I'm enjoying reading about your culling! I'm new to this in the last few years, but right now I'm trying to view every new purchase as a "possible" rose--even if I think it may take 5-7 years to figure it out. I think I'm only looking for a dozen or so roses that do really, really spectacularly in my gardens and the rest I plan to cull. thinking about that up front I'm not sure I'm as emotionaly attached to individual plants as some of you. I wish there were a bunch of people near me with vast amounts of local knowledge to just TELL me what does well here, but there doesn't seem to be so it's up to me to figure it out. I suspect some of you more experienced growers are thinking yeah, yeah just you wait. BUT I'm not a "collector" of much of anything. (My husband would say I collect horses, but as long as I technically have fewer horses than stalls he's got nothing!) I don't collect do dads, or books or early 19th century thingamabobs. I'm not interested in "specimen gardens," that's just not my thing. When I close my eyes and visualize my perfect garden it's a garden that has a hand full of roses placed for a spectacular show when they are "on" then playing a supporting, structural role when they aren't. It's not a rose garden, but a garden with roses. They just have to be the *right* roses.

Joe: By pugging I mean to "top" it to force lateral branching at a early stage (to give a more compact, rounded plant with better horizontal branching). I would cut it where that new flush started. The nodal space is nice and tight right below it and it would most likely give you a good three initial branches. As for the mulch, the crown should not be covered (by dirt/soil or mulch) and the mulch should not be touching r that close to the trunk. They should have given you their instruction sheet which states not to cover/bury the crown (don't remember the exact language they use). If you need one I can scan it to you. Rob

These are some great stories. I'd like to share mine, since I think that it's pretty interesting. I met my husband over the phone. I was working at a new job after being unemployed for 8 months. I worked in the order dept for a very respected publishing company, taking phone orders. Since I was so elated to be working again I tended to be extremely pleasant and helpful in those early days so when I received a call from StonyBrook University's bookstore inquiring about one of their orders instead of transferring the call to customer service ( as we were supposed to do) I checked the status of the order myself & told the guy on the other end of the phone that it had shipped out about a week ago. Since Stony Brook Univ is about an hour away from our distribution center I was a bit baffled as to why they hadn't received the books yet. He asked how the books had been shipped and I replied "by armadillo?". He howled with laughter. We spoke again a few more times in the course of the regular order pool, then he started asking for me exclusiveley and after hours of conversations at work (it's a wonder that my co-workers never ratted me out) we started calling each other at home. Now, these marathon phone calls took place over the course of a year. The subject of appearance never came up, nor did the fact that both of us were currently involved in long term relationships (I was dating the world's biggest loser- gorgeous as anything but the "honey can you bail me out of jail 'cause I've got two simultaneous warrants for my arrest in two different counties" kind of loser.) So after a year and countless hours on the phone I was going out to Stony Brook to visit a dear friend and my phone pal, Bill, suggested that we meet for a drink. I offered to stop by the bookstore to find him. I had a vision of being able to spot him immediately in spite of having no idea what he looked like. I was crazy about this guy already and was convinced that I would just "know. Well. For starters once I arrived on campus I couldn't find the bookstore. Nor could I find anyone that could tell me where the bookstore was. Panicked that the store would close before I could get there, I found a payphone & called. I told Bill where I was, he told me to sit tight & he'd come find me. You need to picture this. It was 1992. I'm sporting an impressive black mohawk, multiply piereced ears, skull buckle boots, head to toe black. In strolls the early 90's equivalent of James Hetfield from Metallica, complete with long hair & impressive fu manchu moustache. SO not my mental image of my phone pal and so, so not my "type". I was devastated. You have to understand that at the time I was very, very superficial & most likely would never even have spoken to my now husband, much less dated him. Still, the evening went well once I got past his looks (I was such an idiot) and I figured that I wouldn't hold that against him (a pompous idiot). We went onward to my friend's house...who had just taken a home pregnancy test & greeted us waving the urine dipped stick. It was positive & she was delighted. Bill never batted an eye at the antics of my delirious friend, just took it all in stride. So I called him about a week later at home. I figured that there was no reason he & I couldn't continue our friendship even though he wasn't my type. He was very odd on the phone, very distracted & almost disinterested and it ocurred to me...much to my horror...that maybe he had a problem with MY appearance! How dare he! I was livid. I found out later that he was so distant over the phone because his GF of a bout 2 years was there, wanting to know who he was talking to, who I was, etc. A couple of months later he calls me at work & we pick up as if we'd never stopped. The marathon phone calls resumed & when I'd go out to visit my now very pregnant friend, he'd stop by her place as well. Still friends, still chatting, nothing else. By this time we had both shed our respective (in)significant others, though. We had our first real "date" in July...a friend's wedding in Buffalo where Bill told me that he never wanted to get married & I said I had no intentions of doing so either... & he asked me to marry him on Christmas eve. We'll have been married 13 years this March and I thank God every day for how lucky I am. The funny thing is that I come from a very, very old country Italian family. My father died when I was very young but my mother is very traditional & old fashioned. She is anti long hair on men, anti tattoo and definitely anti motorcycle but thinks that the sun rises & sets on my husband. After years of her absolutely forbidding me to learn to ride a motorcycle she was delighted when I got my license after Bill & I got married & thinks that it's wonderful how the two of us share that. I'm convinced that after the parade of freaks I brought through her house she was so ecstatic to see me end up marrying someone that was intelligent and respectful she didn't care how long his hair was. But she adores him as he does her and I'm very fortunate for that as well :-). Nina

Thank you, Jo! I'm definitely impressed with Cold Heart's growth, especially when so many I planted last year either croaked or came up MUCH smaller than they went in. I'm trying to switch to pine straw this year for mulch but it's looking more and more like I'm going to have to go with the red mulch again. Everybody's out of pine straw. Love the color of the red stuff but the pine straw is so much healthier for the Hostas as it breaks down.