regardless of what the stats say on the soil maps, Strawbs, I can definately say my soil is alkaline - not as much as yours but rhodies and azaleas are a distant memory from my northern childhood - our black silty fen soil is top class for cabbages, celery and onions and sugar beet. Anyhow, unfortunately, I am not much of a guide to soil ph and roses since this is an issue which rarely comes up - at least not as much as mildew, rust or blackspot. The only dodgy roses (chlorotic, needing regular sequestrene) I grow have had too close a brush with rugosas - and one of my only Austins, Wild Edric is definately a pale and pasty specimen....although Compte de Champagne comes awfully close and I couldn't say what its parentage is. Annoying, as the rugosas are generally happy with well drained, sandy soil (I am on calcareous grassland. Of course, I do not have the extremes of temperature that you have so I have been able to adopt a blase attitude to ph as it is practically impossible to actually kill a rose here. Nonetheless, not dying is emphatically not the same as thriving - there are roses which are doing considerably better than others. I did expect china roses would be a bit feeble but have surprised me with their general willingness to grow and bloom - Sophie's Perpetual, Mutabilis and Sanguinea have been stars. Even more surprising, the infamous bourbons do well for me too. I would have to say that the majority of my roses are species or close hybrids although I have a weakness for Harkness floribundas. I am incredibly fortunate in that Beales and Trevor White (2 out of 3 old rose growers in the UK) along with Harkness and Legrice are based in East Anglia with similar soil and climate conditions as myself....and fervently believe that this conflation of conditions has a whopping bearing on the subsequent health of the rose once it is planted in my garden so I think you are right, Strawbs, in pondering specific nursery circumstances before considering buying from them.

"Kim, thanks for the explanation. I regard scentless roses about the same as tasteless apples, or tasteless tomatoes or peaches, or .... for that matter. That's why we grow our own tomatoes, and only eat the peaches off my mother-in-laws tree when the are ripe." You're welcome, Jackie. Actually, that's appropriate. Both are selected for lacking traits many find desirable for the same reason: durability and shelf life. Stone fruit is regularly checked by the big growers for sugar levels. Micro sports, to our tastes, degenerative, are frequently selected for further propagation because they produce LESS sugar. Sugar is what makes the apple, pear, peach, etc., taste good. It's also what makes them spoil so quickly. Sugar ferments, creating the ethylene gas that ages or rots the fruit. By growing those sports which produce less sugar, the apples can be held for up to two years in nitrogen storage and be available for shipment year round to anyone who wants to buy them. The majors buy them by the ton and expect them to last on their tables for weeks before drying out. Apples from "organic growers" tend not to be those selected for long storage and tend to taste better as they contain more sugar. When Gala, Braeburn and all were introduced into the supermarkets from the road side stand market, they tasted wonderful! No longer. There's been sufficient time for "development" to take place. Now, they have little more taste than the traditional "Delicious" varieties overflowing the store tables. If you buy a tree of Delicious, it will taste great. It's still the old version that makes a ton of sugar and tastes "Delicious". Store bought ones are little more (very often) than insipid, mealy rotted Styrofoam. The same is happening quickly with the Galas, Fujis, etc. If you noticed in spring, Honey Crisp was available in many markets at significantly higher prices than the other varieties. They were also only available for a very short season, because they haven't been "selected" for shelf life and still contain sugar, tasting wonderful! Each year, you can find odd varieties in the super markets at higher prices than the others, and also for short seasons. That indicates they don't store long and won't be available year round as the others. They spoil too quickly due to the sugar. If you go to Ramona, Tehachapi and the like where they're grown, the apples are wonderful! They aren't grown for the major supermarkets and they don't store well because they are REAL apples, full of sugar and flavor. Florist and exhibition roses are virtually the same. You expect your intensely fragrant roses to only last a few days in the vase. You demand cut roses you've paid for to last longer. They are selected for vase life and production under the conditions which permit the grower to offer them as a reliable, year round product. They have to be scentless, or nearly so, to have them be as durable and withstand handling as the tasteless fruit. We're lucky here as we have many Russian, Latin and other types of markets whose produce is really quite tasty and very often significantly less costly than Ralph's, Von's, etc. You have to eat it NOW rather than buying it and using it ten days later, but it tastes delicious and often costs up to half as much as the supermarket version in the same area. So, when buying fruit, keep that in mind. When selecting roses, if the terms "heavy petal substance", "exhibition type" are used, avoid them as they are probably not going to have the scent you want. They SHOULD last well in water, like the Ralph's apples last in your refrigerator. Kim

I will certainly post photos when I get the island planted. That will have to be next spring, after the pond [hopefully] has filled up with water. The soil looks to be sandy loam, best I can figure. I will no doubt have to ammend the planting hole with compost. I am saving all these suggestions.....thank you! I went to the Antique Rose Emporium yesterday and saw Swamp Rose - they have it around their little lily ponds. I also hope Spirea [Bridal Wreath] will grow there - it is just beautiful in spring with the white weeping branches. I have some cobalt blue louisiana iris planted by the former owner [18 years ago - I have been wanting to dig this pond all these years!] I plan to add more louisiana iris of differing colors that I brought from my former home. Maybe even some azaleas....they love water. Formosas get huge in time and would be gorgeous! The only color I would be not too crazy about planting is red - I would like a softer effect. But.....if one happened to be right for this space, I would use it. Its going to be a long wait while it fills up! I am having a bridge built over to the island - going to hang bird feeders, make a fire ring and put adirondyke chairs. And plan to put koi in the pond as well. All this may not work, but I have been thinking about it all these years.

Prairiemoon, Years ago, when there were more northerners on the forum, "How do I prune Harison's Yellow?" was a FAQ. Unless you give it a lot of space in full sun, it is a very awkward, gangly shrub. The early yellows make much better plants IMHO. The 'real' The Bishop is supposed to be a proliferator. Mine definitely has that problem. When they are good, they are very, very good, but when they are bad, they are horrid. I moved a piece this fall to the vegetable garden, and will yank the big one once I know the baby is established. I didn't think Baltimore Belle had fragrance until I took it to a garden meeting along with some other 'samples'. When they were passed around, that one got a lot of 'ooh's and 'aahs', and 'you've got to smell this one'. Odd because usually the stinkiest thing I bring is R. eglanteria.