Aimee, picking wasn't too hard. First I looked at what varieties that I can grow. The best ones, I hope, I found on Cliff's last two newsletters. Btw, he has a very nice newsletter, you can keep track of what's going on at the nursery through it and Cliff also offers tips. The ones that I'm most looking forward to are Rosarian Gregg Lowery, Night Sky, Cheeky Monkey, Mrs. Robinson and Lynnie. I don't have (and haven't been enamored of) singles but I think cute, small bushes with bright saturated colors that can be tucked in here and there as a surprise will be just the right way to start. For these, Aimee, you can't go too wrong with a floribunda, polyantha, china, or mini. Do you know yet if you have a problem with mildew? I would hope not in Canyon Country. I'm good at our mountain place so if something doesn't work out down below, I can always bring it up. Kim: 4x4 IS a mini in Calif. ;-) Jill, that's an excellent idea for all. I was just mentioning to another forum member that although I've been on a buying binge this year for reasons mentioned elsewhere, I do think trying to keep these nursery treasures in business is a good use of my 'pin' money as my aunt would say as well as some of my charitable funds. However, in my case charity really has begun at home since I've bought them all for myself (blush). Jill, can you tell someone who would like to donate roses to the rose garden how to find roses that you actually would want to plant rather than have them donated to a charity auction, if you even do that???

I like this kind of thread, and I've often thought about asking similar questions in this forum. My entire gardening life exists as a monument to family sentiment. My father's parents kept a large garden, right at the edge of the ocean, where they grew all kinds of things that conventional "wisdom" defines as being "unsuitable" for coastal conditions. If that sounds romantic, it wasn't. It was purely practical. They had both grown up during the depression, both the children of Northern European immigrants- they were frugal, to say the least. I don't keep a vegetable garden, but I can't eat a pea or a raspberry without thinking of my grandparents, and how much time they put into that garden all year long. They never looked at it as being a burden, or nuisance, or chore, the way so many people today seem to do (I just dont have the TIME-it's too much WORK). When I'm with my cousins, we ALL share very fond memories of time spent in that garden. But their flower garden is what I've tried to reproduce in my own life. They grew a great deal of flowers, the kinds of things you'd expect people of that generation to have had in their garden, and they ALL have sentimental value to me. I can never smell honeysuckle without thinking of the back porch, where we'd change out of our filthy clothes before being allowed to sit at the table for dinner. Or the sweet spicy smell of pinks, which grew along the river-rock steps to the front door. The sweet peas and Nasturtiums, which Papa grew as a curtain of curly tendrils climbing up the sides of the front porch. The yellow dahlias which I chose for Grammy at the garden booth of the County Fair when I was 5- which she ALWAYS referred to as "Zachy Dahlias". She kept those dahlias, or identical replacements, in that garden for the rest of her life. And of course they had a rose garden, where they grew 'Peace' and 'Tropicana' and 'Queen Elizabeth' (grown against an east-facing wall, to keep them out of the wind). I have all of these plants in my garden, (even 'Tropicana' whose color I LOATHE, but my mother gave it to me, because she remembered), none of them coming to me directly from their garden though. It's still there, even though they both died long ago. The family won't sell the land, but they also won't maintain it, so it's in a sorry state, and I'm the only one left in the area. I tried for years to keep it clean, but I decided instead to re-create that garden on my own land. And that's what I've spent the last 6 years trying to do. Every one of the plants I grow feels like an heirloom. I'm probably TOO sentimental, but like my Grandparents, I'm also practical. I'd rather grow roses in the present than sit around and cry for things that are gone.

Carol and Jess: I love the stories Carol shared. Thank you. There's a cardiologist, Dr. Maurice Rawlings, M.D. who wrote a book on NDEs. Most patients hate it when Dr. Rawlings applied electric shocks to revive them, except for this mail-man who screamed "Don't stop, I'm in hell." The experienced scared the doctor so much that he became a believer and wrote the book on NDE. Later on Dr. Rawlings (a Protestant) got to know a Catholic priest. The priest said, "Do you want to experience the holy spirit?" .. then the priest read a passage from the Bible, and Dr. Rawlings had the most hair-raising spiritual experience. Once a devout person "tune in" to God, the Holy Spirit leaves behind a "heavenly sense" that lasts forever, like the blessed rosary, or the powerful bible passage, or roses and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux's funeral. See below link: http://www.littleflower.org/therese/st-therese-faqs/ "Experience has shown that St. Therese's "shower of roses" is both figurative and actual. As she was dying in the convent infirmary, Therese could look out and see the rose bushes blossoming. She loved roses. She had thrown rose petals as a Child before the Blessed Sacrament. As she reflected on her quiet, hidden, and gentle life ending, she believed in faith that God had great things in store for her. She believed that her mission was only beginning as she entered the fullness of life with God. She explained: "After my death, I will let fall a shower of roses. I will spend my heaven doing good upon earth. I will raise up a mighty host of little saints. My mission is to make God loved..." Shortly after her death, the rain of roses began. Sometimes roses literally appeared, and sometimes just the fragrance of them. Cures of painful and fatal diseases and many other miraculous experiences were attributed to her intercession. "

@Mischievous Magpie (CO 5b) yeah. i just skipped over those parts. I liked the part ”PREPARING A BED FOR ROSES IS A LITTLE LIKE getting the house ready for the arrival of a difficult old lady, some biddy with aristocratic pretensions and persnickety tastes.” and then all the worrying about how difficult he expected rose growing to be…and the history…and then how blown away he was when his first blooms appeared. Been there, done that. I do find that roses are sensual, in that they stimulate te senses: sight and smell of course, but also touch (thorns), taste (if you go there), and to a lesser extent sound (bees). But I wouldnt go into the areas that he does. i assumed he wrote those few paragraphs to get a rise out of people (no pun intended) or to get a chuckle. Or maybe just as an illustration of how deeply people get into their rose obsession.