Thanks, Tammy! dsd, love your patio pot garden! That's sort of what I was trying to do with mine, decorate the edges of the patio, but yours is much prettier! I think my oldest potted one is Folklore at 7 years. You do have to occasionally root prune them and repot them. For me I can go a round 4 or 5 years before I have to do that but for you, with your much longer growing season, that may be only 2 or 3 years. It's usually pretty easy to tell when they need to be repotted. When you water them the water will immediately start running out the bottom of the pot because there's little soil left to hold it. I pull the root ball out of the pot, cut it back by about half and then repot with fresh soil...or find a bigger pot, lol! I'm always hunting for pots and pick them up when ever I come across a good deal and just stash them until needed. End of season sales at places like Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes or Big Lots are good places to get them cheap. Also check your local hardware stores. I've gotten some good deals at Costco too. I start out the spring with a slow release granular fertilizer scratched in. Then at least once a month with some liquid spray or drench fertilizer and organics, like fish emulsion. Watering depends a lot on the weather but I have a moisture meter and I use it! It help save me a ton of money on my watering bill because before I just watered about every third day because I didn't know if they really needed it or not. A 3 gallon pot is pretty small and a full size rose will out grow it in a season. A mini might last a few of years. A lot depends on the rose itself and how vigorous it is. Most of my pots are at least 15 gallons and I have a collection of 20/25 gallon ones for those permanently potted HTs.. For years I used Lowes Stay Green potting soil because it was the cheapest. I recently switched over to the Miracle Grow Moisture Control because we found it at a great price at Costco. As long as it's a good quality potting soil it doesn't matter which brand but I do try to stay away from the ones with fertilizer in them. I want to have control of when and what they get. I hope I got all your questions, lol! Yes, displaced, one of my beds is along the street and people regularly help them selves to blooms. I don't mind usually but when they do it the day before my rose shows I freak out! I've put signs up telling people to ask and I'd be happy to cut some for them but it did no good so now I pot the show roses. Frenchcuffs, yes and no. Usually it's whatever ones give me a decent bloom to cut show week, lol! I'm still working on my HT collection and haven't done very well with those. But I have won mini queen a couple of times, once with Robin Alonso and once with Snow Ruby so I'd say those were my favorites! My show Is Saturday and SR has a very promising bud coming!

I love seeing you all having fun trading! Carrie, you and I have a very similar wish list! I don't have anything rooted to share right now, but if you would like some cuttings, I am happy to mail them to you after the Valentines Day Pruning Frenzy at my place. (I think I am now up to about 300 roses here, cannot keep count. It's going to be one tough weekend of pruning in mid February here!) If you are interested in cuttings, email me your mailing address, and I can send you some cuttings of Baronne Henriette de Snoy, Monsieur Tillier, Mrs. B R Cant, and Marie Legonde. No charge for postage, my dear, they won't weigh very much and I really love spreading the wealth of roses! Allison

I think the space screams for artwork. I loved the hanging pots posted above, but Funkels' space has a lot of activity in the area already, with the cookbooks below and wine rack to the side. That's why I would shy away from a chalkboard or bulletin board. I think something copper would be gorgeous with the granite! I have a metal sculpture from this artist, and I've seen a lot of his work. Here's mine: He used to have a lot more examples on the web site, including the most beautiful stair rail I've ever seen. Here is a link that might be useful: Forest Edge Gallery

In Florida I would never have a rose in the front yard because I'm only interested in scented tea ones and I don't use chemicals on mine so you do the math, they look horrible almost always. Aside from Belinda's Dream or a drift or knockout (of which sunny actually looks nice t me) I would expect them to look ratty in our hot+humid climate. If it were me planting something in a pot I would probably plant Senna didymobotrya (I have seen them in person and they really do smell like buttered popcorn! not suitable around children though because it is poisonous and the smell might entice people to nibble it) but I don't think this suits your style lol or Salvia greggii, a Texas sage species that has nice smelling leaves and comes in a variety of colors. They rot in-ground here but the ones in containers do well. I have 'Rose Pink' and I love its fresh almost spring green color and late March through autumn sporadic bloom period. For you I think if the area is partial sun to partial shade a grafted Gardenia (can you tree train them?) or maybe Plumeria (bring indoors in winter) would be cool.