I think Elemire is correct we must look at expert advice and determine whether or not it is suitable for our garden in our location. Most of the people who give expert advice have grown many roses in a one or a few climates/locations, therefore, their advice is colored by their experience in those climates and cannot be viewed as universal. I don't think anyone can possibly know everything about how to care for roses in every climate. I think it is necessary to filter the advice using our own experience in our gardens. I have now got the experience of growing roses in two very different climates. In Socal, my gardening experience was totally different than in my Nocal mountain garden. Pruning practices that worked down south do not work well in my northern garden. I have had to change how I go about the work in order to have healthier plants. I was told long ago to let the rose be your teacher and that there were a lot of right ways to grow roses. With those two concepts in mind, I have found that I don't remove as much of the twiggy growth as recommended by most experts because that growth produces leaves which shade the canes and protects them from sunburn. I don't prune as hard up here as I did down south because I have a shorter growing season. Some of the roses that thrived down south struggle in this garden. Jackie is right about growing the roses that like your climate. It takes a lot less work. If we have a long wet spring, (every year is different), I have found that it really does help to remove pruning debris that has shown disease because I have found I do have more disease when I haven't done that kind of cleanup in this garden. There were a couple of years in a row due to illness and injury that I could not do this work and found that disease was more of a problem in the garden. Here, it is observation that dictates the how I deal with pruning waste. Ingrid... we don't have any garbage pick-up and have to haul our own garbage, recyclables, green waste to the dump. YUK. I just throw my pruning debis over the cliff across the street. It's far too much effort to haul it to the dump. Susan... since you are local to Gregg, it makes sense to follow his advice. Also, I don't prune every rose in the garden every year. I always start at a different point and over the seasons, they all get their "clean prune". I just can't seem to get it all done in one year, since I garden on four levels and one project always leads to three more. I garden and grow roses because I love to be outside working in the garden. Yes, I'd like to make it easier, but weeds grow, seasons are different and each year I learn something new that makes things work better. I've made plenty of mistakes and spend time moving plants to better locations, change how I fertilize, prune, etc as I watch how the plants perform. It's all a process and there is no one right answer. Smiles, Lyn

Hardiness depends upon the inherent genetic cold resistance of the particular rose, combined with the condition of the individual plant. If it's a budded plant, you also have to take into consideration the hardiness of the root stock. Yes, you can mitigate that a bit by how deeply you plant the rose, but if your freezes extend deeply enough into the soil it kills the root stock, it doesn't matter how hardy the scion (variety budded to the stock) is. If the only roots the plant has are killed, the plant dies. Very often, a two year, budded plant is going to be more "mature" than a band. The roots of the budded plant are two years old. The budded plant on them is at least one year old. A band is frequently much younger and smaller. Not always, because it depends upon how recently the particular band was propagated. Sometimes, you may find individual bands which have spent a season or longer at the sending nursery. If the variety isn't as popular as some, or the nursery had many of them and didn't sell them as quickly, the plant you receive may be pretty mature and developed. If it sells quickly and there is a rapid rate of turn over, it may be young, immature and small. That's the luck of the draw. If you buy a Grade 1 budded bare root, it is likely to be larger, more developed and mature than most bands. That doesn't necessarily mean it will be hardier than the band, just older and more mature. Then, you have to take how the bare root was stored into consideration. If it was held in proper storage and hasn't dried out before you receive it, you should have pretty good chances of success as long as you plant and care for it properly. Just as you have to take into consideration how the band was cared for, shipped and handled prior to receipt. All things considered, I would expect a budded bare root to be easier to bring into growth and held safely over winter. Your mileage will vary. Kim

Ladyrose, I was very surprised that I liked Wild so much. I was expecting another Eat, Pray, Love and instead got something gritty, well-written, and -- since I do not camp or hike to a point that requires backpacks -- fascinating in its details. Given her history as well as the story of the hike itself,it was also a real page-turner. I was very pleasantly surprised. I've flown through two books by Meljean Brook, The Iron Duke and Heart of Steel, both steampunk romance/adventures and very enjoyable. She's a new-to-me-author so I'm hunting down everything in her "Iron Seas" series, and so far I've really liked everything I've read. Lemonhead, I'm almost half-way through Patricia Brent, Spinster and while I'm liking it well enough, I am having a hard time figuring out why the main character is being so difficult, but I suppose it would be an overly-simple a plot otherwise. Thank you for recommending it.

It sounds like an amazing experience...I would totally let my child go if I were comfortable with the family. One of my kids (16) is a huge traveler. Both of my kids have been lots of places with us, of course, so are accustomed to air travel, etc., but dd has always wanted more. At 14 she went with a teen adventure travel group (a highly regarded company with a top notch program that vets the kids) out west for two weeks. The travel part involved flying from the East Coast with a connection...I was a little apprehensive about that part since they wouldn’t be with the chaperones until reaching Jackson Hole, but she flew UM & all was well. She is actually spending 2 weeks in Slovenia this summer through this same company! While I don’t have travel anxiety per se, I do suffer from claustrophobia so don’t love long plane trips. I am thrilled dd doesn’t have this problem. I believe young people should take any opportunity they can get to enrich themselves through travel. Your son will have an amazing, insider’s view of life in Egypt.