ibheri, if I can grow it here I think you may have a good chance at succeeding too. Mulch is extremely important, and water of course, and some alfalfa meal would be welcome, although I haven't fertilized this rose since last year. As mentioned frequently, the teas take a while to build up. I think mine is probably at least four years old, but even when they're younger it's still enjoyable to see those beautiful flowers. I'm having a great time hovering over the bands that I received from Vintage and a few other nurseries recently, and seeing that first bloom is always so exciting. After that I force myself to disbud most of them to encourage growth. Ingrid

Thank you so much for all the lovely compliments. It's a pleasure to post pictures for such an appreciative audience. Holleygarden, the blue flower is statice, also known as sea lavender. The only drawback is that snails consider this plant a deluxe accommodation. Sherry and Sanju, Wild Blue Yonder has big, fragrant flowers but at least for me it's a tall, gangly plant no matter how viciously I cut it back. The pink plant along the driveway is more lavender in real life and is called, quite appropriately, Lavender Dream. It's grown a lot since last year. The few rather blown flowers in the left part of the picture are Mrs. Wood's Lavender Pink Noisette, which is a really pretty rose. The pink blobs below the boulders are three plants of Le Vesuve. The front garden looks rather bare since we took out Julia Child and moved her to our little cutting garden. Many of the plants are small bands, since I had to discard plants like Ebb Tide, Route 66, Lady Hillingdon, Centennaire de Lourdes, Felicia etc. etc. for one reason or another. It really sets you back when you have to start all over again. Hopefully I've made better choices this time. Ingrid

It's been like that for the last two mornings here...The pines out front have just been beautiful.....I was too lazy to get dressed and go out there with my camera. Maybe tomorrow...but I don't think we have the fog tonight. Yesterday evening while there was still some light, the fog had come...the hill out back was covered in the fog. You couldn't see the hill or any of the trees out there. It looked like the end of our yard just met a wall, a white wall all the way up...there was no visible sky. Just white. It was beautiful and just a little scary feeling.

Marlorena, I'm so glad you see a difference. I'm here every day so it's difficult to judge. Titian, I wonder what causes the differences in SdlM. Other people have mentioned the pale flowers. You'd think with my rotten soil, heat and drought this rose would be a mess, but it's been one of my most reliable roses. Trust me, if you could see my list of discarded roses, you'd feel better. I'm afraid and ashamed to count them, the number is so huge. After more than eight years, more than half are young roses, which really discourages me sometimes since they take so long to get going. I've concentrated more on tea roses now, although I have a feeling many will outgrow their allotted spaces. I'm not too fond of Chinas except Mutabilis and many of the Austins didn't do well here. I always feel that no matter what I do I've made mistakes again, but I just keep muddling along.