In my younger days i was starting a new azalea bed and old friend of mine who had an old friend who owned a nursery for many years suggested to find an establised azalea planting and take a little soil for it to add to the new bed.As i have said before when i grew orchids at repotting time i add a little bit of the old potting mix to seed the new mix at the advice of a lot of experts that read.In my opinon i belive that seeding the soil with Fungus or bacteria that help break down dead and rotting material is very use.Today they have natural bottled microbes to help in the process of making decaying material in to food the plants can absorb.So inhancing the growth of certain bacteria i.e nitrifying bacteria ia belive is a good thing.However confirming the effacy of a product is somthing left to scientist. Joe

Sharky, Suz, Chriss, Both “Joshua Bradley” a HT yb, 1998 and “Phoenix” a HT dp, 1973 are in the 2004 AEN, giving then an official ARS “AEN”. Both roses are still in commerce in North America and should be listed in the 2004 handbook. Both roses are sold at Armstrong’s 35 Garden Centers in Southern California, shipping bare root roses from mid-January through April throughout United States. (Per. CRL) Both roses have appeared in Roses In Review (RIR) surveys. Phoenix ended up with a National Garden Rating of 6.9. Joshua Bradley appeared in the 1998 surrey, ending up in the 1999 handbook with a “t” symbol as it did in the 2002 handbook. “A “t” symbol indicates the rose is new and is being tested by rose gardeners under the ARS (RIR) program. A rating has not yet been established; your feedback on this rose through (RIR) is welcome”. How can Joshua Bradley be evaluated, if it has never appeared in any later (RIR) evaluation programs since the 2001 surrey? The primary purpose of the handbook is to focus on roses still in commerce in North America, with an established rating derived from the (RIR) program. That a new rose grower can use, to find a good or average rated rose for his garden. “The handbook states it contains information on more than 3000 roses witch are in commerce in North America have been included, not only the National Garden performance ratings etc.” Yet in the 2003 handbook 1189 roses are without a National Garden rating, based on 3000 roses that is 40 % with out a rating. In 2004, the number was 1108, or 37 %, and in 2005, 1271 or 42 %. It seems like roses with out a rating are on the rise, in the 1968 handbook ARS listed 1000+ roses, and the figure for rated roses was less than 1%. Of the 300 roses deleted from the 2005 handbook, 189 are still in commerce with 64 having a National Garden rating. Some were less than two years old, replaced with many OGR, and other older roses. Like Mme Laurette 1887; Mme De Parabere 1874; Mme Driout 1902; Mme Berkely 1890; Narrow Waters 1883; Orphein De Juillet Being the presenter for ARS’s Rose Day America at Lowe’s this Saturday, thought it would be helpful to new rosarians select their roses, by supplying them with National Garden rating of roes they intend to purchase. Many of the J & P roses did not have ratings or were listed in the handbook. Researching my files did manage to come up with ratings from past RIR surveys on the majority of them. Chris inquired as to how and the mechanisms of roses that remain in the handbooksworks? This could also be a question asked of the Combined Rose List (CRL). Using only the years 2003; 2004; and 2005, during these years there has been many 1000,s and 1000,s of new roses hybridized, introduced etc, into the market from all over the world. Common sense would indicate with all these new roses introductions, the size of the Handbook or (CRL) increase in size. Yet running the numbers for both publications, in 2003 the (CRL) contained 13,909 roses on 256 pages; 2004, 14,282 on 260 pages; 2005, 14,527, a total of 8 new pages. One reason as previous stated in another article, was every 3 to 4 years roses are removed, such as roses no longer in commerce and some “Found” roses, replaced with new roses. This allows the (CRL) to publish at a reasonable price, and yet contain all roses in commerce serving its primary purpose. The handbook has a similar problem, keeping the publication confined to a limited number of pages, making it feasible to publish. The 2003; 2004; and 2005, publication each has 96 pages, containing 3000+ roses. Even though many new roses in North America had been introduced, they were not included. The handbook is under no restriction, and has the option to publish what it wants; this is why it can deletes roses still in commerce in NA, with good garden ratings. Or list any roses name it so desires. ARS stated it had removed “Found” roses from the 2004 AEN, claiming additional space with out increasing its size. On ARS part this was a very smart move. ARS does have an obligation to publish all roses with an AEN, in commerce or not in commerce. A reason ARS still lists the handbook as a publication listing roses with an AEN, along with the (CRL) as having roses with a temporary AEN until published in an ARS publication. Using three publications to list roses having an AEN, each serving a different primary purpose can become a source of future problems. Ron S

Absolutely lovely, John - that's what teas SHOULD look like. As Buford said, for those of us that zone push and grow teas anyway, they'll never look like that. The best I've been able to do in zone 5 (wildly out of traditional tea territory) is pictured below, and that was after a mild 2012-3 winter. All of the teas Virginia listed except Lady Hillingdon are in this picture - 'Mrs B R Cant', 'Maman Cochet', 'Mme Antoine Mari' and 'Duchesse de Brabant', as well as Georgetown Tea - but they're mostly not the most showy rose pictured. Mme. Antoine Mari is probably the best in this shot, the light pink to the left of the narrow leaf walkway to the right. In my zone, teas can get dwafed by floribundas and HTs. I've recently planted Monsieur Tillier, Lady Hillingdon, and Rainbow in the tea bed and we'll see how they do. Christopher's comment that the teas really need the summer heat may explain why I can get away with some zone pushing here, as well as babying the whole area of this bed with full leaf bags propped around and among the roses to cut the wind and add an extra zone's protection from winter. We get 90's and 100's throughout much of July and August, and the teas tend to like that. They do die to the ground like a majority of the rest of my roses, but they mostly recover and bloom in the summer on new growth. Of course, Brandon's information is the most useful for your question, and it sounds like it may be worth trying teas in your region. They may not be as large or full of bloom as in places like California, but I still love them. Cynthia

Exactly bart bart. I used the term rambler when addressing the suggestion that Amadeus might need a support structure to not sprawl over the path. It was suggested to direct the rose growth over to a pergola located on the next path. Seeing as that structure is well over 10 feet away from newly planted Amadeus, the only type of rose that would grow such long canes is a rambler type. Which is why I said Amadeus isn't a rambler, and I am trying to grow it as a shrub of hopefully five-ish feet or so. Again, for me growing roses in pots isn't successful. They don't like it. As to them simply needing lots of plant food to succeed, I would suggest climate would also play into the situation. Here we have temperature fluctuations, going from well below freezing in winter, to extremely hot in summer, and yoyoing back and forth during the growing season. Rose roots in general perfer to be cool. They don't get that in pots. My style of gardening is to mimic nature in that I try to grow plants as naturally as possible. Supplemental watering is necessary during our hot, dry season, especially with the fast draining soil in my garden. However I use no chemicals at all. This does include synthetic plant food. However I will bend the no chemical plant food rule for the roses, occasionally. Certainly no other plant growing in my garden ever gets plant food added to the soil. They all grow well as is shown by the enormous weed pile accumulated this year. I will also state as shown above, most of my roses, and I grow over 100 plants, are doing very well. Therefore when one declines as Thomas Becket has, I want to know why. Hence this thread.