Thanks Carol - they all just took a bit of a beating with heavy rain and pea-sized hail - lots of petals decorating the lawn!

Sorry dearest Lozza, not good enough, I already have a 203cms breeder with a 201cm son and 182cm daughter, and lots of vigourous and healthy sports! Good to hear you are vigourous,but creaky? I have that too! As to Kilos have about 130 kilos for my breeders size, thats already too much for me.You were included in the Victorian era, woops.. area! OOh dear must stop laughing myself silly! [wiping tears off keyboard]

Oh Melda, aren't you too kind. You raise a sore point with breeders, a sport is not a bred rose. A sport is a spontaneous mutation of a rose that can happen naturally, or perhaps be induced with the use of certain chemicals. We "raise" sports. A "bred" rose has been selected from seedlings produced from cross fertilisation. But you are right, I discovered and named 'Alister Clark' to honour our most prolific rose breeder. Here's how it looked in 1990. Here is a link that might be useful: Alister Clark

Hi Roselady and Ozmelody, There is indeed a Roses in Oz forum; it's been pretty quiet around there for a while though - maybe you're not the only ones who couldn't find it after the move to Houzz... If you go up to the top of this page, click on Garden Forums (in green writing) and you'll see 'Roses in Oz' in the alphabetical list. (There are other topics that might be of interest under 'Australian Forums' (?) in the same list.) I don't use it much because it seems to me to be mostly about modern roses which don't interest me so much - no reason why that can't change though... Just in case you're not aware of them, there are also loads of really knowledgeable and helpful people on the 'Antique Roses' and 'Roses' forums, many of them gardening in very similar climates, eg in different parts of California. They're both in the alphabetical list, with links between the two. Hope this is of some help. Comtesse :¬)