I see my rose has been given to the Burke family. I had an English teacher named John Burke in junior high. He was bald. If any boys dared to mention it, he went into a lousy temper tantrum and dragged them out into the hall, threw them down the stairs and off to the principal's office. He was completely crazy about it. Usually one boy a week. I don't know why so many boys took up the challenge. One day we were reading a story, and I was reading. The character was old and bald. I looked up to see him turning purple, but he managed to suck it in. I thought I was a goner as I read the word "bald." Mr. Burke held on working, until he got his pension. Unfortunately, he had a heart attack soon after. I was disappointed that his freedom from bald jokes was so short lived. I had a soft spot for him. My rose came from the Roseraie at Bayfield, grafted. It started throwing suckers off the graft, and I have been planning to throw away the original plant for a couple years. Having a lot of land there's plenty of room for suckers around here. Another thing that will happen, is there's so much cane loss, that they make themselves a new copy every couple years. The White Rose of York gets about five feet here but will probably go higher for you. It looks lovely there already. It won't bloom here until the fourth of July. Thanks so much for the pictures. I was glad to contribute. Deb

Get a free account at photobucket.com Follow their easy directions for uploading your pictures to photobucket.com Run your mouse under the selected photo and click on the HTML CODE. (Make sure it is the HTML CODE--the other codes won't work right.) Come back to this message box and paste the HTMLE CODE in the box. You can type before and after the picture or insert as many photos as you wish. Just press ENTER a time or two after each photo or message. Click on PREVIEW--that will let you see the pictures. You can make any corrections at that point. Hope that helps. Kate

Hi - We sell some old roses at the Sacramento Historic Rose Garden (Old City Cemetery) open garden every April - this year will be Apr 18th. Our usual college greenhouse hasn't been available so everybody's propagating at home (even Jeri is doing some for us) and our selection will be a bit random - lots of some varieties and not any of others. Hoffman von Fallersleben is one of our favorites and we usually have had it, since it's not widely in commerce, but this year I don't think anybody took cuttings of it. It would be great if you could come up for our open house, Masha, so long as you got home in time to get the guys into bed. We start at 9:30. You could bring the boys along - but they might get smeared with chocolate up here, because we usually have cookies and a very soft spot for little ones.(Daun's daughter had a cookie or two this year, I'm pretty sure.) Jeri's right about taking cuttings - it's just plain rude to do it in somebody else's garden without asking, whether or not it's public. We have roses that are diseased, or that we don't want cut for a variety of reasons. Very few of our roses are under patent, so that's not an issue, but it certainly would be at the Heritage or other public gardens. We also want people to use sterile pruners. And, we want to encourage people to buy from commercial vendors if roses are readily available. Our policy usually is that people who come help can take cuttings, but otherwise, it's on a case-by-case basis. Anita

My big zone push experiment is with Gooseberries and a Red Lake Currant. I discovered that the first two I planted are getting next to no sun, as soon as they go dormant, they are getting moved a couple of feet to where they can get some sun. The first gooseberry so far has grown but not set fruit but the currant had a few handfuls of tasty red berries this year. I have no expectations of huge crops, that handful made me happy. If I lived somewhere they grew I would probably be disappointed. Being in a zone they do not grow, I am happy. I think some times we have expectations that limit how much we will like a plant. If we are happy with a few blooms from a special rose, maybe it does not make a difference if we have to cover the ugly with companion plants. We might not want a garden filled with the ones that struggle. But if it is Mom's special rose, why not try it. As far as the garden and all the Austins, guessing those plants were all donated, Austin may hope that they do well and they can use that to sell more plants. Or if the first spring flush looks good, that is when they will sell tons of plants. If they later look rotten, chances are your average consumer is not going to take notes and they have already made the sales. I am going to order two plants I have been told will probably not like our garden. I figure it is a $25 lesson on garden zones and expectations. If they grow 1/3 of the typical size, I will be thrilled. I know that our lot has a variety of micro climates, so hoping they like the one I pick. Before I knew what rose it was, I moved a self rooted plant from a spot where it got a lot of radiated heat from a garage to what I thought should be a much better place. The other Iceberg roses loved it there, but this one plant turned in to a rusty mildew nasty looking thing....Guess that is the usual look for Simplicity, but the others are okay in that one special spot (not wonderful-but okay) Makes me wonder how many roses are considered great or bad depending on some minor micro-climate changes.