What the pioneer women DID have was laundry soap water. Soap was made from lye and lard (animal fat). Today's soap is NOT the same stuff and not appropriate for garden use! Insecticidal Soap is the modern equivalent of "grandma's lye soap" The lard (potassium salts of fatty acids) in the soap was the active ingredient. It dries out the exoskeleton of the insects so they can't molt. Instead of their old skin splitting so they can shed it and emerge larger (the way they grow), it doesn't split and they strangle in their own skin. It's much like lye soap (and insecticidal soap) dries out your skin and how they can burn your eyes if you get it in them. Later, they had Blackleaf 40, a nicotine-sulphur compound which was used to delouse poultry. It was available until relatively recently for home use until it was found to be too poisonous to humans. If you can find it at all know, it's not in pint bottles on the department store shelves as it used to be. Nicotine is a nerve toxin, killing through nervous exhaustion or by actually stopping the heart. Sulphur is a fungicide which kills and prevents many fungi from damaging plant tissues. Many roses were brought across the country by settlers. Comparitively, only a few actually survived, and those which did, succeeded where they found conditions suitable to their needs. A found rose here in California isn't likely to be a survivor in Tennessee because they are completely different climates with tremendously different levels of water, cold and humidity. You're much more likely to succeed with "found roses" if you can plant the ones 'found' as close to where you garden. Grandmother's Hat is splendid in many of the California climates, but can be a martyr to black spot where it's hot and humid. Many of the once flowering, European OGRs are found in the North East, surviving for many decades with few issues and no assistance, but they aren't successful here because we can't give them what they want. You are spot-on with the thought that finding the right rose for the right spot is precisely what you need to do to succeed easily. That's what many have preached for a very long time. I'd suggest contacting Ann in Tennessee for her best suggestions as she's very local to where you are and would have the best suggestions for little to no care roses where you are. The rest of us can suggest many things, but we don't necessarily garden with the same issues so the things we suggest may easily not be good where you are. Kim

When I was very little, my mother was struggling with keeping two climbing Peace roses in good health in the desert of west Texas, in Odessa. They grew on a trellis surrounding the window of my older brother's bedroom. I used to climb up the iron trellis and sit on the shelf under the window to read comic books and swat at the bumble bees that would amble past. Those roses were the size of the dinner plates Mother served us with! Later we moved back to east Texas, near my grandparents home, and I saw other types of roses. My grandmother always had a couple of old "Sweetheart Roses" (Cecile Brunner), and she would point out other old roses, and other heritage plants as well when I or a cousin would show an interest. She was NOT an avid hobby gardener- she had 13 children, (my mother was her middle 7th child), and needless to say, her hands were very full with children, grandchildren, my grandfather, being active in her church, and the Eastern Stars, among other things. She always had a neat, tidy yard, and they grew an enormous vegetable garden to feed the family, kept chickens for eggs and meat, had a couple of cows for milk and butter, etc. Their life style was one of a simpler day, and with very little "cash money", she wasn't about to spend it on flowers for her yard! When she was an old lady, she would smile at the efforts people would go to in order to maintain a St. Augustine lawn, and a bunch of landscaper designed plantings. In her day, passalong plants were about all she and her cronies had, and she loved all of them for the ease of care: plant, water during droughts, and let them fend for themselves! Anyone who lives in the south can recognize what I call the "Granny Yard": a couple of OGRs, some honeysuckle that has to be beaten back every few years to keep it from taking over the world, a wisteria of the same ambitious nature, a magnolia, a pecan, a couple of oaks or ashes, a warty looking "toothache tree", maybe a willow if there is a pond nearby, a bunch of volunteer onions and garlics here and there, oh, and of course the easter lilies of yesteryear in a bed at the back corner of the house... 'Fess up. You have all visited this house! I know you have! In my twenties as a young mother I played at gardening, and suffered disappointment after disappointment when my hybrid teas and grandifloras would croak for lack of high culture. I just could not make myself get too excited about anything that was that high maintenance. One year my mother in law mentioned that one of my sister's in law wanted a "start" of her old "Sweetheart Rose", and asked if I would like one too. That sparked the memory, and soon I had my own little Cecile growing in my yard. I have moved away, and didn't know about cuttings back then, so I didn't preserve that plant through the years. But luckily it is one that is widely available. I filed away for future reference the note that those old garden roses really are tough as an old boot. We bought this home in 1999, and when I was ready to finally start a real garden, I was introduced to the Antique Rose Emporium here in Texas. From there I learned about rose rustling, about all the classes of old roses and the modern shrubs that seem superior to hybrid teas. That was at least 300 roses ago. And counting. ~Allison

Tammy, it sounds like you're having the season I had two years ago. '06 was awful all the way around. Between the late freeze and the aphids, thrips, spider mites, and powdery mildew I got exactly one good week of blooms, the very last week of the season. Then we got a hard freeze and it was all over. Last year was better and this year has been much, MUCH better. The few thrips I've seen haven't done a lot of significant damage to the blooms. I began the '07 thrips season with a couple of sprays of spinosad, then got worried about the bees and put the stuff away. No insecticides have been used since, unless you count dishwashing liquid. Last year I knocked down aphids with a dilute solution of the detergent in the spring, and also wet down the surface of the mulch and any adjacent pavement every 2 or 3 days during hot, dry spells to control spider mites. No active control measures have been required for aphids this year, but I've continued to wet the mulch when conditions put the garden at a high risk for an outbreak of spider mites. I haven't actually seen any mites lately, but after nearly losing several of my roses to them in '06 I've have been afraid to stop the treatment. I use just a drop or two of dishwashing liquid in an Ortho hose-end sprayer, filled the rest of the way with water. Ann, it is my understanding that both thrips and spider mites drop to the soil to pupate. I've wondered if wetting the mulch, which was recommended for breaking the life cycle of the mites, is also helping to keep down the thrips. One of those old books you posted a while back (or maybe I found it during my own browsing) recommended regularly wetting the soil under the roses as a general insect control measure.

I think rather than that consumers "pushed" nurseries to sell own-root roses, nurseries opened up and promoted own-root roses as an alternative to budded roses -- because that's what they were set up to produce. That people have come to prefer many -- but not all -- that way indicates that the change had some merit. Personally, I think that own-root makes for a better growing most garden roses -- note I'm not speaking of HTs for showing, or other more "finicky" roses. I mean your average "flowering shrub" rose, either modern or old. Areas with particular climate and/or soil conditions which dictate preferences for particular rootstocks would be better served by specialists. If your "average rose" is budded, will that "average rootstock" be the one recommended everywhere? Nope. So if you're in a specific region where 'Fortuniana' is what needs to be below the surface, own-root would be just as inappropriate as one of the other rootstocks. If the big producers put everything on 'Dr. Huey' as a default, you're just as out of luck as if the default was own-root. So perhaps the answer would be more smaller nurseries set up for those regional specifics. Anyone willing to learn custom budding could become very popular with their local ARS chapter. :-) ~Christopher