I consider this a not-to-miss event. I've gotten many roses through this auction at some great prices, including an out of production Sun Goddess for $5.00 one year and several tea roses (not hybrid teas) which aren't available in local nurseries. One year I had some 18 roses and my bill came to about $100.00.... While the catalog information is very good and the auction is accompanied by a Power Point presentation, it's a good idea to pack your current Handbook for Selecting Roses along with any lists of roses you've been considering for awhile. Trust me, many of those 18 roses were impulse buys, lol.

Local nurseries try their hardest to stock what the rosarians want. Jude the Obscure was offered by Bakers Nursery, 40th Street & Osborn, last year. They usually stock some 7000 roses each December. Berridge Nurseries, 46th Street and Camelback, also stocks several thousand roses in December with sporadic shipments through the year. Harpers on Scottsdale Road (south of Thomas), Summer Winds on Tatum & Bell and A&P Nurseries in Mesa all stock roses most of the year. The West Valley has a Summer Winds on Bell Road and Star Nursery on Thunderbird. I understand that Sunset Nursery on 59th Avenue is still open although I haven't been in there for years. Up until a few years ago, nearly 70% of all roses sold were grown out west of Phoenix. Jackson & Perkins had fields out there before they moved them to CA. There are still hundreds of acres of roses near Litchfield Park but development is encroaching at an ever rapid rate. The nurseries place their orders in September and should know if they'll be getting certain roses. Star, Weeks and J&P are the usual vendors so there isn't a lot to choose from in Austin, mini or OGR offerings. I get most of my Austins from Bakers or batch an order with other rose society members or attend a rose society auction. The first rose show of the season is Nov 4 in Green Valley, south of Tucson. Nov 17 is the Mesa/East Valley Rose Show at Mesa Community College and the West Valley show is Nov 24 at the new Glendale Civic Center, 57th Ave & Glenn, during the Glendale Glitters opening weekend. All of them open to the public at 1pm.

Hi! Yes, that's what I figured. But, I have purchased some from CR (peat pots to be removed) on good 'ol Dr. Huey (ah, the memories from CA). They are already sprouting, amazingly. I use only organic goodies (planted with a mix of blood, bone, a tiny bit of alfalfa meal so as not to burn), plus I put micorrhizae tablets in the soil for all my plants, rose or otherwise. So, we shall see. Digging those holes here was MURRRRDERRR. lol :) I got: Julia Child, Rainbow Sorbet, Cinco De Mayo, Easy Does it, Just Dreamy, Strike It Rich, and Tahitian Sunset. What do you think of these? I had 94 plants in CA, but none of these. I will definitely check out K&M and do my darndest to visit you at the Mesa rose sale. Thank you!! Liebling

I still think these Fortuniana rootstock roses should do great for you. Just don't feed them anything after Labor Day. Water heavily during September and stop watering when October rolls around. If you get a basil break during the fall, enjoy the blooms and when you get your 1st freeze, cut it off a the base. It will freeze and die anyway and could cause more problems when it dies into the graft. I have been growing roses on fortuniana since leaving Fl. and moving into the N.E GA. MTS. in the fall of 08. I grow 72 roses that are grafted onto an understock. 60 of those are grafted onto fortuniana. of those 60, 9 have been in the ground since day one. That's 8 winters with 3 of them VERY harsh. The only roses I've lost were to winter tender varieties that froze to the graft and never came back. For now on any new roses that come into my garden must be winter hardy to zone #6. I still grow two varieties that are very "iffy" in my garden zone (Moonstone and Marlon's Day). If I loose any of them to winter, I will be replacing them with winter hardy varieties, on fortuniana. Sara, if you are able, plant you're fortuniana bush's on the South and East side of your home with the graft at ground level. Scepter'd Isle on fortuniana this past spring. It was planted in Sept. 08