Lux, you've put a lot of work and information into this essay. Your talk will be wonderful, I'm sure. I do nearly everything that Cass tells me to do, but I'm not going to run out and plant a California wild rose into my garden. My friend Bill planted one in his garden and found it popping up all over the place. Took him years to eradicate it. I'm content to admire California wild roses in the wild or in somebody else's collection. I do, however, grow several species at home, including R. glauca, R. eglanteria (rubiginosa), and one of the double moschatas. So far, none have colonized very much. In the cemetery, R. roxburghii plena is one of the most beautiful and long-blooming roses in our garden. Worthy of mention, for its spiny sepals, beautiful flowers and interesting foliage. A rose that may be a cinnamomea has an incredibly colorful fall foliage and hip display. The species truly can be beautiful and garden-worthy, although usually one must have the space for them. Love your description of the alba leaves as shorn teal velveteen. The preferred terminology is "Scots" rose, not "Scotch," according to Peter Boyd when he came to speak a couple of years back. His wife Evelyn described the "tsunami of scent" from their collection. We've planted a couple of spins in the cemetery, including a single cream variety from Vintage, and have been pleased by how pretty its bloom was this year and how many visitors commented on it. I know that you targeted this to Jeri and Cass, but it was fun to read it - thanks. Anita

Shopshops, we have not had much of a problem with grasshoppers. In fact, I rarely see them. Even one recent year when it was announced that it was a particularly "bad" year for them, I think we saw perhaps a half dozen over the course of the entire gardening season. My thought is that the garlic oil in the spray we routinely use and our occasional and judicious use of both diatomaceous earth and Neem oil has been effective at keeping them at bay. I understand that they can be a huge problem and I've read reports that Nosema locustae is effective but it also kills crickets (perhaps not a bad thing) and praying mantises - a bad thing. A couple of friends who have had issues with grasshoppers used permethrin and carbaryl and they both felt those chemicals helped. Neither of them raved however. The major problem of course is that neither chemical is safe for bees or fish, and even if it was sprayed before the bees came, I'm not certain if it is safe for bees once it has dried (the way Neem is). If this is a huge problem for you, it will likely take a combination of methods of control. One thing we always do is cultivate around the plants in fall to expose any eggs of grasshoppers and other pests. While they can overwinter if they are protected under the soil, once the soil is disrupted, if they are exposed, they won't survive freezing temperatures. The one other thing that I researched but didn't try (didn't need to) is cilantro. They notoriously dislike cilantro, and spraying a strong cilantro tea is reported to be an excellent repellant. Planting marigolds, which we do to repel a variety of pests also can help. Another suggestion that was bandied about at a garden meeting a few years ago was the use of flour to dust plants. If you are going to dust, my feeling is that DE is worth the time and energy. The weather does an excellent job of controlling them at times. They are sensitive to too much and too little rain. One can always pray for a heaven-sent solution to the problem. Unfortunately, getting rid of the ones you have doesn't necessarily get rid of the problem - they are not at all territorial, in fact they are highly migratory.... a reason why spraying with garlic and/or cilantro on an ongoing basis would be a good idea.

Yes, and no. The "grand list" comes with a premium membership on Help Me Find. It permits you to look up the breeding and offspring of any cultivar listed on the site. WELL worth the annual cost. If you click on "lineage" tab at the top of the rose page, it will show you any information there about what created that rose. To the right top of the page, there is a tab which permits you to view all offspring listed for the cultivar (or species). This will allow you to see whether the rose has been used primarily for seed or pollen, or both, which can give you an indication of what might be the best way for you to use it. If no offspring are listed, it only means either no one has used it or they haven't shared the information. The alternative would be to try germinating seeds from all of your roses to see what comes up easily. Hip formation doesn't necessarily mean anything. Irish Elegance set hips like mad in my old garden, but NOTHING ever came up from any seed I planted from it. Some roses are fertile seed setters, some are totally infertile. The same goes for pollen. Tigris seems self infertile, as does R. Minutifolia. Pollinating Tigris with other pollen has resulted in a number of hybrids. Ralph Moore's Little Chief is extremely picky about what pollen it accepts, while its pollen will work on many roses. It's either try each rose you're considering; buy old volumes of Modern Roses and look up what might be there or buy a premium membership to HMF which is the easiest and most dynamic resource you can have. With any luck, you'll find some of the crosses you're considering have already been made and might even be available to you somewhere. Being able to "stand on the shoulders of those who've gone before" can save you a ton of time and work. Being able to see how well crosses you're considering turned out can also give you clues whether that's the direction you really want to go, also. Something you might consider, going back and crossing roses created many decades ago will put you smack in the middle of the disease and performance issues breeders of that time faced. You could easily have to repeat their decades of selection to weed out unwanted disease issues. Perhaps you should consider using some of the better, healthy minis and modern floribundas which have already been through the selection process and often represent, sometimes vast improvements on the roses you're considering. It's rather remarkable what can be accomplished using a good mini breeder with an OGR or older modern rose. Before you roll your eyes, consider that It's Showtime, Moore's HT, was a mini X Tea cross. He called it "A New Tea" for several years before it was sold and released. Creating parallel breeding lines, then bringing them together can also save you a lot of time. Minis are often much more fertile than many of the older Teas and HTs. Taking two, unrelated mini lines, crossing one with the Tea and one with the older HT you want, then taking the best of the results and crossing them together might give you much faster and better results than simply going the Tea X older HT cross. Very often the minis also bring in significantly greater health and vigor; improved rooting capabilities; improved own root performance as well as dwarfing the plants which is one of your goals. Once you obtain your premium membership, also take a look at some of Ralph Moore's other mini x OGR crosses. http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.17589.2 http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.25151.0 http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.25152.0 http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.19052.1 Then, look up Paul Barden as a breeder, click on "plants bred" tab and look at the amazing results he's had mixing up some of them. You're going to have a BALL! Kim Here is a link that might be useful: It's Showtime

"I have never seen a honeybee attracted to my tomato blossoms, but there is a big black bumblebee that I have seen several times visiting the tomato blossoms. It was on one of my Brandywines today, so I guess I can forget about saving a pure strain of seed from that plant." [Californian said in the Original Post] Californian, I have never seen a honeybee visit a tomato blossom either. I think that's because there is no nectar to attract the honey bee. Like you, I have seen bumblebees frequent tomato blossoms, and I think that's because the bumblebees use the pollen as a protein source. It's curious to me how the bumblebees approach a tomato blossom. In my garden, I haven't seen them crawl all over the blossom like they do on some of my other veggies and herbs. They just seem to buzz in for a moment and do their thing, then buzz off to visit another tomato blossom on the same plant or a nearby plant. If you look quickly and really close, you can see the bumblebee pull the flower down into a vertical position, puts its belly against or very near the stigma protruding from the anther cone, and buzz its wings causing a pollen release to fall onto the bee's fuzzy, statically charged belly. Hortist, another member who contributes here, once posted a really neat picture of a bee collecting tomato pollen in this fashion. It may have been a bee other than a bumblebee ... like maybe a halcid bee ... but the picture was facinating. Maybe he'll post it again. If you are really concerned about the absolute purity of your seed, you may bag them as suggested, or you may emasculate blossoms prior to their opening and hand pollinate those stigmas with anther cones harvested from the same or another plant of the same variety. Either way, tag the blossoms you intend to let mature into seed fruit. Bill