I just add this message to respond to the notion of a rose sale or auction. Following the lead of Jeri n Clay, the Ventura County Rose Society put on major rose auctions of rare and unusual roses for about ten years; first, annually, then later every two years. As an educational device, the auction was a great success for those putting it on. As someone who started out as a contributor to the catalog that accompanied the auction and wound up writing most of it, I learned a lot. (Most of it had to do with commercial viability.) As a financial effort, it was also a great success. HOWEVER,it was every bit as labor intensive as the traditional rose show, involved enormous amounts of energy and time (gathering and storing of roses, mailing off winning bids to those out of state, etc.) and engendered some antipathy on the part of rose society members who did not want to be involved in what they regarded as scut work; (unfortunately, a lot of life involves doing scut work.) Eventually, we gave it up with 2011 being the last of the auctions. Over the course of the years we probably distributed over a thousand roses, most of which were OGRs or unusual and rare (Clark roses from Austalia before they became easily available, frix.) The only way for the enterprise to operate was to open up a national audience in order to find buyers for roses not well known--even if said roses were perfectly suited to the Ventura County climate--e.g. chinas, noisettes, and teas. The trouble is that the audience for OGRS and unusual roses tends to be spread out across the country in numbers not large enough to sustain viable commercial operations. I might add that the practices of many rose societies in permitting widespread use of cuttings from rose shows, celebrations and the like cuts down on the potential profit or even transactions. I am reminded that Frank Benardella used to dip his show roses in Round-up so as to discourage people from using his entries as sources for free roses... Jim D

I suggest you plant in a bottomless tub of good compost. This will allow the rose to get the benefit of the good soil, but it can put its roots down. Whatever you plant you will have to water regularly. Bear in mind that true ramblers only flower once. Those I have experience of, and which are tough, are Paul's scarlet - bunches of small red flowers, Frances E. Lester - large bunches of pinkish white single flowers resembling a dog rose, but many more flowers, and American Pillar - bunches of bright pink single flowers, tough as old boots. Albertine is also very lovely and a wonderful scent - copper pink semi double.(my favourite) One which I have also found successful and tough, but which is not a true rambler, but you get some flowers after the main flush, is Maigold - orange flushed yellow semi double, tough but thorny. Lastly, I have not tried it myself, but the yellow Banksian rose is slightly tender and would like a south wall. It has small double yellow flowers. My advice is to plant in autumn or winter so the roots get time to settle in before the stems start growing.

Hi Alice, Welcome to Garden web. I have a Rambling Rector which was planted at the base of a lilac tree about 2.5 years ago. So far it is about 2-4 m high, and has not required pruning yet or presented a problem. However, I expect to have to work hard to control it when it really gets going and I think I'll end up taking it out after 5 years or so. I'm a bit disappointed in it really, as the flowers are an undistinguished colour, not very scented, don't last very long and don't seem to produce nice hips. It's a typical rambler in the sense that it throws up long wands from the base (up to 5m long so far) rather than developing a framework of permanent branches like other climbing roses. So I'll have to choose between cutting out the weakest of these to reduce its bulk or chopping the tops off them to reduce the height. I'll probably go for the thinning method, looks more natural. As for Kiftsgate, I saw the rose growing in full swing when I visited. It was truly scary - it had spread itself over an area at least 15 m square with massive, arching, thorned stems bounding every where, high up in to some very large trees as well. I know when I'm beat! I think you'd struggle to keep that thing confined to 30m let alone 3m. Not that I'd want to put you off after you've ordered them but think very carefully about how you are going to site and control these plants, particularly the Kiftsgate. If you phoned Peter Beale maybe someone would advise you and let you change your order?

Jackie that's crazy that you had 8 straight days of rain! We both live in the Bay Area... but in my neck of the woods we only got about 2 good rainy days. Now there's no rain scheduled for at least the next 2 weeks. Sigh. Kelly I swear by mulch mulch mulch and more mulch for both winter and summer in my climate. But be careful with your sources. I'm not sure, but I think the grub problem I recently have been dealing with may be in part from the "free" mulch I got from tree trimmers in the area. Sometimes they trim healthy trees, but often they are cutting down unhealthy trees infested with things like beetles. You could probabaly feel safe using free mulch if you also used a systemic soil killer for grubs underneath (poisonous and not so great for invertebrates though) or predator nematodes (I bought mine through Natures Control and think they would have worked better if I applied them BEFORE the grubs hatched and took over). In the end, it may be cheaper to buy mulch instead of using free mulch and treating it. Just my opinion from my recent grub infestation though. I used free mulch before this year and never had any problems until now... so who knows!