Actually DD roots quite easily for me. A my old house I had a hedge of DD planted along the sidewalk in my front yard. It never failed to stop passersby who smelled their wonderful fragrance. All but a few were rooted cuttings. It took a couple of years for them to become full size but once they did, they performed as well or better than graftted. All were removed and brought here and are growing well supplying me with the blooms I give to all the women, old and young, who visit. I have at least 12 bushes and all are own root and hardy. Although they dieback to the ground each winter, by late May they are blooming fools. DD remains my favorite rose!

Well, that is an ENGLISH garden I think, we are not in England, and spring is will nigh gone, so I guess we can darn well grow what we please and be prepared to face the consequences. I don't necessarily recommend Asian or Longiforum lilies with roses, just wanted some so badly and have them in a spot by themselves toward the back. I liked the daylilies idea, but am weary of yellow Stella, and their bloom time is short but the foliage stays pretty neat and tidy. In one picture I saved of Jon's friend who also had a Mottisfont-inspired garden in ENGLAND, it was charming, brick wall in the bg, lots of pink fairy-like roses that almost twinkled, and the only other plant I recall was eremus which was marvelous. Maybe he didn't read the book? Another thing I liked about that garden was that there were areas of room between the plants, not all crammed together. It had a light, airy, pleasing look and your eyes drifted from one attraction to another and not have the whole thing jump in your face. That guy on the island off the coast of Italy really has a handle on landscape design. Whether you get the formal training or not, it seems like somewhat of a gift to me, how he worked things in with the roses the main attraction. I like iris with roses if I could get some to grow like in the pics people posted. You should have pitched the book across the room, that is funny!

Sara-ann, I hope you don't mind my insertion of another photo. This rose was awful to capture its neon-like deep pink. This was as close as I could come and it's still not spot on. Picture the open flower as deep as the darkest petal on the top bud. Then add neon. Like rosecanadian's mine did not have exceptional vase life. Wicked thorns as I remember.

SoFlo rose I'm the last person on this earth to destroy a rose bush!!even one!! That's why I still have ALL my roses and bc so, my new roses are getting downy ( even with spray!!) I've been battling downy for over 9 months now. Months ago when I found out for sure its downy, I went through all 200 bushes. I cut back the diseased canes, stripped off every leaf, then sprayed with alliette! At first, they looked nice with clean growth but within a couple weeks the downy returned. I have to say the signs of the disease varies greatly between cultivars. On some bushes it's so so similar to black spot. On others, it looks like I splashed purple/black ink on my roses. I understand the grief of a lost rose bush! Im telling you from my own personal experience, Downy is devastating & weakens the entire bush rather quickly!! Spray helps but doesn't rid of it and EVERYTIME the weather favors it, the downy will show again and your roses will decline rapidly and spread to the rest even faster!!!! I ENCOURAGE ANYONE TO RID OF A BUSH IF THEY SUSPECT DOWNY!! I'm in the process of fighting it and I'm not winning !! my bushes started with leaves being infected then to the flowers and now the canes!! On a majority of my bushes the canes are getting bad and these bushes most likely have to go Downy isn't curable, just bc it appears when the humidity n temp. favor the disease doesn't mean it's easy to wait it out. It stays dormant in the bush. When the environment no longer favors the disease, my bushes are so weak n scraggly, I can't tell it's stopped spreading. I have some friends from Tampa rose society that say if there's one or a couple infected bushes for the sake of others who grow roses nearby and for my other bushes, it's best to burn the bush so it doesn't spread. Even tho it requires standing water for four hours to germinate it's a quick, fast spreading disease trust me!! I pray none of you have to deal with it!! I wish when I thought I was seeing downy on a couple roses that I had someone to clarify that's what it was and a chance to rid of those bushes right then !! it would've saved me so many roses and so much heartache !! However! I was extremely hopeful and knew I could take this challenge head on, possibly beat this disease and save my bushes but that doesn't seem to be the case!! I told myself I wouldn't get rid of even one!! I could strip n spray and fix it until the weather passes but it's not that simple. It eventually became worse. You can only strip the leaves so many times and the bush weakens drastically. I'm looking for the brooksville rose society to join n hopefully find ANYONE who has had to battle downy so I can figure out how to rid of this evil!! If I have to throw out all bushes and rake the Entire 3acres 50 X's for infected leaves & wait a few months until it's clear to bring in new roses.. Then so be it!! I'm tired of the battle ! Dan 8gw if u have any questions about downy, feel free to email me anytime!! Rachelcross31@icloud.com I'm not an expert but I can share my experience. If I were u, I would check your roses on a daily basis now for a week or so to make sure there's been no further spread and since u sprayed, I would go as far as spraying again 5 days apart for a total of 4 applications to make sure the disease will not have a bit of chance spreading in your rose garden!! It seems like a bit much but if u end up with a downy outbreak, it's devastating and the work to keep it under wraps is even more demanding, that's the hardest part!! Downy is pretty common in Cali . Those are spray recommendations I got off of (ARS??) site. I believe it was American rose society but could've been a different rose society?? Anyways, Good Luck!!!