When it comes to freaks my favorite is Imperatrice Fara. It starts off a whitish green and tans red in the parts exposed to sunlight. Every rose is different. They also last supper long so some are green others are both some are much more red. It is a strange and beautiful rose. No sent but special none the less. I have nothing else like it. It lasts longer than any other rose I have. Rosa Here is a link that might be useful:

Yes, those two pictures are of roses with Rose Rosette Disease (now Rose Rosette Virus). I can count at least eight symptoms on the first (linked) photo. I'm not sure what causes the pebbly texture of some of the affected leaves...but the leaf margins don't match the margins on healthy leaves, and on and on... What people should take a look at on the first photo is that so many of the buds are missing receptacles- they are missing the hip part that should enclose the ovules that might become seeds. I have seen this five or six times and it IS distinctive. Also the spacing between the leaves is totally wrong on the second photo. Does that side of your house get hit by wind a lot during fall? That would explain the mites dropping there onto the roses. You will need to look upwind and try to find the sick roses that are the sources of your roses infections.

You raise an interesting question. Years ago I knew a man who ALWAYS planted pairs in every spot...two trees, two daylilies, whatever. His reasoning was that they could coexist until one showed clear superiority, and then if he needed to he would take out the weaker one. Worked for him, but it made me scratch my head. In really good soil I sometimes plant more than one...like three shrub roses in a hole the size of a bathtub, to form a large mass fairly quickly. Today at the base of an arbor I am planting a Parade and a Thomas Affleck in the same large hole, hoping that the Affleck will cover the Parade's exposed legs. (The flowers are almost exactly the same color.) On the other side I am planting a Crepuscule and a daylily of the same light yellow. That's about as wild and crazy I as I ever get in the garden. (It's okay to laugh.) Laura

Hi Rebecca Glad you had a better experience with your returns from J&P with their error. I totally sympathize with you about too much hassle to arrange a return with the other company, and I'm rather of that opinion about the two roses that arrived dead. You're entirely right that you can get better responses when you can talk to a real human being on the phone, but most of my rose purchasing and other rose activity tends to happen in the evenings like this when companies aren't available to talk. I remember playing tag calling one company over a period of a few weeks to get them my new credit card information - totally my goofy daytime work schedule of course, they were lovely to work with. As for the 300 roses, if you figure 20% losses immediately over a winter, plus another 10% inexplicable established rose fading or dying in addition, it turns out to be more or less replacement rose numbers when you're upwards of 900 roses as I seem to be. Depending on rose survival, I might top 1000 for the first time ever this year but not if I get average deaths. Frankly, planting band or gallon roses (most of my purchases) aren't any harder to plant than any other perennial in terms of effort. The main challenge is figuring out exactly where I want to put them, then mixing in the alfalfa and soil conditioner to the regular soil to plant them (I have pretty good soil to start with, so I can dig a rose hole even 2' deep in a few shovelfuls). At around 15 minutes a rose, I can plant 30 roses on an average weekend day without too much strain, though bareroots take more work and deeper planting. I can start on those more gradually in April though, and I have more energy then. I really do consider myself a lazy gardener, since I don't spray or fuss over them much, and in our zones the roses don't get all that big in general so I can get away with crowding them a bit and indulging myself. The folks who have to use a pickax to dig a rose hole are the ones to really admire. Two or three of those, and I think I'd be done for the season. Cynthia