Diane already answered your question 5, I just second her. It is much better to start with quality roses and with nurseries that don't sell virused plants. Red rose that easy to grow and fragrant? Well, it is a tall order. Somebody a few years back from Maryland said that Erotika had been trouble free and fragrant for her. But Erotika is a rose that it is not easy to find. I ordered it from Hortico but I would not recommend this nursery to you based on my experience. Maybe Appalachian rose nursery has it and if they do that is a very respectable nursery. Chrysler Imperial is supposedly easy to grow and very fragrant but I don't know about its disease problems in MD - Olga would be needed here, who is the MD rose expert both in modern and antique roses. Check out Chamblee's nursery for other roses except for the smelly red - you will get very well priced plants. The best 1 gallon own roots I got came from them for years. They have a lot of Buck roses, that would be great for a novice gardener. I would recommend Quieteness without any hesitation, Prairie Star, Prairie Harvest, Rural Rhythm, Wanderin' wind, and Winter Sunset are also excellent roses - easy to grow and all have fragrance. I think it is too late for planting bareroots, otherwise I would recommend to check out Pickering nurseries. But for the future that's what I recommend - early on! late August or September start studying their online catalog - they offer 900+ roses on a rootstock that is far better for the east cost than any grafted rose that you can find in a chain store or even a top-notch and expensive local nursery. This advise does not apply to those roses that are own root (Both J&P and supposedly Weeks offer own root roses recently).

lucille, unfortunately, the 2012 revised manual has already come out. It would of been "nice" if a general announcement concerning a request for comments on a first draft had been distributed first. For example the manual says nothing about possible confusion with herbicide damage. Yet someone who appears to be a consulting rosarian made the following comment in an earlier thread: "I'm concerned about this slide show. Its liable to send newbys into a panic and cause them to rip out perfectly good roses as soon as they show signs of new growth. Many roses will normally have reddish new growth. Emphasis should be made that reddish new growth is diagnostic only if it is not normal for that variety of rose. Many roses will have very vigorous new growth that is very thorny compared to the older canes. Many roses throw excessivly vigorous basil canes that look very different than exsisting canes. Experienced rosarians know what is normal for a rose and abnormal growth stands out like a sore thumb. The same cannot be said for those who are less experienced. Any talk about rose rosette disease should emphasize that anyone who is not sure if their roses have rose rosette disease should contact a local consulting rosarian through their local rose society for a diagnosis before panicing and ripping out roses. Thats what consulting rosarians are there for. Round up damage will affect new growth and if the rose normally has reddish new growth, the roundup damaged new growth will be red too." --------------------------------- H.Kuska additional comment: If an electronic first draft had been distributed to at least the consulting rosarian member list, this person could of alterted the committee to this point (which I also feel is very important). Here is a link that might be useful: herbicide comment

Once I figured out the hard way that many rose (and also plant) catalogues were not reliable, I started using a few strategies: 1) Look at the LOCATION of the nursery - I enjoy looking a pictures of plants and roses in all catalogues, but I never order any plant from a catalogue way outside of my climate zone. They can be totally honest and accurate for where they are, and still useless to me re descriptions, etc. 2) The smaller, and more local the nursery, the more usefull, usually. 3) Tried & True: good experience with nurseries of course make me feel more comfortable ordering from them. 4) NEVER rely on statements re the size a rose will grow to, unless the nursery is very local to your garden. Can be off by amazing amounts, including whether or not it is a climber! 5) No matter what the catalogue says, I always look up the rose on HMF and Vintage Gardens web site (which is very local to me and contains tons of info which I have found very reliable in the past). 6) (Of course) - ask about the rose on this forum, and you will hopefully get some responses from your geographic area. 7) If you are lucky enough to have an heirloom rose garden near you, you might be able to see the actual rose growing in your local conditions - this takes more effort, but is the best way of all to see if you like it. Of course, very very local micro climates can still mean it would grow a bit differently. Check out private gardens in your neighborhood - you never know what you will find! Jackie

Thank you to everyone in answering my questions. Since our planting season here in Florida begins February 15th for Spring planting I have to make some decisions on my soil mixture now. I read though about 30 pages of old SFG forum threads going back to 2005. I also have some thoughts after reading many of the postings. This is only my opinion based on past experiences with soiless mixtures and from what I gleamed from the postings. I believe that to have very good to excellent success with Mel's mixtures, whether you use his old formula or the new, you need to be using your own ripe compost. Nothing in a bag is going to match the richness of home-grown compost. I believe that is why some of the new people to the SFG method have lukewarm results. Here in Florida, to grow roses, our local rose society chapter recommended excavating a hole 18"x18" and filling it with a soiless mixture very much like Mel's original soil recipe. We used several organic amendments including the fine pine bark mixed with peat and compost. So, my plan is to mix my rose soil recipe for my new 4x4 foot bed and do a PH test on the finish mixture. I will have no homegrown compost in this bed, but I plan to grow mostly herbs this first season. My second bed is 4x8 and 10 1/2" deep. For this bed, I am going to use Mel's new soil proportions and use a bag of soil conditioner pine bark along with bagged manures and my own leaf compost which is a year old and totally broken down. I plan to also incorporate greensand, soft rock phosphate & gypsum, all of which I already have on hand. Again I will do a ph test on the finish bed. This bed is going to be mostly beans,limas and green pole beans and one yellow squash. We have another growning season in the Fall for lettuce, spinach and many of the other veggies you'll grow in the Spring. My third bed, another 4x8 bed, will become a compost bed for the spring and summer. Our leaf gathering and raking is just now beginning here. I will hope to get a nice load of horse manure and mushroom compost to add to the oak leaves. I will also build my three compost bins for my side dressing next year. I plan to keep a journal of the results of these soil mixtures for future beds and will gladly past along the results. I will enjoy reading your postings as the growing year nears for all of you on this forum. I have learned more from reading thru the past threads than I did attending 4 hours of classroom time for organic vegetable gardening. Thank you everyone! Mary