Thanks to all who sent birthday wishes after I posted last night! Celeste: My evening was quiet, but nice, spent with my boys. They were very sweet, and I must say, I was spoiled. 'Uneventful', maybe, but I'm done with the partying anyway:) And oh, I am in awe of your beautiful rose gardens and can't wait for your photos this summer! Niecey, Thanks for that beautiful birthday rose - what is it? Mendocino rose - Such a spectacular view - your rose gardens must be an amazing sight. Thank you! Sandy - It's getting harder and harder to blow out all those candles! Carol - believe me, all week, every time someone complained about the weather, I reminded them of you poor souls out west who were struggling to deal with bitter cold and wind chills, the likes of which we have not seen here in these parts in recent memory. And I sure hope it doesn't move east. Hang in there. Thanks again to you all for your warm birthday wishes. Judith

Thanks for the birthday wishes, Petaloid! Thank you Pauline - and what a beautiful rose picture! I miss mine so much - it is Ebb Tide, right? Yes, dear Florence, it was a lovely birthday! And thanks for Aloha - I've always thought she was so pretty! Morden Man, thanks for the birthday wishes, and the 'Hot Cocoa'- we surely need something to help get us through this winter, (but I'd probably go with Baileys in mine:0) Thanks so much, Carla - my celebrating actually ended Sunday, but it's so nice to come here and find more birthday wishes! Judith

That is a real error on GW part. Maybe they are having some kind of technical difficulties mixing up birthdays. I am so flattered with the birthday greetings both Carla and Judith but today was not my birthday. My birthday was gone 3 months ago, January 5,Les birthday on the 9 and Judith is on 31st. I noticed in my hotmail Carla sending a Birthday greeting and decided to come on here to see if there is a thread so I can put a stop to it. And I am so glad I decided to check the forum. Carla that is a stunning color, what is the name? Judith is that WS2000? Niecey

Judith, I thank you so much for your kind words and we are keeping a few that have been able to cope on their own, but all the burdens of rosegrowing which we have experienced over the past few years have naturally pared the garden way back. We have had our share of RMV,the ravages of RRD, a myriad of fungi and insects, a blight that killed most of the Noisettes, and in the past few years, such very late and hard freezes in late spring that pruned some roses so far back, they never rebounded, so the garden began to look pathetic, and we knew we were not going to be able to maintain the laborious physical and monetary schedule we had, in the past, while acquiring so many roses and maintaining them. We needed a gardener 2-3 days per week, and sometimes more often, lots of fertilizer, pruning, using chemicals and our water bill was rivaling that of the national debt. We are slowly replacing our losses with a few evergreens, conifers, deciduous ornamental small trees and some lovely ornamental shrubs, e.g., camellias, tea olives, gardenias, etc. We still have many climbers and ramblers remaining, enough so that we will have a beautiful late April/early May show. We still love roses as much as ever and I love coming here to see what everyone else is doing but in our area secondary to the condition alluded to above, it is, unfortunately, a decision we did not come to lightly but growing and caring for hundreds of roses is a love we must leave to others.