Only twelve? LOL! Even in Wasco, where they get the extremes at both ends, they've frequently had to burn the flowers and foliage off the roses with horticultural oil so they can be harvested.

We forget it's the Old European Garden Roses which go dormant with cold. Evergreen types, more infused with China and Tea genes go dormant with dry. Here in the South West, they should be sleeping in high summer when we push them with hose water. Winter in most of our areas suits them just fine!

I'm glad you have such a bounty from which to choose, Jackie. Enjoy! Kim

I was thinking about zone 9 today, as we have had temps in the mid 70's the last few days. Most of my roses are still blooming, too, (and yes, my salvias, and some of the camellias). I even mowed the yard yesterday in shorts!

I contemplated whether this would be the new 'norm' and how my gardening would change if I were in zone 9 vs. zone 8. I would actually miss the 'down time' winter provides. Oh, but the roses! Losing the down time just might be worth having those beautiful blooms year round. :) I bet your centerpiece was magnificent.

Here, I'm harvesting holly and berries and evergreen boughs and planting paperwhites for some indoor color. There buds still on the bushes are freezedried. Jackie, do you do pics? I'd love to see some of your blooms and your centerpiece.

I would have thought I would have no bloomers to report since for the last 3 nights we've been at or just below freezing, but surprisingly the roses don't seem to mind.
Anna Olivier
LeVesuve
Enchantress
SdlM
Mme Lombard
Lamarque
Parade
Clothilde Soupert
Sally Holmes
Mary Guthrie
Duquessa
Souv de Francois Gaulain
Hermosa
Mlle Franciska Kruger
Mme Abel Chatenay
Maman Cochet
Gen Schablikine
Lauren
Sweet Chariot
White Pet
Softee
LaSylphide
Mrs BR Cant
Arcadia LA Tea
Jeri Jennings
Polonaise
Duchesse d'Auerstadt
Blush Noisette
Princesse de Nassau
Rita Sammons
Nur Mahal
Reve d'Or
Faith Whittlesey
Archduke Charles
Crepuscule
Leonie Lamesch
Etoile de Mai

In bud:
Quietness
Gruss an Aachen
Pink Gruss an Aachen
Comtessa du Cayla
Alexander Hill Gray
Napoleon
White Maman Cochet
Mme Antoine Rebe
Duchesse de Brabant

Now some of these are just a few flowers and some are a good many. Just about all of them to some degree.

Sherry

Oh my gosh Sherry, that's unbelievable! I have to admit to twinges of jealousy. Here's my (much shorter) list:

Duchesse de Brabant
The Fawn
Sister Elizabeth
SdlM
Mutabilis
Kronprinzessin Viktoria von Preussen
Lavender Dream
Mme. Joseph Schwartz
Cottage Garden
Alexander Hill Gray
Aunt Margy's Rose
Reve d'Or
Mme. Dore
IHT
Souvenir de Germain de St. Pierre
Charles Darwin
Lavender Simplicity
Spice
Cels Multiflora
Burgundy Iceberg
Le Vesuve
Miss Atwood
Burbank
Mr. Bluebird
Single Cerise China
Lavender Mist
Mme. Charles
Betty Prior
Rosette Delizy
Westside Road Cream Tea
Romaggi Plot Bourbon

Actually more than I thought, but other than the teas and one or two others it's mostly just one or a few blooms per bush. Still, each one is precious at this time of the year.

Ingrid

Wow, you are all so lucky! For me lots of blooms won't open anymore because they were rained on, then frozen overnight:-(. Some still bloom but not many at all. I let some roses set hips too for winter interest, and those definitely stop blooming when the weather turns chilly.

Masha

I feel like I'd be slighting some roses if I didn't add their names to list after enjoying them this soft morning.

Blooms:
Anda
Souv de Pierre Notting
Borderer

Buds:
Mme Scipion Cochet (HP)
Baronne Prevost (!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Serratipetala

Sherry

Jackie, Sherry, Ingrid, the number of roses in your gardens at this time of year is genuinely amazing. I am impressed. I don't know how many roses are blooming here -- I'm too busy digging holes for new roses.

Jackie, I hope your dinner party went well. I'm sure your guests were impressed by the roses on the table.

Rosefolly

You know, Jackie, I'm grateful for this thread, because I probably - no, actually, was taking the roses for granted. What an awful mindset for a gardener - oh, yeah, they're blooming. My brain is muddled lately with too much other stuff, and everything is getting shortchanged. Too much blur and not enough focus.

Ingrid, I saw yours December pics on the gallery. Even just a few of those roses would be exhilarating to me.

Paula, your words really made me stop and take notice of what I have. Thanks. I bet your garden is bursting with flowers. During one of your rests from digging today, you should really take a stroll and "count your blessings". You deserve it.

Roseseek, re "Here in the South West, they should be sleeping in high summer when we push them with hose water.", perhaps I'm misunderstanding you're meaning, but isn't it in their nature to continuously bloom, given good conditions? When my roses were dry (and young), they didn't look happy or healthy. I think a better choice for 'sleeping' would be 'surviving in defense mode'. It doesn't seem to me to be the same sleep as the Old European Roses. I will pay attention to my roses more in January and February when we have our worst cold to see what they do then - probably they'll try to continue to grow (but I don't know about blooms) because of the warm daytime temps. I always worry about their new growth being zapped by the freezes, but they're tough inspite of their fragile appearance.

Another observation: a few really are covered with flowers. These seem almost to be continual bloomers.
Le Vesuve (this rose never even pauses; parts of it pause, but there are always flowers somewhere.)
Mlle Franziska Kruger
Clotilde Soupert
Mme Lombard (baby)
Duquesa (baby)

November was a big month, too.

And Jackie, I also hope your party and your roses were a hit

Sherry

Yes, the centerpiece and the dinner party were both a hit - thanks. Now I am looking forward - having Christmas dinner parties on the 11th and 19th - maybe there will be roses for them too!

Kim's comments are really pertinent - it is mostly the china & tea roses which are blooming so much, and some moderns that are also evergreen. I think I spent too much time when I was trying to learn about roses reading rose books that were written by folks who lived in much colder zones - chapters about burying your roses for Winter, when they go dormant.

Not one of the books talked about roses that bloom for 12 months of the year. I do realize that normally they would go dormant in our hot dry summers, and they seem to if it gets up to 100 degrees, but otherwise it doesn't seem to phase them at all if they get water and keep blooming all summer.

Right now it is raining again - of course some of the blooms get ruined by the rain, but the teas keep just producing more buds. Here I have planted paperwhites outside, and they are blooming too - they look good with the red berries in arrangements.

Here's to warm weather roses, and I hope more rose books will be written in warm climates in the future. It's not like there are not huge gardening populations in the US West & South, So Africa, Australia, & all of the Mediterranean countries.

Jackie

Jackie, you do have the Australian book on tea roses, I assume?

Rosefolly

I was thinking about California weather and wearing shorts today, too! Because here it was about 38 at its highest (below 32 last night), with a biting cold breeze, as I closed down the coastal RI cottage for the winter. Harvested the kale, chard and last of lettuce. And as I packed them in the car, I noticed half a dozen fresh pink blooms on my shed climber, Souvenir de la Malmaison. The thorns on the upper newer stems were rose-colored, the outer flower petals a deep rose, insides were pale pink. So I picked 2 to take home to the city, as the truly Last Rose of Summer there. Enjoy December!

Carol

Rosefolly - Yes, of course I have the tea rose book. It is amazing and wonderful. What I was talking about would be a general book on roses that assumes you live/garden in a warm climate, and talks about all roses, including hybrid teas, that would like it there, and which kinds, how to care for, etc. There seem to be dozens of general rose books that assume a cold winter climate, but NONE that assume a warm climate - how about some "diversity"?

I really think that gardening of all kinds, including rose gardening, is so different depending on where you are. This fact seems to be ignored by many many gardening books. The ARS, also, seems to look at roses only as plants that should be able to be grown almost everywhere, instead of providing the valuable information of which ones like what kind of climate. Making gardeners find this out by trial and error makes for lots of frustrated new rose gardeners, who might just give up trying to grow roses at all.

Jackie

I've enjoyed reading of other's blooms at this time of year. Our weather has been warm, but our first light freeze is coming tonight :(. I picked four large bouquets today and really enjoy the larger blooms this time of year. Here's what I picked today:
colorific, ruth's red china, comtesse du cayla, white pearl in a red dragon's mouth, vincent godsiff, ducher, spice, intl. herald tribune, purple buttons, tissue, white cecile brunner, lauren, marie pavie, rubens, smith's parish, monsieur tillier, francis dubreuil, mrs. b.r.cant, gruss an aachen pink, sdlm, kron. viktoria, natch. noisette, champney's pink cluster, mutabilis, celine forestier. I'm looking forward to spring already!

I'm chiming in from Arizona as this is one of the best times of the year for roses, I think. I have blooms on:

Maman Cochet: lovely lovely lovely. She has the most beautiful blooms ever and the colors are lovely.
Catherine Mermet: right next to Maman Cochet and I love the color combination. I love her color too,

Alister Stella Gray: this rose never stops blooming but it's really beautiful now. I love noisettes. They are sooo graceful.
Mme Charles: lovely of course
Anna Olivier: young but her blooms are so beautiful
Iceberg: of course...blooms ALL the time
Leonies Appoline: heavy blooms... this is a great rose
Grace Darling: my first blooms on this baby but they are beautiful so far.
Cels Multiflora: still young
Mme Antoine Rebe: I love this rose...it is so colorful with subtle, graceful blooms.
Tipsey Imperial Concubine: I have 2 and one (the older one) is blooming her head off. Beautiful.
Livin Easy: bought before I came around to old roses but it is so healthy and blooms all the time...couldn't get rid of it.
Lady Hillingon: young but will be great in time
Baronne H du Snoy: great rose; blooms all the time
Souv de Pierre NOtting: huge blooms, beautiful. It's still young.
Pink Gruss au Auchen: I love love love the blooms and it blooms all the time. Great rose.

I have more but this is getting too long.

I'm just in awe of how beautiful tea roses are. Those breeders were artists...that I am sure of.

My very last rose of summer is always Greetings (a modern rose, has a great late flush). We have snow now, and I'm sure they are through. Just before that, though:

--Clothilde Soupert
--La Marne - a full flush
--Sea Foam
--Greetings (always a late flush - and such deep color in fall)
--High Society - really, really excellent DEEP warm purple in the cold!! I chose it for the cold-weather blooms, actually.
--Roseberry Blanket - with so many cute hips at the same time

There were many more in November, of course :)

oh well, here we have woken up to the first really deep white hoarfrost of the year. It is gone midday and the skeletal tracery of frosted branches is persisting, despite a particularly clear winter sun. As for blooms, though, there are a couple of Zephirines (always one of the last roses of summer) gallantly nodding on the bare stems while the last Graham Thomas blooms seem permanently frozen in protective buds. Last year, we found three Zephs still blooming on Xmas day: we picked them to put with the holly,ivy, laurel and yew.

I even have a few blooms up here in the north of California. I've started pruning though so I can finish by February.

all my Tea and Noisette rosebushes are in full bloom except for new bands of C. Forestier. a tiny bud on clementina Carbonieri"

Lux.

Amazingly, a quick glance this evening as I was unloading groceries revealed lots of blooms persisting even after 27 degrees last night. Clotilde Soupert looked perfectly fine and smelled great. I'm really surprised. I thought they'd be a mess. Tonight's supposed to get lower. Won't it be great if there's still something to see when I get home tomorrow??

Sherry

I had lunch with Luanne this afternoon. When we got back to her house, she wandered around her garden picking rose after rose after rose and handing them to me, saying 'Smell this one." By the time I left, I felt as though I had a handful of gold coins!

Rosefolly

Wow, Paula, all that smelling on a full stomach. Must have been hard to take. Wish I were you.

Sherry

"I've started pruning though so I can finish by February."
Good gawsh. The price you pay to bring us so much pleasure.

Renee

Some years I start pruning now. But many years -- including this one -- I'm just too busy. I'll probably start in mid-January. It was more important to start early when I was working full time, and only had weekend for the task.

Rosefolly

It's pouring outside, so I'm doing this out the windows starting at the one over the sink in the kitchen: Phyllis Bide and Felicia. Moving to the sunroom: Frau Eva Shubert, Galleria, Cornelia, Lady Hillington Climbing. To the office: Will Scrlet, Don Juan, Sydonie, Renae, a bright pink Poulson, Kent, Perle D'Or. Then to my room: Everest Double Fragrance, Pink Perpetue, Lucetta. Then to the main room: Smarty, New Face, Blue Mist, Rachel Bowes Lyon, The Herbalist, Graham Thomas Marie Pavie, Rostock, White Cap, Yellow Button, Edmond Proust, Belle Story, Talisman, Radway Sunrise, Illusion, Bishop Darlington....