I've looked all over these bushes--no indication of any type of bug/worm/mite. The leaves have little yellow spots on the front. When you look at the underside of the leaf--it has orange/red spots (like rust), but they are not raised spots. Rust can happen with cool, moist conditions. In Milwaukee, we have had very cool nights almost all summer long and lots of rain. Ripe weather for rust. I used to cut my bushes way down by beginning of December for probably most of the years I've lived here-- I want to say I "harsh pruned' (because that was how I was told to do it) for at least 15 years. Over the last number of years I have waited to prune til Spring. To be perfectly honest, I don't notice the roses doing better by waiting to prune til Spring.

I live in middle TN about 20 miles south of Nashville and we can have a wind chill below 0 sometimes and I have about 8 clematis that are in large 5 gal plastic pots and they sit out in the opening all winter long and always come back year after year. I have two 5 gal pots with a 4 year old Ramona and a 3 year old Polish Sprit that sit on my front porch with no pretection what so ever from the north wind and the dirt freezes solid in the pots. The Ramona right now has about 15 buds on her and is about 4 foot tall on her trellis. The Polish Sprit is about 3 foot tall and is growing like a weed with at least 10 or more new green shoots on it. My 5 year old Asao sits out in the opening in her pot all winter and she currently has 20 large buds and is about 4 foot tall... My first year I would move the pots in and out of the unheated garage but I soon gave up on all the moving and just left them to see how it worked out during the winter and never lost the first yet.

This is very interesting indeed! Of course it is possible that a rogue seed found its way into the pot. Darcyi has hybridised with microphylla and the pleasant result has been Silke's Dream. I took seed from Silke's Dream 2 years ago and got 2 interesting plants. One was like a vivid orange greggii...with small lime-green leaves, yet to be named, as really nothing that special, the other had huge pale pink flowers, and is a vigorous upright plant, it has been named 'Penny's Smile'. This could be a great introduction, but can only be truly propagated from cuttings. There is a photo of this on my site www.robinssalvias.com 3 years ago, I sowed some seeds of S.patens 'Guanajuato'...good germination, but one seedling was particularly vigorous and obviously not a patens. I grew this and it turned out to be a stunning form of S. guaranitica. This flowered all summer long, and grew to 6 ft in a short time. The foliage is different from other guaraniticas, but the large flowers seem to be the same. This has proved to be fairly hardy, and has not set any seeds. Sure, I may have had a guaranitica seed stuck to my finger which fell into the patens pot....but somehow don't think so, as I did not collect any guaranitica seed that year! But, it is a fabulous Salvia. I very much doubt if patens and guaranitica would hybridise....they are from different countries.....but I have heard that the Italian Salvia viscosa has hybridised with a South African species! Also, some marvellous hybrids from South African species have occurred in New Zealand and Australia. There seems to be no end to hybrid possibilities, even though botanists are rightly searching for true species. Recent trips to Mexico have found numerous hybrids of littae/purpurea/iodantha, not to mention many different forms of polystachya, carnea, and myriantha. Only professional botanists can positively identify these plants. Other great hybrids are Salvia 'Waverly' and more so, Salvia 'Phyllis' Fancy'...the latter being superior. Waverly has pink flushes, and Phyllis has blue/lavender flushes. Both are supposed to be children of leucantha and chiapensis. I can see the resemblance to leucantha, but the chiapensis parent confuses me. Is it possible that the two alleged parents could produce hybrids with completely different coloured flowers? I could go on for hours on this theme, but don't want to bore you all, probably already have! Robin.

I love this petunia, Teri.............thanks for sharing.