The closer ones' garden is to a large body of water, in the East Bay the more the conditions favor powdery mildew. I suggest you avoid these 3 roses, they defoliated from in my garden from p.m.. -Ducher, Duchess de Brabant. "Le Pactole". and Luanne gave away "Alliance Franco-Russe" for all the powdery mildew it was covered with. Healthy roses for growing in the S.F. East Bay (west of the Caldicott where conditions favor p.m. and b.s. in warmer weeks of the year, include: "Anna Olivier" a fragrant apricot blend with pink hues. Tea is my favorite rose class and this is on my fave top 12 list. A mature plant is only c. 5 miles from the coastline and never gets sprayed and its healthy with gorgeous apricot-pink, fragrant roses. These are healthy in our organic rose garden with only Cornell. "Westside Road Cream Tea" far superior in disease resistance than "Ducher" where conditions favor P.M Etoille de Lyon Mutabilis will get p.m. but not enough to defoliate or reduce bloom production. These Pernetiana roses do well with only Cornell. Gruss an Coberg, Mari Dot, Soleil d'Or" In general I suggest you mostly chose roses with 5 -35 petals, because they will open in our cooler summers, if you have a warm sunny spot in your garden than perhaps up to 40 petals. I suggest you avoid roses such as and including "Souvenir de la Malmaison, they won't open and you'll be disapointed. "Sombreuil" the Bourbon-Tea does open and is healthy. Noisettes: Nastarana" avoid unless you care to spray it every other month. Blush Noisette" healthy but I think there are prettier roses in this class including La Nymph and Catos' Cluster which has very beautiful foliage, soft and abundant. Champneys Pink Cluster" healthy and has started blooming in March! thats a bit early for this class. "Lamarque" very healthy. "Reve d'Or" locally quite a bit more resistant to disease than "Mme. Alfred Carriere, though the later catches up (almost) eventually, as a mature plant. Crepescule" gets more p.m. (and a bit of blackspot) as Reve d'Or, though Crepescule can be grown no spray here as well, Hybrid Musk roses grow well here, I've grown 14 different H.M.s and never had problems with any. H.P.s: Mrs. John Laing, also you might ask Luanne to post here, as well, as she lives in Richmond, near the Bay. She is a heck of a nice lady and grows beautiful roses including many Austins and some H.T.s. Luxrosa

Dave, Glad they grew for you, hope you get something nice. I know the parent plants were leafing out when I left, so I am sure they have bloomed by now, and I had the James Mason growing on the fence right behind then...that one was wonderful last year, so I am sure it will be even better this year. Anita, I will have to try to find the post and see if I can make it, if I can you know I will. Mike, now yours is a most interesting post...I lived in Akron for 7 years before moving to PA, and before that I spent 18 years in North Ridgeville, and that is where I am back to now. I am off Stoney Ridge, in the Meadow Lakes developments, I remember this whole area as fields! I am staying with my sister now, but will be getting a place eventually, just need to wrap up some things. Send me an E-mail, let me know where you lived, and even better yet, if we might know each other. By the time frame, I am thinking you might be a bit younger, but maybe not. Gerry

Ok.. wow. I just looked them up a bit more and I have to say I have NEVER seen anything like this. They seem to be quite happy where they are so maybe I'll experiment next year too! One thread said that everything is edible. Do you have to cook the stalks or do you just chop them thin?

If you have a lot of green stems, I wouldn't prune anything below about knee high. As far as thrips go, they come from a long way from the garden. A drench wouldn't do much good and would harm all the good stuff in the soil. What I do to keep thrips at bay is when my buds start to show any color, I spray the roses with an insecticide every week for 3 weeks. This also kills all the good bugs that eat the bad bugs. So I also wash under under the foliage with a good shot from my garden hose (thumb over the end to create a good strong flow) to wash away any bad bugs at least once a week. This usually knocks down the thrips in the spring and I do the same thing in the fall to have clean blooms to finish out the rose season