Mary - what Mark said - is a must. Get yourself an unexpensive table tripod - $9.99 in Best Buy - and stage your pic. You can put a plant on the table with some neutral background - like a solid color throw and utilize a side light from the window. If you turn on the regular incandescent bulb as well- you sometimes can catch the sparkle on the petals. So - you already have the camera, get yourself a tripod - and try. If your camera is stable - you can play with digital photo software - and lighten it up, crop etc. If your hands were trembling - nothing can be done. And Mark is absolutely right about flash - you use a regular flash - nothing can be done - the pic will be flat and the colors off. There is a special ring light for such purposes - but for Canon SLRs it is quite expensive. Before they made it quite economical for Nikon mid level cameras, but I am a Canon person. Good Luck and please post your pics. Irina

To summarize, the "basics" are selecting the right rose for the right climate. Climatic suitability. Learn from the rose, know what the thing will tolerate. NO book can teach you that. No person can, either. Observation. Look at the danged things. Learn to read them. Learn their language. They'll tell you if they're not happy and often, just what the dickens is going on with them. Yes, reading (IF you are one of the intelligent ones who WILL read, unfortunately as uncommon as "common sense") will direct you toward what is suitable for where you are and what type of gardener you are or will become, as will simply walking around where you are and talking to people who seem successful at doing what you hope to do. If you read a book or someone's post, find out where they are. British rose books are glorious to read, but they have NO relevance in Southern California...PERIOD. Peter Beales and Graham Thomas proclaiming New Dawn and Ballerina to be perfect roses, the most successful and wonderful plants of their types are pure misinformation in warm, long season climates. Austin's original writings about his Graham Thomas being a "mannerly, five foot shrub" makes sense in a British season, but NOT in California where it can easily be a twelve to fifteen foot climber. Unless you take the initiative to find out where the information is relevant, it is worthless. For me to tell Elmire that tender Tea roses are the best roses around is cruel and ignorant at best because they are very likely not to be where she is. For her to tell ME to grow Rugosas is the worst advice anyone could provide as they are not happy here, period. There is tremendous information on line and, if taken with the knowledge of where it originated, can be invaluable. Pruning advice, particularly. In my climate, most roses do best with little pruning other than to remove what is no longer healthy or needed. Lyn must snow prune her roses or the weight of the snow will do it for her. Others must whack them to fit the winter protection they require. I know I irritate those who write me for advice about how to winter protect as the only response I can give based upon my experience is to continue dead heading and make sure they remain watered sufficiently if it doesn't rain! The right rose for the climate, positioned in the right spot for the conditions, planted acceptably and permitted to do as it needs to with suitably benign neglect will often become a weed. "Weed" is the highest praise I can think of for any plant as they succeed in spite of us. What could be better?

Wow, she is doing very well for you, wish mine would get half that size. I think I will move her in the fall, perhaps a bit drier site might prove her a better rose here. She is about one foot tall right now and I love her, just hope she rebounds a bit more. Your pictures are wonderful. Valerie

Kendra, not much! There was a little of the hen scratch and BOSS mix left in the cup. I filled the feeder right after so now she will feed out at the Elm tree.