Bourbons. Such divas! They love our gardens and fulfill our wildest Victorian dreams or they tease us with slow progress and stingy blooms until the very last of our patience is burned out and then finally build up enough presence to erupt into the grandest show in the garden or they sulk while offering just enough meager crumbs of sumptuous and deeply fragrant beauty to keep us hooked and stay our shovels or they simply succumb to blackspot or harsh winters and turn up their prissy little toes after a few years. When they love us and our gardens, they get bigger and better every year and toss around cascades of blooms like those Krista receives for her tender care. Time will tell what each of yours does, Magpie. :-) Carol Zephirine

I think the single, most beautiful display I've ever seen on any rose may have been years ago, on a 'Reine des Violettes" that we pegged, nearly flat to the ground, with just enough arch to prevent the canes' snapping. It was astonishing when it flowered. Hundreds of closely-packed flowers. On the other hand, we've never done it again, because after that flower flush, the structure of the plant was a mess, and we pruned at it for a long time to make it "normal" again. And it was a lot of work to peg it in the first place. Nowadays, we grow it as an untrained, unsupported bush, which easily reaches 6-7' tall by nearly as wide in a season. We do prune it fairly hard, especially for height, in the spring. We get a major bloom flush in the spring, then a few flowers here and there all summer, then another heftier flush in the fall. It then continues with a few flowers through the winter, until we prune, usually late February or early March. (this is in Lakeland Florida) Malcolm

Jeff, KAV is a rose I fell for when I had just been bitten by the rose bug. I tried to buy the climber from Vintage but they sold out. So I got Mme Caroline Testout, Cl, a truly beautiful flower but a bs magnet here. She caused me to be extra leery of HTs without some real proof of their bs resistance. My Mme Abel Chatenay is strong and bs resistant/proof on her own roots, growing into a 4-1/2 ft sphere, and from Hoovb's photo has a similar (but flatter) bloom form to KAV and different color and petal count. (Well, I just checked the petal counts of both roses on HMF after my assumption was that MAC was higher. They say KAV is 100 and MAC is 17-25. I say no way! And I'm right since I just picked my only open flower. The lighter than normal flower had 63 petals, and the bush is still rather sickly from my neglect and the heat which has just ended.) KAV doesn't look like 100 in the photo above but I know looks can deceive. Anyway I'm tempted to give KAV a shot since she's 3/4 tea, but on the other hand I have White Maman Cochet, a most beautiful white tea that could pass for an HT on her first day or two and then starts looking like a lovely muddled tea. Jeff, if I were younger and more adventurous, I'd definitely get KAV. Maybe she'd like the Florida heat and humidity. :)) I've also been buying lottery tickets lately. I must say that I see botrytis on Bermuda's Anna Olivier (and previously Rosette Delizy) in the heat of summer, unless it's something else that puts magenta dots all over BAM's older petals. She doesn't ball though generally or get moldy & fuzzy. Sherry Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Yes it is Devoniensis Marlorena. It is Osteospermum in front although I do have Arctotis elsewhere in the garden. My daughter bought me some, as well as some other plants when she came over from the UK last May for my 70th birthday. Funnily enough, Osteospermums are easy to find here, but I have never seen an Arctotis. I don't know why. Noseometer, I moved here from the UK once I got my pension. There is no work here, but if you can support yourself on a pension there is nowhere else in the world, I would rather be. Daisy