THANK YOU ALL for your wonderful responses to my post! I always enjoy sharing my experiences and photos with you all and getting your feedback. It sures helps with the winter blues to chat about roses and you are all treasured friends. For those who wanted to know how I went about the seed-starting operation, I kept it pretty simple, and anyone can do it. After collecting the ripe hips in the fall I immediately dug the seeds out of the hips, making sure to get all the pulp off the seeds and clean them well. I soaked them for a day or two in water with a little bit of hydrogen peroxide in it then put them between moist paper towels which I then placed in plastic ziploc bags. They stayed in the refrigerator for 3 months. I did not have any sprout during that time so I simply sowed them in peat pots using packaged sterilized seed starting mix. As for the flourescent lights I used regular shoplights suspended about 3 inches from the pots. I kept the lights on for about 16 hours per day/ off for 8 hrs. I had some germinations in as soon as 1 week after sowing which surprised me, but most seeds took about 2-4 weeks to germinate. As the seedlings grew I just kept adjusting the height of the lights, but made sure they were only inches away from the seedlings. I wasn't sure how well the seedlings would do just using regular flourescent lights but they didn't seem to mind that I didn't splurge on the more expensive grow-lights. Because the set-up was in my basement, the temperature was fairly cool but not cold. So that's basically it, nothing fancy or too scientific, just a lot of hovering over the pots and hoping and wishing. Thank you Patrick & Jim for the suggestion and encouragement to join the RHA. I did pop over there as a lurker during my seed-growing upon occasion but haven't in a while since I no longer have my setup going. Someday I hope to get back into it because I truly enjoyed it. For now, my mom who has Alzheimer's is living with us so that I can care for her and my grown daughter moved back in, and I lost all available space. It's a hobby I know I will get back into when space allows. Once again, many thanks for all of your words of encouragement. Celeste

CI, TZ, SdlM all growing nicely now. I think this will be a good fragrance bed. I put Lion's rose in the back to add beauty and a good leafy background even though it isn't much on scent. I think if the base gets shaded by the others, it won't get disease. There's room to the right of Abe Darby for one more big rose. I think it's going to be Evelyn. Hopefully, it will work some magic for me. This is a good morning sun spot and gets shade in the hottest times of the day. My summer is a little hotter than Hoovb's but maybe it's close enough. I'm going to hope for the best. The only downside to this location is that it will take the full force of the Santa Ana wind from across the street. We are along the Santa Ana river channel and the wind blows strongly through the gap. It seems to be shifting later than Halloween now. I used to call it the Halloween Wind.

Thank, Lynda! :D Maybe it is! Thanks you guys! I like the hill behind our house. It gives us a little more privacy and the HOA planted some nice drought tolerant plants back there. Some bloom a little, too, which is nice. I'm not really sure what to do next, because it's all so new to me! So I guess I'm kind of waiting to see how things fill in and how I feel about it. I'm welcome to suggestions if you guys have any. The only main plan is to add in an arbor.... which I'm still debating about that. I wanted a white one with a curved top and a bench. I was looking at the ones at Sam's... (vinyl Vienna Arbor) but dont' know if it warrants a membership just to buy an arbor. :) Though I thought it might be nice to add in some annuals to get a little more color this year while other things are growing in? My mom is sending me some more irises (purple ones). On that left-left side area... and maybe on the extreme right, I'd love to have some more significant patches of irises. I know they'll multiply after a while, but I'd love to have some more of them now (and I can always give some away to friends later when they multiply). :) I'd also like to put in some more catmint, salvia and daisies... and I want to get some wild violets from my friend's yard. We have some hummingbirds around here, so that's why I'd love to get some more salvia, even if they aren't my favorite color (I don't really want too much hotpink or bright red, but I'll sacrifice for them. I was considering adding some more morea... but now I was thinking spuria iris instead (Renee suggested them). I read up a little bit about them online and it looks like they might do well in our area. We have really hot dry summers and I have clay, alkaline soil. I think the high spikey shape is pretty on the sides and backs to contrast with the roses and other things. Here is a link that might be useful: Sam's Vienna Arbor

Here are a couple more from this morning: Twilight Zone again, I like it's fragrance too. This is a pink rose that the builders put in. I have no idea what it is. When we moved in last summer it was a leggy mess, full of dead wood and black spot. I cut it way back during the winter and it's full of blooms now and much happier. Since we don't know what it is I asked my 7 year old what we should name it during one of our morning garden walks and he decided to call it "Delany" after his preschool "wife". Now every morning he has to go and 'kiss Delany'. That kid cracks me up.