Diane already answered your question 5, I just second her. It is much better to start with quality roses and with nurseries that don't sell virused plants. Red rose that easy to grow and fragrant? Well, it is a tall order. Somebody a few years back from Maryland said that Erotika had been trouble free and fragrant for her. But Erotika is a rose that it is not easy to find. I ordered it from Hortico but I would not recommend this nursery to you based on my experience. Maybe Appalachian rose nursery has it and if they do that is a very respectable nursery. Chrysler Imperial is supposedly easy to grow and very fragrant but I don't know about its disease problems in MD - Olga would be needed here, who is the MD rose expert both in modern and antique roses. Check out Chamblee's nursery for other roses except for the smelly red - you will get very well priced plants. The best 1 gallon own roots I got came from them for years. They have a lot of Buck roses, that would be great for a novice gardener. I would recommend Quieteness without any hesitation, Prairie Star, Prairie Harvest, Rural Rhythm, Wanderin' wind, and Winter Sunset are also excellent roses - easy to grow and all have fragrance. I think it is too late for planting bareroots, otherwise I would recommend to check out Pickering nurseries. But for the future that's what I recommend - early on! late August or September start studying their online catalog - they offer 900+ roses on a rootstock that is far better for the east cost than any grafted rose that you can find in a chain store or even a top-notch and expensive local nursery. This advise does not apply to those roses that are own root (Both J&P and supposedly Weeks offer own root roses recently).

Thanks for the heads up, WellRooted. I was in Art Knapp's in Vernon about 4 weeks ago and they had quite a few Austins but they weren't selling them at that time (too early apparently). They must have sold out since I was there. I was up at Art's in Kamloops last weekend and I'm sure I saw some up there so I'll go check. Otherwise, there is a nursery up in Barnhartvale in Kamloops that usually has Austins on their own roots. They are usually a little smaller than other nursery ones but I haven't had any trouble with the ones I've bought there. I know the own root rose grower that you are referring to that went out of business. What a shame. I never got to visit there but loved looking on their website. And now I see the Old Rose Nursery on Hornby Island is up for sale. You are right. Pretty soon the only option is going to be whatever the big stores deem suitable for us. Nastarana, I haven't heard of the Rennaisance series. I'll have to do some research. It can get pretty hot here in Kamloops and the Okanagan during the summer with temps in the low 100's for a few weeks. But then, in the winter it gets fairly cold too so we have both extremes unfortunately. I'll take a look at your suggestions. Thank you. :o)

I have remembered this thread because recently I have been adding to another collection. When I was nine years old, back in the days when girls simply did not read science fiction, my Dad bought me a couple of Edgar Rice Burroughs novels. I was hooked from that point on. In the past few months I have been buying hardback editions of older science fiction, the golden era books from the 1940's, 50's and 60's. That was how I came to have a copy of City handy for the first lines thread. I already had a gathering of my favorite SF&F novels from the past three decades, but I decided I wanted to have a representative selection of older SF that I first read as a child. My selection criteria is strict - did I like the books when I first read it? On re-reading, not all have not stood up to the test of time. I'm afraid to say that ERB is one such author, and there are others, alas. But others I still do enjoy, and I am delighted to have on my shelves.

Perma: Yes, an antique rose is much more than just a rose. It's history, it's romance, it's beauty, it's fragrance, it's science, it's life, it's culture, it's poetry, it's magic. It's a reason to get out of bed in the morning--to look around excitedly to see what bloomed. Like you this is basically my only indulgence. I've been frugal by necessity for decades. This is really the only thing I've done for myself and I don't feel guilty for spending the money. What's stopping me now is I have no sunny space left to put them and I am really pushing it on shade tolerance with many of them already. Ingrid: I agree. I think the future will be worse than those forecasts. Jin: Yes, with money just about anything in the garden is possible. I could spend thousands easily in the garden. Every year! I want to fix my paths and get some flowering plants that are shade tolerant. Maybe a bunch of encore azaleas for starters. I'm eventually going to have to shift my focus to shade gardening because for every square foot of sun I have about 200 square feet in shade. I really wish I could get as worked up over shade plants as I am for antique roses. As an aside, my crape myrtles are all blooming now and they are really beautiful but they do not make my heart go pitter patter like my roses do.