Cool Pics Jeffcat! Dogs are wonderful! My wife & I are huge dog lovers!
Very nice that you planted the roses at your moms, I'm sure they will look great!
I've been wondering what happened to you. lol
Post pics in the future of the progress at your moms!

So wonderful to see you here! and bless on the wonderful rose garden you are planting for your Mom! Nick, you are absolutely the Sweetest, your Mom is so blessed. My friend Jim1961 sent me an email telling me you had returned. And he helps me know when my friend Boxofrox is back online.

I can no longer join the Rose Gallery or even have time to put up photos on Photobucket and I miss everyone here at the Gallery and at the Peter Beales rose forum!!!! I was hired to do full-time contract web design work for a company, but I also carry a full-time work load for my freelance web design clients as well, so I had to drop everything with the roses. The baby bands from Long Ago Roses of this year are actually outgrowing my established roses. They are soooo vigorous and healthy with fat canes! Can't recognize them as baby bands, what a happy shocker!
Roses will no longer receive any special care because I don't even have time to sleep, a lot of all-nighter projects. With the amount of work I do for websites, alas! I could have modeled and animated 3 entire baseball stadiums with! And 3D animation is what my heart aches for and misses, but these are new times so I'm forced to do what everyone wants to buy which are the websites (sigh)!

But Jeff once things settle down, what a gorgeous garden you will have! I really enjoyed seeing what you have done for your Mom and I can't wait for photos next year of it being in full bloom!

Your lovely little Abraham D'Arby also is a reminder that I absolutely must send Boxo a little Thanksgiving message too before I get buried with work again!

Hugs, and I'm sure that EVERY FORUMER here has missed you! with your commentaries with the public gardens, your love for the roses, the crazy-cute bees, and all the fun stuff. And yes, Jeff, I finally found the magical plant so that I can get my honeybees, whoo-hoo! It's the Russian SAGE!!!! Jeffcat I'm soooo happy! The honeybees adore it! I have honeybeeeeees real honeybeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!

Hugs to you and will be crossing my fingers that soon everything will be settled on your side so that you can once again enjoy your own special garden!

Serena

It sounds like you went through a big amount of oh-my-aching-back work, but at least you got it done. Hopefully everything will grow well. Your dogs are cute also. They can be good company at times.

I think your obelisk fits that spot perfectly. I'm assuming you had to cut the wood yourself which puts that project right out of my league. Or, is there a kit with pre-cut wood?

You've given your mom a lot to brag about and show her friends and neighbors. She must be so excited.

I too would love to see pics when it is mature.

The dogs are great. Molly looks like a cuter version of our dog.
Thanks,
Kitty

Jeff, how very kind of you to do this for your mom! As a mom of two sons, I could think of no nicer gift!! These roses will grow and give her so much pleasure. Thanks for including your pup pictures. They are so sweet. You are a very special son. Lesley

I love the obelisk. Inspirational. And the two little princesses are priceless.
Sandra

Thanks guys. Yea, I've been gone a little while haha. Busy with stuff.

The obelisk is simple, yet difficult to build.....however after building it, I could build one probably in a day if I used a different glue. All it is are 4-2x2x8s and 7 or 8-1x2x8s of treated pine. I would of done more with it, but the mother was satisfied with it. I used some exterior liquid polyurethane liquid nails adhesive and it worked well, but it was frustrating how long I had to leave it clamped before it dried. It took about 12 hours to dry. If I build another one in the future I will use something with a much quicker clamp time. I learned a few new things building it though and since I made it from scratch I had to think it over a bit. I had to splay the ends of the 2x2x8s to make the pyramid top which is the hardest part of the whole build because you have to get them to fit relatively even so the base splays out square or close to it. All in all, it worked. :) The mother wants an arbor somewhere out in front of her house so I will have to get around to that sometime. I want to put an arbor or two where I planted the roses, but it's a bit of an awkward area and I don't know what structure I want to put there yet so we shall see.

I still have to upload my 3000+ photos on to HMF from the rose garden. At least I have a strong internet connection now, so it should go MUCH faster after I have them all edited and resized to go on HMF. Hopefully I can get them all on there within the month.

Watchout HMF, here comes Jeffcat...LOL
3000+ photos, wow!

Yea, server overload lol. I might just put up the most pertinent and helpful photos on there so it doesn't flood the site. haha

Nice job! I see you've got the rooting technique down pat. Gotta try that. What's your method? -Paul

Well I don't know if I'd say "down pat" haha. I've tried a few methods so far. What I've come to learn is that it's really been mostly a matter of what plant you are taking a rooting of. Mirandy, for example, roots really easily, while others are a little more difficult like Variegata de Bologna for me.

The method I use the most frequently is cutting a 2L pop bottle in half and putting some loose soil that doesn't pack together in it. I never put the cap on. I always leave the cap off for some ventilation and if it's hot in the summer I put it in a bright room like a sunporch but not in direct light for about a week or so....judgement call. After which, I actually will wake up in the morning and take the top half of the 2L off and let the plants sit in direct morning light for a few hours, but bring them in if it's too hot because they will obviously get torched by the heat without a root system. I drill holes in the bottom of the pop container for drainage and soak the soil. I take cuttings and just put the cut area in a solution of water and a just a LITTLE BIT of liquid fertilizer(miracle gro). By a little bit, I mean I take leftover prescription pill bottles, fill them with water and put in maybe 10 flakes of liquid fertilizer(very little). Just enough to get absorbed without any chance of burning it. Sometimes I use rooting hormone and other times I don't. In the summer, it takes about 3 weeks to root them when I see the roots at the bottom.

The other approach I used was 1gal plastic baggies with soil in them. This approach works as well, but I tended to notice that mold and disease seems to affect the cuttings more(typically) due to the amount of moisture build up in the bag.

I've actually had a few root just randomly. Midway through this summer, I pruned my original Pat Austin bush and had a lot left over, so just for curiosity's sake I put like 5 or 6 cuttings in a gallon milk jug cut in half......with no top.......no nothing. It was basically just an exposed pot where I kept the soil moist. They were actually in rather harsh conditions as well because I didn't care much for them, and they were open to 2-3 hours of mid day sun, but only a few didn't root and the remaining ones that survived are the ones I actually planted outside in her planter box and by her house. It's kind of more of an art than a method. On the bright side, if you ever prune the roses and just have leftover canes with buds on them, you can always experiment and give it a whirl and see what results you get. If they all die, it's not like you are missing out on much considering they were canes you were just going to pitch anyways. :)

Thanks, Jeff for the tutorial!

Your mother is a lucky lady to have such a thoughtful son----the garden will be beautiful

they are the cutest puppies---

Florence

I can't wait until next year to see how your garden has grown!! What a lot of work you did!! Awesome.

Carol