It's that time of year again and I have to do some thinning. We can only fit so much into a small brownstone garden that already has some 50 roses, so I need to move some out. They're great roses, fully grown and several years old and I want to find them some good homes.

Precious Dream - nice little plant, maybe 3 feet all around. Beautiful salmon pink blooms, very very double. It's a Ralph Moore rose.

Vineyard Song - a little bigger, maybe 4 feet around, grows in a very sprawling kind of mound. Has clusters of blooms so tightly packed with tiny, but very double blooms, that from the distance the clusters look a bit like pink/lavender hydrangea blooms. Really something remarkable to see when it's in bloom. If someone doesn't take it before it starts to bud, I'm keeping it until the first flush is over.

Dixieland Linda - a sport of Aloha. A much bigger rose, big pink blooms, also very double, and these often have a hint of orange to the pink, whereas Aloha is simply pink.

And something I potted for somebody but for some reason never gave them. I thihk it's Awakening - another pink, very double climber.

Lavender Dream - a mini that I got from Justice a number of years ago. Lavender color, very double, small blooms, and profuse.

A possible contender for next year - Pleasantrie. It's actually a very nice rose, very similar to one of its parents, Mutablilis, but perhaps a bit brighter in coloring, with some orange tones to the yellow/pink changing blooms.

So why am I getting rid of these wonderful roses?

Basically because I just have too many similar pretty pink roses in a small back yard. The blooms are different, but in a subtle way for the most part. James Galway, for example, is very similar to Awakening, to Dixieland Linda, to Gruss an Achen, to Dorcas, to Morden Blush and a half-dozen others. Vineyard Song is just in a spot that crowds everything else, intertwined with Pearl d'Or and a few other beautiful pale pink roses. So I'm getting rid of those that are easiest to dig up, require spraying, or have thorns. Gallway and Dixieland are going to grow into each other and Gallway just has fewer thorns so it wins.

Pleasantrie is a great rose but it's just too big and vigorous. It dwarfs Awakening, James Gallway, Ramblin Red, Crepuscule, Westerland, Aloha, and others that are supposed to be big. So if I can't keep it reasonable, I'll replace it at the end of the year.

Anyhow, if anyone's interested, let me know. I'd prefer to give them to someone who can pick them up, but if I can't get any local takers, cover the shipping and they're yours.