Sunday, I spent some time researching roses on the list and selected a few. Not having much space left for roses, yesterday afternoon, I decided not to participate in the sale. Well, at 7:20, my emotions got the best of me, I decided what the h*ll, and ordered 5 or 6 roses anyway. If I receive any roses it was meant to be. With one exception, all of the roses are all on the smaller side in size. Whatever I receive, if I am lucky enough to get any of my selections, will reside in decorative pots, unless we move, and then it will be going with me to larger rose garden:) Lynn This post was edited by desertgarden561 on Tue, Apr 29, 14 at 18:25

Pink Pearl is now in the ground as of 6/8/19 and has been blooming a second flush for a full month already. She added at least three new basals and filled out more once planted in the ground. The foliage remains perfect and is held more horizontally than the drapey foliage she grew in the pot. She is even more gorgeous than I had any hope of her being. Above was the early bloom starting a month ago. The higher photos are a month later and she is still going. Thank you, Melody for this rose treasure.

Susan, I do remember that event! I had forgotten you were there. Let me see, Cindi from Texas, Rosebud (Steve) from Georgia, Susan from Northern California, and I'm not sure who else. Were Luanne and Carol Markell there that time? There were close to a dozen of us. It was the first but definitely not the last time that I met Gardenweb rose people in person. In fact if I am not mistaken it was the first time GW rose people got together in the Real World, something that happens a lot these days, or did before the pandemic. The event was centered on the ARS rose show in San Jose, and it was a good while ago. Maybe 1996? Thank you for bringing back that happy memory. I had such a good time. Also, am I remembering correctly that you had a problem with oak root fungus and your roses? I lost a Rosette Delizy to a root rot disease a few years ago, and I thought of you when it happened. Fortunately I haven't seen it happen to any other roses. Cutting back on the watering turns out to be good for something.

The Vintage Gardens newsletter gets better every time I see it! Well worth reading, always. I have one copy of their old catalogue, which I treasure and consult more often than other books - the "growth habit" info for all types of roses is especially valuable. Melissa - your comments about your DH modifying the pergola "according to his own, eccentric ideas" made me laugh! Here in our garden we are still re-planting old roses we had to take off the house into our new deer fenced garden because of fire hazard. Right behind that garden is a very old pergola, with Fortune's Double Yellow on it. Next to that was a 60 ft tall "volunteer" privet tree. It was providing shade for an ancient (inherited from the ancestors) rhododendron. Well, the tree was also, I discovered, providing way too much shade for my new garden. So, last month we had the tree shortened to about 35 feet, which removed the huge bushy part at the top. It will grow back, I am sure, because privets grow like weeds around here, and are impossible to kill - I have tried. Anyway, we also just re-planted Belle Portugaise behind the new garden, between the old pergola and a new one we just installed nearby, so it can climb on both of them. However, now the old rhododendron is getting very unhappy, as it has lost most of its shade from the tree. On the other hand, the Fortune's Double Yellow has put out 5 new basal sprouts (it was previously a one cane wonder, so I am very glad about that), each now over 3 feet tall and still going up like elevators. I has also sprouted new growth all over itself. The point of this too long story is that yesterday I noticed my DH busily building things, and erecting something in that area. I went to look, and what he was doing was extending the old pergola FDY is growing on towards the trunk of the privet tree, and out towards the new pergola we just installed, so that the now exploding FDY can continue to extend its empire at the same level, and also provide some shade for the rhododendron. I actually think that will work out, although the only reason I noticed what he was doing was because he was using noisy tools to create ornamental caps for the new corners of the extension of the pergola. Jackie