I think what they mean by "not sturdy" is that the stems and leaves tend to fall off fairly easily. And by that, I mean that pieces of the plant will break off if you disturb them too much. However, all ya have to do is stick the piece of stem in some dirt where you want more to grow, give it a bit of water, and it roots. You'll soon have a new plant....for FREE. Very easy plant to grow where not much else will, and they can cover a large area quickly. The only thing I don't like about them is that the flowers don't last very long and mine don't open unless it's sunny.

You know what - I feel completely stupid now. For years I thought that EarthKind meant you didn't do a lot of spraying pesticides and fungicides and I suppose I never bothered to read the lit particularly closely. Connie - I was about to ask you what you were talking about but I checked first and you are entirely correct, the web site says: "only to those roses demonstrating superior pest tolerance, combined with outstanding landscape performance" Nothing at all about fungicides or disease resistance. Just pest resistance. Until now it never occurred to me that you could have an EarthKind rose that required spraying for blackspot. Duh. I should learn to read English. And as a matter of fact, that makes me wonder exactly what the use of the Earth Kind designation is. Japanese Beetles eat everything. So here's what I can say about the EarthKind roses out here in NYC - Belinda's Dream, Caldwell Pink, Knockout, LaMarne, Mutabilis, Mary Daly - outstanding disease resistance. Close seconds are Pearle d'Or and New Dawn. Ducher is OK, not an outstanding rose in any way though. I don't grow the others. And as I mentioned, Crepuscule is brilliant and very resistant to blackspot, at least in my back yard.

To their credit, I don't think the Earthkind people make any claims for the performance of their roses in climates different from their own. One of their earliest selections, Belinda's Dream, does abysmally here for me. But that is not their fault. It is a fine idea to have regional lists. I am pleased to learn about the Valley Stars program. I understand that there is a group working in Pennsylvania to figure out a similar list. I'm sorry to say that I forget who they are. No doubt there are others. It is unfortunate that here in the west climate is so variable over a just few miles that "region" is not as useful as it might be. I am a little over 100 miles from UC Davis in the Central Valley but my climate is quite different due to a mild marine influence and the presence of the foothills. The rose selections would not be the same. Good friends who garden about 60 miles from me report that different roses do well in their gardens than in mine. In fact, different roses do well in their two gardens, and they are only about 10 miles apart! This is not to deny that such programs are valuable, and useful as a good starting point in rose selection. I have been willing to audition a number of roses in my garden and select for keeping those that did well for me here (and also that I liked). The rest I gave away -- or if they were very bad, tossed. The average gardener would not be willing to do that. It has been a long and enjoyable experiment. I buy one or two or maybe three roses a year now, and sometimes none. (Lately I've been planting fruit trees.) Rosefolly

Hi springrose: deformed/damaged new growth with medium-sized insect sounds like midge-problem. Midge doesn't like it too dry nor too wet soil-surface. If you can get pea-gravel at local stores (tiny pebbles with a variety of colorful minerals) .. quick solution is to spread a very thin layer around Marie Daly .. that will provide a dry surface so midge can't hatch. Hopefully the high pH of pea-gravel will help fungal disease (black spot), and stop any insects from hatching from below. Pea-gravel is slow release, so it won't shoot up soil pH, plus its high pH will neutralize acidic rain. Last year we had over 49" of rain. I put pea-gravel in 2 pots .. zero mildew, zero blackspots for the entire year, despite in shady location & poor circulation.