I have grown Basye's Purple for over a decade. Randy is right about the rugosa heritage. It rises to five feet in a shallow rose bed with clusters of five blooms to a spray at the end of short stems. The blooms are single, purple, fragrant and short lived. Once the relatively disease free plant (in my climate) starts blooming, it continues to the end of the season. However, compared to other plants in my garden, it is a late starter; the leafing out process may run a month behind other plants at the beginning of its stay in the garden. One of my plants is placed in an array of roses including the china Buttercream, Route 66 and Joasine Hanet. The other is in a bed by itself with minis at the bottom including, Erin Alonso, Surprise Surprise, Smoke Signals and Iced Tea. It needs little pruning except for the removal of dead wood. I think you will like it. Mine were obtained from ARE. JimD

Hi Susan, might you have any suckers of Dr. Huey sprouting from under any of your roses? Or, might you have some long whips of any other climbing or bush rose you're going to prune off anyway? The two things you want to practice before tackling the "good stuff" are lifting the bark from the cambium layer without going through it into the pith and removing the growth buds with cambium on them without a slice of pith. If you grab your budding knife, razor blade or whatever you're going to use and then start performing surgery on rubbish to practice, it'll help you determine when the sap is sufficiently flowing so the bark slips (separates) from the pith easily and how to do the operations without destroying the cambium. That's the bright green, juicy layer between the bark and the pith. It's the circulatory system of the plant and the tissue that differentiates, calluses and either becomes roots when rooting or knits the bud to the stock. I don't know of any which are more successful being budded, but if you start with larger buds, they're generally easier to hold on to. You want to match the width of the bud to the width of the stock. Putting a large HT bud on an eyebrow pencil gauge stock won't work. The curve of the bud has to fit the curve of the stock for best results. With practice, you'll find you can do all the things everyone tells you won't work, but to start out, doing those which are most likely to succeed will feed your confidence until you feel comfortable experimenting. I always try to stack the deck in favor of success first so you'll gain that confidence quickly and begin doing all the "Dr. Moreau" stuff when you feel ready. If your cuttings are thinner, look around for canes of those you might want to replicate and see what you can find that pretty much matches the same gauge or thickness. You'll be surprised how small a bud you can use and have it work. You can also try grafting pieces of stem to them as that also works. That's how mini trees are made as they have such small buds, using a piece of stem with buds is much faster, easier and has greater chances of success. Sequoia used to graft the stem pieces to the stocks then root them under mist so all the operations were accomplished at one time and all growth and knitting occurred simultaneously. It was fascinating to a newbie as I was when Ralph showed that to me. Feel free to play with Purple Buttons if you'd like. I'm glad she's working for you. I love the scent and color of that one. Thanks. Kim

Theoreticaly, you could be right. However, some viruses may induce mutations. Phyllody can be viral or other phytoplasmic infection. Most mutations are degenerative. Not all, but most. Climbing mutations often are degenerative in bloom production compared to their original bush forms. Frequently, they are once flowering and require selection to sort out those which repeat. Cl. Iceberg is an excellent example. When first released, there were several strains of the climbing form, many of which didn't repeat and some which didn't flower much at all. Of course people wanted the more continuous, heavier flowering version and that's what has become the standard in commerce. Kim Here is a link that might be useful: Phyllody

I am sure this rose is going to be popular. You have something to look forward to!! Bright almost fuchsia pink flowers. Flexible canes that are easy to train and complete resistant to both blackspot and mildew. Leslie: it is very thorny but I did not notice the thorns in pairs on the picture. Mostly they are singles. It has been completely resistant to blackspot and mildew and I have not sprayed it (no need to). Here is a picture of the leaves in the spring before it bloomed(it has grown a lot since then and gave a good fall flush): I do not know how high this rose can grow. In Germany in Sparrieshoop at the Kordes Headquarter they grow them on the walls and here Laguna looked like this(lots of flowers and buds!!!: So I would think it can reach about 12 feet: The flower starts cupshaped and develop into a rosette. To see more pictures of this rose see these links since very few pictures exists online: Onewheeler posted a picture of this rose in this thread (copy and paste to adress bar to see): http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/rosesant/gal0908294816393.html And Ceterum from this forum also posted a picture of Laguna in this thread: in the link below Here is a link that might be useful: Ceterums Picture of Laguna