Cripes do I ever hate Yahoo mail. After deleting the spam, the porn, the Nigerian scams, the other nonsense, if I left any of the messages that should have gotten thru I'm always happy. Anyhow, I sent a response to the two who wrote and a better e-mail address. I think some of the e-mails didn't go thru for whatever reason. Do you mind re-sending them? This week is pretty hectic but the weekend or next week would work. The sooner the better if you want blooms this spring. I'm happy to give these away even tho I like them a lot. They're just too big for my space. The only one that actually grew to the size I thought it would was Dixieland Linda but I have so many other pink roses that I'll part with it. I can put James Galway there and it's got almost no thorns, so I'm happier with it. Did some more pruning this weekend. If you take Pleasantrie, which is quite nice, I hope you have a big space.

Most of the Austins are going to defoliate in a hot and humid climate without a regular spray program. When we were dry earlier this year, mine were fine, but once we were hit with rain and high humidity all but 4 of mine are now defoliated. The 4 that still have leaves are The Prince, Tamora, Sharifa Asma, and Jude The Obscure. These are not flawless leaves, but at least they are not naked. The Prince and Tamora look the best out of the bunch, but they've quit blooming. Jude isn't too bad and is still producing some blooms. These are all on fortuniana, so it's not the rootstock that is causing any weakness in the plant. To my knowledge no one is currently producing any Austins on fortuniana. I'm going to pull most of mine out, because I do not want to be involved in a spray program, but will probably hang onto the few decent ones for now. Abraham Darby blackspots badly, and his blooms tend to turn a yuckky brown. If he were sprayed, he has magnificent flowers. Thrips love Abe Darby. I'm going to plant some more chinas, and try a few polyanthas. Not all the polyanthas are great here either, but some are. Sandy

Hi Hu, Check out your local plant swap events if there’s any. We are fortunate to have San Antonio plant swap organized by Loreleicomal from Houzz Texas gardening twice a year at Rogers Park in balconies heights. There are still out of town plant folks that have been coming as far as Dallas and Galveston bringing all kinds of plants to trade or just giving away for fun. You are welcome to join. Check out the next swap in 2019 will be in April. Regards, Mamachile

Exactly bart bart. I used the term rambler when addressing the suggestion that Amadeus might need a support structure to not sprawl over the path. It was suggested to direct the rose growth over to a pergola located on the next path. Seeing as that structure is well over 10 feet away from newly planted Amadeus, the only type of rose that would grow such long canes is a rambler type. Which is why I said Amadeus isn't a rambler, and I am trying to grow it as a shrub of hopefully five-ish feet or so. Again, for me growing roses in pots isn't successful. They don't like it. As to them simply needing lots of plant food to succeed, I would suggest climate would also play into the situation. Here we have temperature fluctuations, going from well below freezing in winter, to extremely hot in summer, and yoyoing back and forth during the growing season. Rose roots in general perfer to be cool. They don't get that in pots. My style of gardening is to mimic nature in that I try to grow plants as naturally as possible. Supplemental watering is necessary during our hot, dry season, especially with the fast draining soil in my garden. However I use no chemicals at all. This does include synthetic plant food. However I will bend the no chemical plant food rule for the roses, occasionally. Certainly no other plant growing in my garden ever gets plant food added to the soil. They all grow well as is shown by the enormous weed pile accumulated this year. I will also state as shown above, most of my roses, and I grow over 100 plants, are doing very well. Therefore when one declines as Thomas Becket has, I want to know why. Hence this thread.