You are not alone...

Just think of it as an "enlightenment" as opposed to "madness", this works for me. Now to further enable your state of enlightenment, don't forget to regularly visit www.vintagegardens.com. They ship by units, ie. it costs as much to ship 1 as it does 4, 5 as 8, etc. So you might as well buy 4 or 8 or 16...

Chance: There is only one course of action. Embrace your rose obsession. At least for me it is working well. And say a fond goodbye to your lawn as it slowly disappears to be replaced by rose beds. Enjoy!

Sherry your post was so funny I laughed out loud while reading it. Since I was reading the rose forum during this unexpected outburst my husband attributed to the aforementioned rose insanity. Thanks for the smile.

Kate

I called my doctor and he said, buy four roses as needed until the swelling in your wallet subsides.

Lance

Welcome, Chance! :-)

Sadly, the cure my direction seems to be a nasty plant virus called Rose Rosette Disease. May it never inflict your garden! After having to destroy two otherwise beautiful and healthy plants, I have really slowed down on my planning and planting. It's too traumatic to wonder if this year's new baby will be next year's fatality. :``-(

Sherry and Lance - REALLY FUNNY!!! I'm still laughing... while I thumb through the Vintage catalogue...
Laura

The cure is the time and effort involved in nurturing and maintaining the hundreds of them you end up with.

That, and the water bill.

Sadly, Rose Midge has cured me. If roses thrived here, I'd still be buying. Especially with the kind of "help" you get on this Forum.

Hey Lance, you made me laugh!

I believe 'Dr. Huey' has cured many a sufferer of the illness, if I'm not mistaken.

Lance, yup, that ought to do it!

Rosefolly

So according to all of you I should:

1. Stay home and await the end

2. Rethink of it as "enlightenment" instead of "madness" and regularly go to vintagegardens.com

3. Embrace my rose obsession and have no lawn

4. Buy four roses until the swelling in my wallet goes down

5. Nurture the hundreds of roses I will end up with and pay a huge water bill because of it

6. Give thanks my roses don't have RRD, Rose Midge, or any Dr. Huey

It's like a 6 step program. I don't know whether to laugh or cry, but I tell you what, I think if I just buy 12 more and call the doctor in the morning, I might be OK. You all have been a great help(LOL,LOL,LOL).

Chance

Chance:

You nailed it perfectly. I just wanted to add two things to your accurate assessment and those are that a) you can keep a little bit of grass. Not much, just enough to say you have a yard when pressed on the issue and b) be ready to laugh and cry when it comes to your roses. At least that's how it is at my place:) Have fun.

Kate

There is a directory of doctors on Helpmefind roses that can help with this!

ha! That's not a list of doctors, just addicted enablers.

That site will only helpyoufind more roses to feed the frenzy.

Only one question. Why would you want a cure? In the long run it's cheaper (by far) than drugs, and if you give up liquor and cigarettes you'll even be able to foot the water bill.

Ingrid

The quickest cure here is water rationing. No office call required. It comes in the mail.

"But I donÂt want to go among mad people", Alice remarked.
"Oh, you canÂt help that" said the Cat. "WeÂre all mad here. IÂm mad. YouÂre mad."
"How do you know IÂm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat. "or you wouldnÂt have come here."

Welcome Chance!

You're doomed if you move to Italy. Lots of sun, decent rainfall most of the time, clay soil, dry summers, mild winters. If you do come, make SURE you don't buy a farm in the hills.

Melissa

Alas! Abandon hope. all ue ye who emter here. The only vaccines cause suddendeath, which will destroy the rose lust but is a tad draconian for my taste. Now that I have taken up writing down the conversations between my roses, I am likely to be certified and strapped down but it'll take a swat team to get me out of my garden. Oh dear, you see how it can get...
la

This is only a palliative therapy--no hope of a cure--but if you learn to propagate roses, and then swap or give away the resulting plants (only those no longer protected by owner's rights) it will ease your suffering.

Melissa

Dr. B. S. Diplocarpon - highly regarded for this particular diagnosis. His Ads are in almost every garden that grows roses. I don't know why he would bother to advertise - he is prominent and in every rose gardener's mind, and his psychological effects on rose growers are legendary. Maybe it's free and so easy for him.

However, it has been said that rosemaniacs are immune to his methods.

Trust me, there is no cure.

You might just as well give in, order and plan your next flower bed. REsistance is futile.

Have you ever seen the movie,Night of the Living Dead! LOL Well, we aren't that bad, but you get the picture.

Right now it is -2°F with a wind chill that takes it much lower, about two feet of snow on the ground and more to come on Monday. Guess what I spent my Sat. evening doing??? Ordering roses silly! LOL Nope, not even a frigid Jan night extinguishes the desire for more roses.

Valerie

how about 25 hew roses that came in the fall and are sitting in the pot ghetto or that are coming in the spring with spots for 5..lol

In actuality, what else but madness would provoke a sane, heretofore normal person to buy dozens of something sight unseen, demolish their landscape, and replant a new landscape ignoring size and spacing recommendations - all without the slightest firsthand clue about what it's all going to look like in 2 years or 5 years. I might as well have dived off the nearest cliff. Thankfully, no such cliffs exist in Florida. If there did, I would truly be a danger to myself because, if this garden turns bust, that would be the next logical step.

Hoping our madness never turns ugly and we never misplace our rose-colored glasses.

Sherry

Mauirose, I love the "Alice in Wonderland" analogy for what it's like to have this rose madness(lol). I'll be Cheshire cat then, because I'm not always there since becoming somewhat obsessed with roses.

Thank you all for the comfort and support. To know I am not alone is a great comfort.

Chance

Chance, I don't think you are "mad". I think you just haven't been educated yet in exactly HOW to count roses.

HOW TO COUNT ROSES -- Kim_SC at Gardenweb

1. Mini roses donÂt count.
2. Floribundas  because they are not full-fledged hybrid teas  count as half.
3. Shrubs, Climbers, Ramblers, Old Garden Roses, etc. donÂt count because they can be considered "landscaping."
4. Roses not planted  or in pots  donÂt count. (See the "Territory" Clause).
5. Roses that were discounted count as half.
6. Roses received as gifts donÂt count.
7. Odd numbers must always be rounded offÂif youÂre out of room, round the number down. For every one-hundred, divide by two. This is known as a "stock split."
8. Roses whose names you donÂt know or can't remember obviously donÂt count.
9. Roses that are on Shovel Prune Watch donÂt count; the roses that replace them also donÂt count as they cancel each other out.

10. Duplicate/multiples count as one as they are considered a set.
11. Roses that are not planted in a bed donÂt count. (See the "Landscaping" Addendum).
12. Bareroots donÂt count because they are dormant when they arrive; once you plant them and they start to bud outÂwell, youÂve already done your count, so you will just have to wait until next seasonÂby which time youÂll be sure you already counted them.
13. Mislabeled roses donÂt count because you probably already have one of them somewhere, which has already been counted onceÂprobably.
14. Anything less than Grade 1 counts only a fraction, and since fractions are not whole numbers they can be rounded off (remember the rounding off rule).
15. Roses that you think you might give away can be excluded from the countÂmakes it easier to part with them; if, by some chance you wind up keeping them, wellÂoh well.
16. HTs that get huge and wind up taking more than one space should be counted twice, but remember the duplicate rule.
17. NowÂif, after counting, you have under a hundred roses, you must immediately place some ordersÂand they donÂt count because theyÂre in transit and therefore not in the ground.
18. Roses ordered on a whim really donÂt count because they were never on a list. (This is known as the list rule: If itÂs not on a list, it doesnÂt existÂmost likely).
19. If you cut many roses and give them away, this is considered Charity, and everyone knows that you get special allowances for CharityÂwhich brings us toÂ
20. Tax Deductions (see Claiming Roses as Dependants).
    See? You really didnÂt have as many as you thought you didÂtime to go order some more.
    K.

There's also the "See how much worse He/She is!" strategy. A gardener friend told me last night that he was planning to order 119 roses; this after the generous fall orders he already placed and received. He has three hundred cutting-grown plants in pots, many of which are going to go to other gardeners, me included. He's busily spreading the illness, as you see. He's a thoroughly happy fellow.

Melissa

If you do find such a doctor, be sure to find out if he or she is into tree peonies or dahlias because they can be addictive complications to the rose problem.

Dear thonotorose, I have put your list of "How To Count Roses" on my fridge. I shall read it everyday to remind myself that my hobby is not as much of a tragedy as I thought. I think I'll place another rose order now.

Chance