Okay, it's not growing so fast now -- I moved it from indoors under lights, to out in the cold over a month ago -- but the possibility of taking a cutting shouldn't be too far off. And you're right, it could still have that sort of vigor and be tetraploid. As it gets older, I hope for more clues. Of planned crosses with Saint Nicholas, 11 are now little plants, having survived infancy without sickness. I used mixed pollens, so I can't tell which are which yet, except for the mossy-looking ones (Salet, or *maybe* Chapeau de Napoleon). Most of the others look varying degrees of Damask, and most are probably from Pickering FS, but some may have to bloom before I can be sure which pollens took. There are also at least 5 Autumn Damask seedlings which look like they'll make it, and so much OP Single Musk that the culling process is ongoing. About thirty OP Grandma's Hat also germinated, but over 90% were sickly and/or misshapen. I don't know whether they're sickly because GH selfs badly, or whether GH makes sick babies regardless of the pollen used, but its promising start has definitely tarnished. One seedling of Tuscany Superb looks like it will make it. About thirty plants, all told. Others mostly haven't felt like germinating yet, if at all. No thanks to the squirrels, my dinky Saint Nicholas pretty much saved the year. I wish I had more of it! Since none of those seedlings can be expected to bloom this year, I'm now planning a bunch more F1s. And I have to say, the closer spring gets, the more I'm tempted to try an alternative direction, which I think aligns with yours. Although I absolutely will keep working on Damask Perpetuals, I realize that the odds of getting one to rebloom are low, and that even having a fine seed parent for them, might not be enough to make future breeders want to risk trying it. Chinensis rebloom is just SO much more within reach. So this year I'm hedging my bet, and will also try my hand at (gasp!) Hybrid Perpetuals. Breeders will include, to be sure, Alfred Colomb, Ardoisee de Lyon, "Barbara's Pasture Rose," Eugene de Beauharnais, Gloire des Rosomanes, Jacques Cartier, Reine des Violettes, Rose du Roi (of commerce), Salet (again), and Sydonie. It *may* include too modern Hugh Dickson, too sickly La Reine, or too sterile "Glendora." The basic idea will be the same -- boost female fertility in old roses -- but I would want to keep up the outcross-backcross process indefinitely, with the goal of bringing successive generations closer to the ancient European classes, and farther away from HPs. Early on, they might still be useful for breeding Bourbons, HPs, Austin types, or species crosses. So expect the next batch to include things like: Saint Nicholas x Reine des Violettes Gloire des Rosomanes x Saint Nicholas Tuscany Superb x Alfred Colomb Hebe's Lip x Jacques Cartier (When looking for some other information, I came across and re-read a Paul Barden blog from 10 years ago, in which he wished for something virtually identical to Indigo, which had just enough chinensis in it to ease the breeding of (at least slightly) remontant offspring. Although he intended to try it using Modern Shrubs and a different breeding methodology, the basic idea is the same. I'm using old roses for that job in an effort to restrict how modern descendants can look and smell, since glossy foliage and some other modern traits are dominant. While either approach could work, I'm hoping mine will quickly produce some useful results, since I don't feel quite young enough to try Paul's method for this particular job, and don't have the acreage to rush it.) Last year's Damask Perpetuals will be going on as before -- Pickering, Pink Leda, Autumn Damask, Duchess of Portland -- with Indigo and another Pickering plant joining the effort. Hebe's Lip will be getting a lot of pollen, as I suspect it's where SN got its female fertility from. Every year I try a few long shots, using tiny amounts of pollen from functionally sterile roses on my best seed parents, and will continue doing so. (Though it's way too early to be sure, one of my SN seedlings looks like it could be from Duchesse de Rohan pollen I put on it; it has foliage as oval as any of my Autumn Damask seedlings, but far less thorns. After years of failing with roses like that, this gives me hope!) My Single Musk is much happier lately, so it can expect a bunch of pollens, mainly directed at the moschata x gallica needed for a Damask do-over. If you like, I'll put some Gloire des Rosomanes pollen on it too, and send you any hips which result. If there's anything you'd love to see tried with things which I grow, and I've mentioned no intention of doing such crosses, let me know. Some of my roses, like Gloire des Rosomanes, will have a lot more flowers than I will have plans for.

Honestly, this is the most pleasant forum that I've seen on the Gardenweb site and maybe the whole internet. Others have mentioned the antique forum, garden harvest and the pets forum, but the absolute worst was the Japanese Garden forum about 5+ years ago. There were a handful of know-it-all's who treated all newcomers like imbeciles and things got very very ugly. That forum is all but abandoned now. From my observations, it is always the "closed private party" mentality that gets the fighting started. The internet is largely a public resource and people have to expect anyone and everyone to show up and express their views or ask for opinions. If people want to have private conversations with only like-minded associates, then they should use email, text messaging or set up a private forum. The regulars here are pretty welcoming of the occasional posters that come and go which is what makes it work. I imagine the reason this post is so popular is because as a society we still haven't come to terms with the limitations of written online communication, but at the same time it has exploded in common daily use. Who would have thought 10 or 15 years ago that we would be able to communicate with complete strangers from around the world in writing about every subject known to mankind? There is a huge learning curve as to how to deal with different personalities and different ways of communicating. This seems to be why, on any forum, questions of forum etiquette always receive a lot of responses. It doesn't matter who you are or what type of person you are or what you are discussing, you probably will have run into problems trying to communicate with someone online. It is just a imperfect system (not to sound negative). One thing for sure, everyone here should pat themselves on the back for keeping things so civil as we discuss all things kitchen related.

Steve, you believe that government oppresses the weak, and in doing so have bought into a narrative proposed by people who want to weaken citizens' trust in their government. In any kind of civilized society, a good part of the role of government is to protect the weak against the strong (forty hour work week, safety on the streets, assistance after natural disasters like hurricanes). You're abdicating that protection, which is exactly what organizations like the NRA want. They want a terrified citizenry who don't unite to protect themselves. Government is that unity; the democratic process is how individually unpowerful people make themselves powerful, and heard. You can cower in your house with a gun in hands, waiting for the bad guys of the hour to arrive, while the wealthy and violent take over the State. Or you can band together with all the other little people and help make a society that's safe not only for the strong, whether the strength comes from money or from guns, but for the weak: people without money, children, the aged, the sick, people overwhelmed by disasaters, natural or manmade. I've never owned a gun, and I don't intend ever to own one. Of course, now I live in Italy where people are relatively sane about weapons. But I wouldn't own one in the United States if I still lived there. I'm not temperamentally suited to possess a gun, and if I did injure or kill someone, unjustified or even, probably, justified, I'd never forgive myself. Better to be shot myself, and I do mean that. Actually I just read that people who have a gun in their homes in the U.S. have a statistically better chance of getting killed than those who don't, so not owning a gun is still the best safety bet. I'm putting my money on a civilized society, one in which it's safe for an elderly person with a walker to shuffle alone down the street, in which children can play on a playground without an armed guard to protect them, in which a middle-aged unathletic creaky woman--me--can go about my days without worrying about snipers or drive-by shooters, and without my needing someone strong, smart, and armed accompanying me in order for me to be safe. Otherwise, living in the United States is going to start being like living in Kabul. No, thanks.

I don't think the Oslo to Bergen route is a particularly fast train. A quick look suggests the route to be 450-500km (just at or a bit less than 300 miles) done in 6 hours, so less than 60 mph. The French TGV model (that runs throughout much of Western Europe) regularly does long stretches at 300 kilometers per hour, just under 200 mph. The high speed rail beds are laser straight when possible with gentle curves. The route from Oslo to Bergen goes through a lot of valleys, has a lot of curves and turns, and most certainly wouldn't permit high speed. An interesting bit of trivia - when the high speed line between Paris and London (through the Channel Tunnel) was being laid out, the French were able to give priority under the law that permitted obtaining the needed land parcels to allow straight segments and high speeds. On the UK side, obtaining the needed land was not possible to the same extent and so the British segment from the Tunnel to London was less straight and had lower average speeds than the same train could travel on the French side. i don't know if that's changed, I haven't taken it in a few years.