Ingrid I'm so happy that 'Jessica' is beginning to step up to the plate! She has always been a lovely rose in PDX, and I'll be very curious to learn the extent of her suitable environments. Your garden has become quite the backyard laboratory. I hope the rose breeders are paying attention. (Are you reading this, rose breeders?) I predict your culling of the herd may lead to the creation of some really durable and beautiful cultivars. In my eyes, your garden is a little slice of Provence--hot, arid, rocky, fragrant, and filled with the watercolored hues of roses and other flowers which are tough but have a delicate charm. When I think of the bucolic south of France, I always think of agriculture, antiques, and lace curtains. Your roses remind me of strong and beautiful 19th century farm wives who rose at sunup, milked the cows, pitched the hay, baked the bread, and repaired the tractor all while clothed in quaint, colorful fabrics. When they retired, they raised their windows to the cooling night air and handwoven lace danced like petals on the breeze. Who says you can't be sweet, pink, fluffy, fragrant and tenacious? Thrive, Ingrid's roses! Does lavender like your climate? Do you like lavender? I keep envisioning lavender on your hillside. More of my France colored glasses, I suspect. I've tried to grow Lavandula 'Goodwin Creek Grey' several times to no avail. Sigh. Gosh, this turned into quite a prolonged short reply. I was just going to jot down something like "sending thoughts for 'Jessica' to grow 3 more inches tomorrow"! I guess I got carried away to Europe. Carol This post was edited by PortlandMysteryRose on Thu, Jun 20, 13 at 5:28

Kevin, your garden is looking great! I think a good harvest is coming up your way, gardening is like playing music, the more you played the better you get. The plants that I thought will be a problem with the hurricane they were fine and I lost others instead that were well established, overall the garden survived the weather. The tomatoes took a beating with the wind more the potato leaf varieties but they kept all the fruit. My banana with a fruiting branch was not so lucky and went to the floor, I can at least use the bananas because they were almost ready anyway. Lost the plumeria that was next to the tomatoes and here are some and how they look today that is sunny. Silvia

Best season opener in years. And I like the cast, I can already tell most of them apart, even if I can't remember all the names yet.

I loved all my alba roses. I used to garden in zone 4b Ontario and did find survivor roses locally; one a wilding presumed rosa carolina plena, but spread about by humans so you'd often find it on deserted homesteads as well as along roadsides and ditches. Another rose I saw here and there in rural ontario was a presumed desiree parmentier; I had a completely untended wildly suckering patch of this rose, a very double very fragrant pink gallica, growing on the property of my first house; I brought some with me when i moved, so am likely responsible for another wildly suckering clump of fragrant pint roses. The gallicas are the other thing I miss down here, so bullet proof and dependable up north.