Frank, I've started doing a lot of chip budding in the last year--pawpaws and apples. For apples I chip bud in late summer. For pawpaws it's late spring after bud break. Apples are really easy--I'm getting nearly 100% take. Pawpaws I still find challenging. Make the safe cuts--always away from you and your fingers. No need to take risks. Bottom "stopper" cut first, then the long cut from the top. I use an el cheapo utility knife, and put a new blade in at the start of the day. I wrap with parafilm, unwrap after several weeks. Based on some discussion here, I've also experimented with t-budding, sometimes as a backup to the chip. For me, it does seem a little easier to slide that bud into the t than to line up the chip. Experts say the chip has a better take....I don't know. Try some of both and decide for yourself. We're all different. Good luck and keep up posted, Marc PS....looking for pawpaw budding tips

Generally you want to bud on to smaller shoots, so there is never a "trunk" above the graft point. Buds don't take reliably if the shoot is more than 2x the diameter of the bud. If you want to bud on to an existing tree, pick a part of the tree you want the new variety to take over and put the bud there. Everything above the bud needs to be removed after it takes or the bud will not sprout. Well, you may be able to get it to sprout by notching but if it is not in a dominant position it will never grow to good size, and so the stuff above probably needs to be removed to make the bud more dominant. Never put a bud too low on a tree even if you are going to let it be dominant on the little shoot you grafted it to: if there are too many big limbs nearby it will never win the race. Sometimes there is no good small shoot to bud onto, and in that case you need to remove a bigger shoot and do a bark or cleft graft, generally in spring with a dormant scion (in theory you can bark graft with a this-seasons budwood stick but I haven't had super good luck with that in my attempts thus far). Scott

I can't speak directly to chipping, but people are budding here now, and our first freeze will probably hit by the end of September if not at the beginning. (It seems like we get a pretty good cold snap late in August or the first part of September every year, and if we get past that we might get a few more weeks of growing season. Rare to have anything going past mid to late October.) Good luck, M

Patrick I love apricot color roses, I initially thought about Dudley Cross. I haven't grown it, but I heard it does well in our area. Then I had a better thought....how about Jude the Obscure? An Austin, not an old tea rose, but I think it would meet all your criteria. It is the right color, an amazing fragrance, it grows into a nice bush, and seems pretty impervious to blackspot. I may spray it once or twice during the season, but I think I could easily grow it no-spray. Ooh, the fragrance...when it is in bloom, people just stop in front of the house and enjoy. It's my favorite rose, I call him my faithful friend Jude Are you feeling enabled yet? (turnabout is fair play!) Basil