Pay particular attention to trospero's advice. He's the UBERexpert around here: particularly regarding colder zones. Personally, I'd first recommend 'Dr. W. Van Fleet'. This is the parent from which sported the most important rose of all time (and the first plant ever patented), the ever-blooming 'New Dawn'. From New Dawn came Rosa Wichuraiana's desirable traits into modern roses. I've Grown both Van Fleet and New Dawn, and can say that the parent, while blooming only once, is otherwise superior in every way: bigger blooms, longer canes, fantastic disease resistance, far bigger show in spring (unforgettable, really). Essentially, you'll have a twenty foot stretch of big, pink, fragrant tea-shaped roses, on stems long enough for cutting. For roses that laugh at Ohio's cold, pretty much the entire Rugosa/Hybrid-Rugosa class are superlative choices. The Canadian Explorer Roses are the largest group of these hybrids. They tend to have little-to-no Blackspot, and some are heat-tolerant, even down to sweltering Shreveport, where they grow in the ARS Headquarters Gardens. Outside the Explorer Series, Therese Bugnet is a well-loved choice across North America. Hardy to Zone 3...rhymes with 'worry-free'. Another hardier-than-average class are Hybrid Multifloras. Seven Sisters is the classic anyone can grow. It's seven shades of pink. Gruss an Zabern is a gorgeous white. Both bloom only once. If you grow grafted roses, be sure you mulch extra-deep over winter. Rake most of that depth away from the roses, once chances of late freezes are gone. Own-root roses, of course, can be killed down to the ground, and will still come back 'as themselves'. I learned from an aunt in Northwest Arkansas (where there are freezes bad enough to kill hollies) who gets her help to mow leaves until they're practically pureed, then mulches with those ground-up leaves. She even keeps Datura alive that way, and her roses leap forward every spring. I use semi-decomposed compost, now that I'm up in Oregon. With Rugosas, I don't think you'll need to mulch after the first couple of winters. If you want to experiment with newer roses, my experience has been that Griffith Buck roses enjoy bitter cold. No surprise, since Buck's breeding program included the species Trospero mentioned, plus a rose from SIBERIA. Buck roses practically have their own cult following. Most were rescued from obscurity and near-oblivion, following Griffith Buck's demise (his breeding program was undervalued by the University where he taught). Buck Roses don't have the prettiest growth habits, IMHO, but they're hardy and tough, with beautiful blooms in fantastic colors. The ten Buck roses I planted in '05, in Mississippi where they don't get enough cold, are all still healthy, despite minimal care from the busy young surgeons who bought the house. The attached photo is of Buck's 'Serendipity'. And since Paul Barden is too ethical to plug his own magical creations here, shameless hussy that I am, I'll do it for him. Many of his babies were bred using Rugosa, Nutkana, Arkansana... Rogue Valley Roses carries the cultivars which so-far have been introduced into commerce. They're unique (Mosses! Deep purples! Pumpkin Orange!) Most of them are hardy to Zone 5.

Hollingsworth suggests that in a field situation slugs encountering caffeine are more likely to move to other non-treated plants. In the meantime Louise Simms and Dr Michael Wilson of the University of Aberdeen have investigated caffeine on the basis that it is an Âenvironmentally acceptable alternative to metaldehyde and methiocarb (Simms and Wilson, 2002). Caffeine, a natural product, is classified by the US Food and Drug administration as a GRAS (generally recognised as safe). Simms and Wilson presented new data suggesting that caffeine may be a less effective molluscicide than previously thought [due to the sheer amount needed for treatment at the ag scale and resultant effect on receiving waters -D]. In addition, the product was shown to be toxic to three earthworm species at low doses and some phytotoxicity was observed on the plants. [emphases added] Boy, it would sure be nice to know on which plants somebody upthread sprays coffee, so we can avoid phytotoxicity. Don't want dead plants, ya know. Suuuure would be nice... Dan

I just saw this post and I started with adenium seeds around sept. In northern California. I killed alot before I found a method that works best for me. I really enjoy growing them hydroponically. I will later move them from a hydroponic system to smart pots. I'm not sure about my media mix. I started with a cactus mix that I added some perlite to. Didn't really measure it out. That ended tragically for that group of seeds. I kept them pretty moist. Growing in the off season lighting was a challenge. I ended up getting a tent to put my yearlings in that I purchased online, as well as my seedlings growing in soil media. As well as l.e.d lights. The media I use now is black Rose cactus mix mixed 1:1:1 with extra coarse perlite and pumice. I rinse my perlite and pumice first to get rid of the dust and real small pieces. Those seedlings are doing much better than the last. I like to grow arabicums and I believe I have some seeds that are socotranum arabicum mix. I water my seedlings in soil about 3 sometimes 4 times a week. The only experience I have had with obesum, they were about a year old and rotted almost right away. I think because the night time temps are much cooler than the day time temps in the summer here ,where they were outside. Arabicums seem to be more cold tolerant. My hydroponic seedlings grow much faster. The leaves grow faster than the ones in soil, and the caudex grow much plumper and not as tall. The seedlings I have in soil are growing slow and steady but look good the leaves are much smaller and have about half as many as my hydro seeds started about a week sooner. In soil the caudex grows a little longer but I got it down to where the caudex in the soil doesn't grow too much longer like my first set of seeds which looked etoliated and died. It has been alot of fun and you can see some pics of a few of my seedlings that are now around day 55 hydroponically if you search on houzz hydroponic adenium my thread will come up. I will be posting what my seeds look like around day 55 tomorrow when I have time. I also have an update on two weeks for my other hydro seeds started. And soon I will be posting my soil seeds. I can't wait til spring ! I have stopped starting seeds for the most part til then because it is getting harder to care for them all. Also i get brown spots on my leaves when I fertilize my yearlings and end up having to cut the leaves because I can't Handel looking at them. I need to use less fertilizer in my water when I fertilize them. Also come spring I want to use more organic material because of the fertilizer problem I have, and will probably only use a slow release 15-15-15. My sister in law has an obesum, it is in a plastic pot way smaller than it should be, in a mostly peat moss nursery mix. It sits in full sun and gets rain everyday, she neglects the hell out of it, but lives in Orlando, fl. I wish I had her problem with adeniums! That kind of shows how big a difference weather makes for these plants. I really enjoy everything I have learned from everyone on this forum. Now I need to get to taking some pics to post on my thread. Goodluck with your seedling!

floral, I think you misunderstood or misread what I said. My frequent, often annual, visits to the UK and how much time I've spent over the years with colleagues and friends alike, have impressed upon me the substantial differences that exist between the US and UK concerning so many things - cultural habits and expectations, what I'll call ethnic and engrained traditions, social and interpersonal conduct, and the rest, much more so than similarities. Because of my awareness, I never assume anything. I never assume I understand what an expression may or may not seem to mean, what a comment may or may not expressly imply, what a reaction to something is or isn't. I ask, I don't assume. It's usually the right approach because as the old saying goes, things aren't always as they appear to be. So you and others can have a good time taunting me, too bad it's you all who've missed the point. Sarah Lyall, a woman of NY roots, was the NY Times London Correspondent for nearly 20 years. She met and married an Englishman and started her family there. In her book Anglo Files, she chronicles perplexing incident after incident, comment after comment, that she struggled to understand and many never did. Even with a husband to serve as a cultural guide and ambassador, she concluded that the differences in what I'll briefly call personal behaviors, social conduct and expectations and national attitudes were too numerous to fully grasp and know how to deal with when encountered. After discussing the book in a video visit with one of our dear English friends (the close relationship dating from back decades from when we were both living on the Continent and with whom we've always and often discussed interesting and different cultural practices as between our two worlds), I sent them a copy of the book as a gift. It was hard to find there but I did find it on the UK version of Ebay. They loved it and found it entertaining and enlightening to see how things that for them are everyday or culturally expected, some of which they too find a bit bizarre, could be so puzzling to an outsider.