Today I recieved my rose order from ValleyK Greenhouses. They pack their roses so much better than Cedar Hollow. Each rose was wrapped in cardboard and they sent 10 roses in 3 boxes so they were easier to handle. They are bigger than the ones that I recieved from them last year with the exception of 2 Marie Bugnet which are quite small. I had a broken rose in this shipment too, but it only broke off half way. There is still leaves left on this rose.That is the only damage from shipping that I can see on this bunch. They look much nicer than my Cedar Hollow roses which are stripped of so many leaves. But one the plus side, most of the roses from Cedar Hollow are srouting out new leaves. I also recived my plants from Dominion House today. I had ordered a bareroot Kaleidoscope. The stem is huge!!! It is starting to send out leaves as well. I ordered some lilacs, clematis, lilies and perennials from them as well. The lilacs and clematis are fine, the lilies are a bit shrivelled, and the perennials are sick. I'm sure some are dead. Honestly, I don't know if I would order perennials from them again. Roses, I would though. I think that they were in the boxes for quite a while, there is lots of white growth. I moved a 5 yr old JP Connell the other day in the rain. It should have been moved sooner because it had flower buds on already. It is really sulking. Oh well, If it doesn't make it, they are easy enough to find to replace. I have quite a few of my older roses with flower buds on. It won't be long before the roses start to bloom!!!! Shelley

Joey: Very good questions. Here are what I learn about own-root roses: 1) Where they are bred and the TYPE OF SOIL & weather predicts where they will be successful. Roses bred in acidic & rainy & less sun England will be successful in acidic & high rain East coast. But roses bred in alkaline & hot & sunny Southern France will be successful in alkaline clay & sunny garden. 2) How vigorous the root is? The newly bred roses ARE VERY VIGOROUS as own-roots, and can survive BOTH Pakistan 113 F hot summer and my zone 5a winter of -20 below zero. Vigorous roots are both long (at least 2 feet deep) and spreading wide. Vigorous roots are also THICK to store water in dry summer/winter. Dee-lish can die to the crown, but the root is so deep that it can go for 1 month without watering, either through a cold & dry winter or hot summer. Dee-lish has a climber as a parent (Graham Thomas). If a rose is bred with a climber in its genetics, it will have deeper root. 3) It's the selection of the fittest. In breeding roses, there will be many seeds ... and only the fittest seed sprout up to be the most vigorous root or to be disease-resistant. The other dozen to 100 seeds either don't germinate, or sprout some wimpy plants that black-spot & less petals, or can only bloom once a year. This answer your question directly, breed roses in your cold zone and see which seed can sprout in extreme cold temp., and which seed has the deepest root to survive the winter. English roses, bred in a colder climate than France: most have climber-heritage or Old Garden Roses' genetics, and English roses are actually favored by hot climate folks in Pakistan due to the vigor of their roots. Deeper root = more weather resistant. I hang out in Facebook Fragrant Rose Lovers group, where most Pakistan posters are. English roses are favored in both extreme hot and extreme cold climate due to the toughness of their roots to survive long periods of drought.

Thanks again to everyone for your very nice and encouraging comments. Always makes me want to improve as a gardener! hoovb. If I have enabled Y O U to a rose, I guess that would make me a Rosarian ;-)! I have to admit you are one of my garden idols! Carol, for some reasons Iceberg roses simply love Southern California and all the rain that we had this year has just let them explode into the spring flush. Beth, I am glad that you like my photos. As for the scrub jays, I don't recall seeing them the first two years that we have been here, but this winter suddenly they showed up at the feeder. Masha, I am always happy if someone likes my "White Bed". I guess there are people, who think it is just plain boring or too monotone, but I like to experiment with the nuances of white and find it very exciting! Krista, thank you so much for your wonderful compliment, that is rather flattering! I didn't know that your Mme. Ernest Calvat is also so young. It might be interesting to compare how our roses are doing in the very different climates that we are gardening in. Serena, it is always nice to have bird guests in the garden, isn't it? You have a very eloquent way to use words "Even Lady Guadalupe shows sheer elegance the way you portrayed her", thanks for saying that! Florence, it gives me joy that you like my garden! Christina

Sheila, I think one of the major differences between my garden and the one at Wooster was that when my spring starts, it progresses rapidly into summer. (Last year a local friend bought twenty roses and planted them in mid April and they didn't grow very much. Reason: allow a week or two for the roses to grow out into 'real dirt' and THEN the rose puts on growth. Except last spring we barely had five weeks of optimum temperatures. It was either very wet and no sun or too darned hot. ) The crop farmers felt it as well. I would expect you are far enough north to have several months before 'summer warmth' hits like a sledge hammer. The moss roses up in Ohio had huge bouquets of mixtures of buds and blooms and not all maturing at once. When one had three blooms, you could see several spent blooms, and about twelve more buds in different stages of maturity. My growing conditions don't make for a long spring and early summer bloom for once blooming OGRs. It just doesn't happen. Heat and sunlight happen and I learned that if I don't / didn't photograph them at the start of their bloom,. the next week the bloom would be over. In your part of the world, rose buds don't mature too fast, they get large. And the blooms get large as well. In Maine we saw a rose (once bloomer) and the bloom was five inches across. (The tight petaled white one with the distinctive green pip at the center.) I grew that rose and had never had a bloom more than three inches wide and my petals never reached the size of theirs). I do look forward to hearing about your mosses, I'd expect by year two, they will be magnificent. Ann