Bourbons are a lot on my mind recently. The flowers can be so beautiful, but I am wondering if perhaps they can't handle my gardening conditions (basically plants must rely on rainfall after their first year,because I don't have running water out there). One of my first roses was Mme Isaac Pereire, and it was wonderful, in spite of being planted in poor soil. But it died off. I made the mistake of planting other roses near it, for one thing,so I guess the poor soil couldn't support more than the one plant. But also, Global warming began to accelerate: summers became hotter and hotter,drier and drier. Back in the "olden days", here in Tuscany,June would be very warm, sure, but not ghastly,and we used to get generous thunderstorms back then on a fairly reliable basis. Then, maybe for the month of July and the first half of August, it'd be hot, with no rain,but after August 15th the rains would begin to return.Now, it gets hot in April-the sun itself is SO much hotter than it was before!-and even as I write, we have droughty conditions: there's been no real rain for almost a month. So I wonder if these circumstances had something to do with MIP's demise as well.Other Bourbons that I've tried increase my doubts: one Louise Odier, planted in part shade, is doing well with no fuss. Another one died-I think the spot in which I'd planted it has become too exposed to sun. I have 3 Zephirine Drouhins,none of which has greatly impressed me ,except for the fact that all of them do seem to be hanging in there. I am trying to improve conditions for them,since I suspect that either by some wierd chance I put them all in unusually poor places, or else Bourbons just are more picky than other types of roses. Then, there are 3 modern Bourbons that puzzle me as well: Florence Ducher ,Hommage à Soupert et Notting,and Charles XII. All three seem to have problems producing good quality flowers. I don't know the terms to describe these half-aborted blooms; sort of a mix of bull heads ,proliferation,ruined-by-thrips look.Again,is this just overly poor soil? Lack of maturity of the plant? It just seems weird that ,back when I was a beginner, with no experience or particular care,my MIP did so well, and now there seem to be so many issues with this one particular category of rose. And, btw, these modern Bourbons that I have are all doing pretty well as plants, it's just they can't flower well, whereas the old Bourbons seem to struggle more as plants, yet do produce nice flowers! Strange, no? I'll probably fool around with this issue for a couple more years, seeing if improving conditions a bit makes enough of a difference -if not I guess I''l just have to resign myself to the idea that maybe Bourbons just aren't suited to my garden.

So glad you finally got some blooms on that wisteria (was it the one that was barren for years?). Not sure what variety mine is (wasn't aware that there were quite a few!) but it has lovely dark blue flowers & heavenly aroma!! I have one I have trained as a tree form (it is about 50 yrs. old), a newer one I trained to grow across the top of the chain link fence. The other tree form was next to a porch post & had grown around & twisted the post so had to cut it down. It was the neighborhood beauty when the top was in full bloom! The cut base now is trying to put out more shoots so we have kept just one to train -away from the post- & let it grow away from the house & up the trunk of a near-by tree!(we may find THAT a mistake later on though?!). Seems wisterias do well with little care... & sometimes with no care at all ... or being ignored! Can be trained to different styles too.

Hi, and how wonderful it must be for you to be back in the garden after so long, a marvelous place to recuperate and I hope that all is well with you. Your garden sound terrific and it seems you have done your research well in choosing all your roses, which I find is very hard to do as there are so many out there. I like your whites, I have no luck with my Iceberg as it always has pink streaks in it, so this season I bought Edelweiss so I will see how that goes. I also liked the look of Princess de Monaco but it was not avaible where I ordered my roses this year, so I settled on Joy of Life mainly because of the big blooms and the colour which was white to light pink heavely flushed with red just so different so I will see how it goes, have you seen it, it is nothing like the pics on the websites. You have so many pretty roses and whatever you choose will look terrific. I will certainly go along with you in that "Rain Dance" as it is very dry here in Brissie too as the main dam is down to 30% and the others are all below 50% so heres hoping that all of Australia gets heaps more rain but in smaller doses. And good luck with your garden and may your roses blooom forever. Cheers..MM

This is a "GardenWeb" discussion, so I'll suggest Yew Dell Botanical Gardens just outside Louisville in Oldham County. It's on the National Register of Historic Places and was just featured in Southern Living as one of the must-see Botanical Gardens in the South. http://www.southernliving.com/travel/southern-botanical-gardens#yew-dell-botanical-gardens-crestwood-kentucky Also, feel free to drop in my little hometown of Midway, half-way between Lexington and Frankfort on the way to/from Louisville. It's in the middle of horse country, and it has a great historic downtown built on the rail line. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g39658-d4757865-Reviews-Downtown_Midway_Kentucky-Midway_Kentucky.html