Maybe 12 years ago, I wrote the article linked below. The 3. at the end is a foornote to the 3 after susceptibility. George Mander "has made arrangements with a wholesale rosegrower, Jan Verschuren, to graft his budwood on R. canina. Jan prefers R. canina currently. R. canina is what was used there before WW2. The original canina was notorious for suckering. There are new canina selections since then. R. canina cv. "Inermis" is the most widely used variety. Much less suckering takes place, but it still suckers. R. canina cv."Heinsohn's Rekord" is regarded as the very best for Hybrid Teas (Jan agrees out of experience). R. corymbifera cv. "Laxa" or R. dumetorum cv. "Laxa" is more and more being grown on Europe's mainland. It was always used as a rootstock for Great Britain only. Because it suckers little and is, therefore, a cheaper way of growing roses, the mainland now also grows more and more on Laxa. However, Laxa is not as winterhardy as R. canina. For treeroses, R. canina cv. "Pfander" is the best one (his family has a well established R. canina cv."Pfander" weeping treerose of The Fairy in their garden at home surviving at some -24 degrees C unprotected, its budunion up in the air). Cheap fast production for big box stores has opened a market for multiflora cutting rootstocks for treeroses in Holland, but they have little winterhardiness. He also points out that R. multiflora is softer and the grafts a little more likely to be weak during the first year (Brad had one of George's Canadian White Star break right at the bud union; it can happen in a strong wind). Multiflora is much faster in production, but has a shorter lifespan than canina. Brad's experience is roses grafted on R. canina suckered freely and didn't produce as many basal shoots as R. multiflora or own-root roses. However, Jan points out that multiflora was shipped to Sweden because they had guaranteed snow cover in their winters. All other parts never wanted multiflora because of its frost susceptibility 3. Obviously, there is great debate going on here concerning the relative merits of various rootstocks." "3. This has always been a hot topic for Jan. Another former local grower here lost his crop on multiflora when temperatures went down to minus 24 degrees C. "I should have put more straw on" was his thinking... Jan hills up his budunions in fall and sleeps easy, even with minus 24. In his opinion, multiflora is never as winterhardy as R. canina selections are. As his father mentioned when he said to him that all growers use multiflora in Canada. " What?! Are they backward there?" The name Verschuren is closely related to rosegrowing in Holland. They are rootstock specialists. They produce seed, stratify and produce rootstock (about 6,000,000/ yr); and are only a medium size rootstock grower! Combined with Germany and the huge rosegrowers, competition is immense. Out of the competition, the best emerges because of the scale in which things are done there. The scales are different in Canada: here, rose production is done on a hobbyfarm basis. Multiflora is easy to grow; that is why it is used here; that is Jan's conclusion. When he met Otto Palleck, the just retired Ontario rosegrower, Palleck said, "What? You grow on canina? That is the best rootstock there is, but we cannot get No.1 quality here...." That was most likely not his only problem, as seed germination with canina requires 2 years of stratifying. Brian Minter told Jan initially when he started out doubtfully here with canina rootstock, "Do the best you can and grow the best product possible, and you will succeed" Now, Jan has customers who are coming back raving to buy more. His treeroses did not blink their eyes at the cold last winter." Here is a link that might be useful: A Visit with B.C. Rosemen

What size pots and how, many? Do you mind if they are used? Will you pay just for the postage, I am not in business, just want to help out a new friend. I have extra 2" and 3" I have been called rude I hope you don't so, being that I approched you. I get them from a place here in So.Calif. I don't know what they charge for shipping. If you need new ones here is where I get mine McConkey Co 1800 426-8124 I don't know if they sell to the public, I have a Calif. Los Angeles number. I hope I am not doing anything wrong by giving you this phone number, this is a strange list, and I walk on egg shells here. Crasulady2

I love hanging/cascading/pendent plants as well. Here's one of my favorites... The photo doesn't do it justice! During summer I only water it twice a week at night. First I quickly hit the tree with the hose and then I water the rest of that section of the garden. When I'm finished I connect the hose to the polytubing at the base of the tree. I turn the hose on and leave it running for around 20 or so minutes. But for the rest of my trees I don't bother with a drip system. I can easily water all the orchids on them with the hose. None of my other trees are three stories tall. Regarding your scarcity of suitable hosts... I think that quite a few trees can easily be grown from fairly substantial cuttings. The next time you lop a large branch off a tree... stick it in a pot and see what happens. Yesterday I took a pretty large branch from each of these three trees... - Plumeria - Privet - Mulberry ... and stuck them all in the same 5 gallon pot with some reasonably well drained mix. Plumerias can definitely grow from fairly large cuttings. Pretty sure the same is true of the Privet. Not sure about the Mulberry though. Plenty of Ficus are more than happy to grow from large cuttings. My uncle recently told me that Moringa can grow from large cuttings and it's a really fast grower. Lots, if not all, tree Aloes can be grown from large cuttings. Same with Aralias, Pachiras, Cordylines, Dracaenas and Yuccas. Last year I lopped some branches off my Mexican Palo Verde. I stuck the two largest ones in pots. Right now the branches are as green as when I potted them... but they haven't sprouted yet. I'm pretty sure that pomegranates can be grown from large cuttings. I've definitely grown grapes from large cuttings. I've also grown Bougainvilleas from large cuttings. Same with the Cup of Gold vine. If you search eBay for pre bonsai, lots of them have probably been grown from cuttings.

Hiites, When you call, you probably will not speak with Linda herself but with one of the customer service reps. Linda and Vince always seemed to pride themselves on quality products AND quality customer service, and I am sure that is one thing that has not changed since Vince's death. By the way, Vince Sapp introduced one of my all-time favorite tomatoes--Black Cherry--and it was just a year or two before he passed away. I have always loved cherry tomatoes, both to toss into salads and to eat by the handful while working in the garden (this is possible in my organic garden since I don't spray my plants with chemicals). However, since I started dehydrating them a few years ago for wintertime salads, I have gained a whole new appreciation for the entire category of bite-sized tomatoes, including cherry, grape, small pear and currant-sized ones. In the beginning of my dehydrating experience, I dried paste tomatoes (often Principe' Borghese) to use in recipes that called for sun-dried tomatoes. Then I dried some cherry types to throw (like raisins) into winter salads and those were fine. THEN, this past winter, I started rehydrating the small tomatoes in water and then eating them......and it was almost like having a tomato fresh from the garden. So, this year I must have lots of cherry, grape, small pear and currant types so I can dehydrate oodles more. And, of course, since dehydrating the small ones is working so well, I want to dehydrate more of the larger ones. It is just that it takes a lot longer to dehydrate larger tomatoes. Dawn