I just discovered that two of my grafted Brownell's which I have had for years have RMV....two Charlotte Brownells and one of my Rhode Island Red climbers. I have read somewhere that most of the grafted Brownells are virused, but I was hoping I would be one of the lucky ones. This will be the first incident of RMV ever for me. The sad thing is, both of my virused Charlotte Brownells have been the most productive bloomers of all my hybrid teas. For years they put all the others to shame. Since nothing is blooming here until next month, I don't know if the bloom quality will be the same but in terms of the bush and foliage they are growing vigorously and setting loads of buds. I know they will eventually start to decline, but so far, the only telltale sign was the leaf markings which are now fading into shiny green now that the weather has warmed up. If I hadn't seen the markings earlier I would never guess these were virused roses. The problem here in zone 4 is that these poor plants have a lot to face going into winter. Its hard enough on the healthy roses! I plan on keeping them just as they are until they look sickly. They have brought me years of pleasure so I will have a hard time parting with them. I don't believe they pose any danger to surrounding roses. Sorry about your Maria Stern. So far mine has not shown any signs, but I would not be too surprised if its just a matter of time. Celeste

Brilliant roseberri! lol. You just reminded my that I think I have some similar "hardware cloth" up in the shed! Good idea :) The beauty of it is, it doesn't matter how big the clems grow this year, as they are 1st and 2nd year clems and will be hard pruned next spring anyway. kentstar

A very beautiful tapestry of colors Msjam2! I actually love looking at your non-rose companions every bit as much as your beautiful roses, by the way. To me they are equally stunning!

When I used to root roses, the only way I could keep them watered was to keep them in a baby pool. The biggest issue I had was throwing other plants in with them that couldn't handle the wet as well as roses. They could go weeks sitting in water without issues. However, the usual routine was to put a couple of inches of water in the pool - enough that it would take about a day and a half to evaporate. Then let the pots dry out for a day, then put more water in the pool the next day. So I was watering about every third day. Since the pool wasn't on level ground, the roses got the low end, so the more sensitive plants could dry out faster.