Seed catalogs come out around December/January, so that's the time to order seeds. You can make a wish list before then and also write down what you already have. For me, I like to shop in the stores, too, so I buy some off the rack in late winter. Ah, springtime...

Here's a fairly large Double Knock Out in the front yard--in the divider between my property and the neighbor's. Haven't had time to anything with it yet this year, so its looking a bit wild and woolley--and maybe lop-sided. I'll try to get some pruning done before the season is over. : ) Light blue irises came with the property when I bought my house thirty something years ago--don't know their name, but they bloom forever (for an iris). Another iris--name unknown. Sure is lovely. Here's a terrific fully packed white peony called Festiva Maxima--love that blood-red like marking in the middle of the blooms. I read somewhere once that this old classic is a good choice for more southerly gardeners, but I don't remember why. I have 4 of them. BIG blooms. Its getting so exciting now that things are nearly ready to bloom--can't believe the buds all over the yard--have never seen so many. Oddly, however, my hybrid teas are not taking over the show like they usually do. I thought with the mild winter we had, they would do terrifically well, but it seems the shrubs and floribundas are the ones doing best. But maybe that will all change in the next few weeks. This is about 3 weeks early for my roses--any of them--to be blooming. Kate

Lisa - your comment made me laugh! Yes, all that "seeing him nude" and "stripping him naked" did sound very naughty - hahaha! No, our winters are too mild really (we're still getting up to 20 C (68F) in the daytime sometimes and it only goes down to around 8 - 10 C (46 - 50F) at night so to be honest, none of the roses were going dormant. They were still setting buds. But with Spring coming in Sep just around the corner, we sort of have to force them into dormancy ;-) A few of the roses do drop some leaves - but mostly, you have to strip them all off by hand. (You can see from the 2nd photo above - that's what Pierre looked like last week, still completely covered - so all of that had to be removed yesterday! The training was actually a happy accident due to my newbie anxiety - haha! I didn't realise that climbers have canes that remain lax and can be tied up later - the rose people here in Perth told me they just let the new shoots grow wild and then tie them all in properly after pruning, when they can see better. But I thought if I didn't train them as they grew, they would "solidify" into the wrong shape! So I was there wrestling with Pierre all through the growing season, tying & retying him to the fence as he grew. I have a LOT of thorn pricks & scratches to show for it - haha! But it did mean that when it came to pruning yesterday, the guy who was helping me said that I'd done a good enough job with the training so we didn't need to re-tie any of the canes at all. :-) Funnily enough, I've discovered that I really enjoy training things (probably a masochistic tendency - hah!) and I'm now looking for more climbers to grow in my garden! Sadly, not roses as I'm out of sunny walls - but I'm looking at clematis and any other climbers I can find. Oh, and I've just planted lots of sweet pea seedlings. It's my first time growing them - I've never seen them in "real life" - so I'm excited! HY

Your Soul Sister is beautiful! A word of advice. She will quickly outgrow her pot. If you plan on growing her in a pot grab a half barrel when she starts to outgrow the pot that she is in. Soul Sister is a wonderful rose and should put out many beautiful blooms.