What spurs bloom is the maturation and dropping of 'dead' heads. Except sometimes the roses get pollinated successfully and they will grow hips. Some roses "self clean" that is they drop their unfertilized hips without our help. For others, we need to remove the hips. If you cut blooms, you are (for an average Hybrid Tea) speeding up the emergence of the next bloom bearing stem by, maybe, a week. Depending on the maturity of the bush, the richness of your soil, rainfall, and temperatures and even sunlight. For biggest blooms, cut down to the first five petaled leaf. For more stems and leaves and smaller blooms, snap off the bud at the abscission layer. Let's see if google can bring this discussion up from years past.

All of mine are in their 1st year in the ground or 20" containers. Belinda's Dream--Very nice HT with large solid pink blooms on her. Also a very strong, very sweet scent. The bush itself is moderately upright but stays about 4x3 for me. The bush could be more well mannered to shape up better, but that is most likely me pruning it wrong. Mine tends to get powdery mildew slightly, but almost all my roses do. Pat Austin--Beautiful, large coppery, pinkish, and especially orange blooms that come out like a fireworks show. Stays at 4x3 for me and while it would probably become an octopus and have some arching canes, it stays very well mannered for me. Practically no disease, and the foilage is gorgeous green glossy leaves. The scent is strong tea scent with a hint of other scents as well. The blooms do fade fast and die off fast, but they are also replaced fast as well. William Shakespeare 2000--I need to get WS2000 in a better spot as he doesn't get near enough sun and tends to get some mildew. With that said, he still does decently well and provides some gorgeous bright magenta blooms that fade to a darker crimson/burgundy color with a beautiful warm fragrance of old rose, damask, and violets. The bush has been rather small at 2x2 and the growth tends to go out sideways so it's not exactly the most well mannered grower. White Eden--Beautiful nearly white big blooms. A sport of Eden so it has all the characteristics of the regular Eden. Unfortunately, it is slow to develop and has only provided me 2 blooms so far this year although I am growing it as a climber and it is up to about 4.5ft at the moment. This seems to be the case with Eden as well. It takes a while to establish a root network before it takes off. We shall see how it progresses next year. Not much of a fragrance if any. Red Eden--Tall, upright HT that I am growing as a climber. It sends out thick, rigid, and upright canes straight up and tends to have clusters of 4-5 blooms at the ends of the canes. The blooms are to die for as big, globular, and nearly true red blooms. I counted 186 petals in one bloom. The fragrance is fairly strong as well. Old rose with a hint of a fresh fragrance as well. A gorgeous bloom with rather sparse foilage though. So far it' up to about 4ft although it's sending out a new basal at the moment. Winchester Cathedral--purchased as a band from High Country. Has put out respectable new growth, although not a real thick caned grower. The blooms are small so far, but the rose isn't mature yet, so we shall see. The rose has a whole slew of thorns, although they seem to be rather small. The white blooms have a bizarre honey with nuts scent to them. It smells totally different from all the other roses, but is still quite a welcome scent that lasts for the entire life of the bloom. So far, the rose has had a pretty terrible time with powdery mildew, but it might improve as the rose matures. Golden Celebration--This rose is getting huge for me in a 20" container. It's thrown out numerous canes around 7' that arch out. I'm letting them arch out to promote some new buds off the lateral arching canes. The rose has stayed really healthy for me and the blooms last for a pretty solid period without the yellow color fading a whole bunch. My blooms have been large, but not overly massive...yet, but the fragrance is very sweet and fairly strong, so it's definitely a nice rose and I'm sure it will put on a show once it matures and gets some lateral breaks in it. New Dawn--This rose hasn't exactly bloomed a whole bunch for me, but that is because of me growing it to get as vertical as possible. It was a little slow to get going as the root network has been developing, but right now it is booming and taking off. I have 3 canes a little over 9' in their 1st year going up an arbor/pergola. I expect big things out of New Dawn next year when I can grow out longer canes and train them to get more flowers. The blooms I have had have been quite a good size for a climber and despite other reports I've heard, they are every bit of at least a mild fresh fragrance. The thorns can definitely rip you a new one if you don't watch out for them though. Abraham Darby--One of the last roses I planted this year. The growth has still been spindly, but it is still developing in a 20" container and will most definitely improve with time. I've heard a lot of reports of blackspot problems and while I spray now, I've never had blackspot problems in my garden and Abe hasn't had the faintest hint of any mildew or blackspot problems. All of my blooms stay in a strong cupped form and rarely open ALL the way. I like them that way though as the petals look packed. The fragrance is to die for. People have claimed it as juicy fruit and that sounds somewhat accurate. On any claim, the fragrance is most definitely an intoxicating fruity fragrance. The blooms are already pretty large for me, but I'm sure they can get much larger one Abe matures. Pretty Jessica--I was enabled for Pretty Jessica and I was also interested in saving some of the older Austins. I still have to wait to see more from PJ before I can accurately say a whole bunch about her, but I've been pleased so far. The rose is almost totally thornless and has leafed sepals. No problems with mildew or blackspot so far, so should turn out to be a winner once I see some more blooms here in the next week. Sharifa Asma--I purchased mostly for the rave reviews on fragrance, and havn't been disappointed. I wouldn't say the fragrance is the strongest of my roses, but it definitely has a beautiful note to the fragrance. The blooms are nice, although not exactly the most elegant. The canes are also thorny with numerous small thorns. Sharifa was purchased as a band as well, so I will have to wait to see more. Evelyn--I purchased Evelyn as a band and she has exploded with growth in such a short period of time in a 20" container. I already have 3 canes over 4.5ft. The blooms are very beautiful, but I'm excited to see the end result with numerous blooms. The canes are arching much like Golden Celebration, and I will most likely eventually grow Evelyn in the same manner by letting the canes arch out and break new buds laterally to make her more floriferous. I havn't had much of a scent from the first couple of blooms yet, although Evelyn is supposed to have a strong fragrance, so she will probably develop it as she matures as well. Zepherine Drouhin--I am growing Zephy as a climber, and we shall see how it turns out. Zephy was unfortunately a powdery mildew disaster, which is why I started spraying her. If I spray, the mildew stays under control. I also made the mistake of planting a giant sunflower in it's path that robbed it's sunlight. Even with those issues, Zephy has some canes up to almost 9ft right now in it's first year. The blooms are powerfully fragrant with a sweet old rose fragrance. Blooms repeating has been rather difficult so far, but I am not training Zephy laterally either yet. I expect the blooms will come better next year as Zephy will have another year under her belt and more sun to work with. Bishop's Castle--Probably my strongest scented rose. The growth has been rather spindly so far, but I expect it to pick up and the blooms tend to be medium sized pink with a little variation in color, but not much. The blooms stayed cupped, but the cup is really shallow and flat. The fragrance smells like straight rasberries.......but SUPER strong. The rose had blackspot when I purchased it, but it's totally gone now. Graham Thomas--I planted Graham Thomas in a rather poor location that is almost entirely clay. I am growing him as a short climber attached to a 6ft tall wood fence. It really took him a while to get established, but just recently he has been BOOMING. Easily 7ft tall now and throwing out numerous new thick basal canes and an explosion of new growth. The blooms have increased in size dramatically as well. The scent is about as textbook of a tea fragrace as you can get and is quite strong. It occasionally gets a few leaves with blackspot, but they fall off and all is well after that.

I was also looking for SUMMER SONG last year. I was surprised that it was not in the Austin catalogue given its release date in the UK and was only available in North America through Pickering and Palantine. Pickering and Palantine had both sold out early. I tried to ordred this rose from Pickering on the first day they were taking orders and was told that they could not sell it to those in the US. I called the Austin headquarters in Tyler, TX and was told that this rose does NOT perform well in the US and that they had made the business decision NOT to introduce it here. I found this very odd and disppointing. I am aware that a few decades ago, they almost discarded some of the earlier Austin varieties (Tamora comes to mind) because they did not perform well in the UK and perhaps other European trial locations. Fortunately, they were planted at the Huntington Library gardens in southern CA, where they performed very well and these varieties are now available to us to grow. I was able to obtain a SUMMER SONG plant from someone in the midwest who had ordered it from one of the Canadian suppliers. It is now planted in my garden and it is already starting to show signs of growth. I am glad to hear that it is doing well for you, Beth. I am very much looking forward to seeing how it does well in central CA.

I think that pillowcase apron (link provided by dlm2000)could be easily made. Some of the fancy aprons that jazmynsmom likes could be made by buying a dress pattern that was similar and just modifying it a bit, maybe? Grammy Britt always wore the ones that tied around the middle but had a bib. She didn't like straps on the bib, though, so she'd cut them off in a way that didn't show and pin the top two corners of the bib onto her dress front with little safety pins. She had a set for each apron, and when she took the apron off she'd attach the pins to the apron so they'd be handy the next time she used it. I remember sometimes she'd be working in the kitchen and have something on her hands and Gramps would walk in and give one of the apron strings a yank and leave her standing there with her apron just hanging. He thought it was a funny prank. I'd run up behind her and put my arms around her waist and feel for the ends of the strings so I could tie them back for her. She was such a precious little woman. She died of cancer when I was 15. I have an apron that my grandson made for me in Family Living class. I'm going to start wearing it. I've enjoyed everyone's posts. --Ilene