bands - at least over the first three seasons. I've certainly done better with gallon roses. A bit. This year my batting average appears to be really a lot higher, having lost only two roses from being planted on a slope without a 'funnel,' and in a place that grew over with catmint so I forgot to water, and a DA rose from Palatine that never did anything. Given the number I planted this year, my success rate so far this year mighty be close to 95%. I am amazed at how incredibly important it is that potted roses arrive in my garden growing vigorously at precisely the moment when the weather conditions are correspondingly favorable. I think maybe conditions are favorable for a day in May, perhaps May 08th. Before that, the risk of frost is too great and cool nights can set them back too easily. After that, summer is too short for a decent growing season. Or daytime highs are too high. Or the ground is too dry. With this kind of schedule, however, daily watering seems imperative at least through the first year. Similarly, if the roses are not growing vigorously, conditions here will too frequently not be good enough to favor such growth, and the plants wither away to nothing.
