Kim, I have truck loads of well composted oak leaves...lol I am just happy to know I can dump some on the roses! We have blueberries growing here too, top dressing with an acid mulch is going to be rather common. I hear coffee grounds work well. Because of the soil in this bed, I plan on doing a lot of digging. I have shovel dug and amended at least 1/4 acre in the past years, is does get easier! Even if I am getting older. Jeri, There are several roses in the Sac Catalog that I would love to have, hopefully next year they will have some interesting or similar roses and Mom will be up for the drive. I am hoping once she can see better, I can take her to Descanso and Huntington. I would love to sign up for the San Juan Bautista tour, but no idea how things will go so better not sign up for anything. Besides, I have a bunch of new garden books to read while sitting with mom in the yard. Rosefolly, It is an old house, I think it was the caretakers house to the large mansion that used to be next door. We think the house was built about 1890 in a sort of Queen Anne Cheap style, the mansion not so cheap. It might have been deep gray, white and pink trim as we found evidence of those colors. As a kid, the mansion had fallen in disrepair and was a giant hippy house. By the end of the 70's, hippies in SB was not a popular thing, and there was no effort to save the mansion from the bulldozers. Today, it would have been a precious historical building instead of a bunch of over watered non descript townhouses. Progress.

By all means, do plant them in your garden now. Make sure you water them in well. Since it is so warm there, I'd provide them with some afternoon shade for about a week. Place a lawn chair over them or buy some shade cloth and rig up some stakes to attach it to. Since it is so warm, keep an eye on the roses so they don't dry out during the next week or two--but don't drown them either. That can kill them as easily as too little water can. You have some beauties there. Good luck! Kate

I don't know how "wild" they are Misssherry, but I do know that they are single petal types and maybe my daughter isn't imagining things. I am so proud of her for getting involved now with butterfly gardening along with my granddaughter. They are trying ASTs right now like last year but the first two cats died this year. I tried to encourage them to keep trying. I get so excited when I see someone get involved like that. Especially family. We have been on the net almost every day now talking about it all and finding plants for the garden. Murray

I can explain in very simple terms. In England we say garden because a yard is made purely of concrete. Anyone who has ever built a house will tell you that concrete is measured by the yard when it's ordered. So, you see, a yard whether in the front or the back is a strip of concrete. A good example is "Scotland Yard" or at a school "play yard'. Do you hire a 'gardener" in the US? Doesn't he mow your lawn? You don't have to grow veggies to have a garden. JackieBrit