I dug up an old literature of a rose society and folks report that they deepened the pink hue of cut roses by putting sugar in the vase. So I did that to pink Sonia Rykiel and Pink Evelyn, by watering them with molasses & a bit of vinegar. And their color became deep in the August heat. I stopped that experiment since the sugar attracted rose slugs, and the bush became a BS-fest (sugar & vinegar made my soil too acidic).

Most tap water has hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide) added. When I water my roses with tap water, the color is more faded, thanks to the lime. With rain water, the color is deeper. And when I added molasses (high in iron), the color is even deeper. Below is Evelyn (normally light pink) but became dark pink when I watered with 1 teaspoon molasses per gallon of water, plus a bit of acid for my high pH water (over 8.5):

Question for Jim: When you bought 3 roses from Roses Unlimited recently, how much shipping & handling charge you paid, also what's the TOTAL COST of the 3 roses, including shipping & handling charges. The cost seems higher this year, so I check with you 1st.

How pH and phosphorus affect the color of hydrangea

Hi Terri (treehugger): Forget to add that high phosphorus soil shift blooms to the red-zone, and high aluminum soil shift blooms to the blue-zone. To make pink color deeper, compost is good. Compost is high phosphorus and trace elements. I looked over my pic. of roses mulched with cocoa mulch, and notice that they ALL have deeper colors, thanks to phosphorus & potassium & many trace elements in cocoa mulch. Molasses has soluble phosphorus & potassium & calcium and iron. Too acidic soil, or too alkaline soil are deficient in phosphorus & zinc, thus less blooms and faded color. The addition of garden lime also bleach out the color, calcium binds with phosphorus & trace elements and make them less available. That's why I no longer use gypsum (calcium sulfate) to break up my clay, not only the scent is lessened, the color is also faded. I find that organic matter neutralize soil pH best.

I repost the composition of cocoa mulch below:

ANALYSIS OF COCOA MULCH with NPK of 2 / 0.2 / 3, pH 5.4, data below are in mg/100g

Total N % 3.0

Total C % 43.0

Phosphorus 1000

Potassium 3251

Calcium 575

Magnesium 488

Iron 140

Manganese 9

Zinc 11

Copper 3.5

Nickel 1.0

Here you go Straw! Ordered these in November of 2014 to be delivered May of 2015

Prairie Harvest @ $17 Earth Song @ $17 Easy Does It @ $18 total amount for roses - $52 Shipping - $16 P&H - $5 Total amount due by money order - $73

GW made me change my username? Hate this new format! lol

Thank you, Jim, I misunderstood RU's booket, I thought they meant $16 P & H, then add $5 for shipping per rose on top of $16 .. WHEW! $21 shipping isn't too bad. I like Houzz new format, it's cozier, plus really easy to insert a link anywhere, and it's easy to edit: just click on the tiny pencil on upper right corner. Plus I like how they put similar posts on the right hand side, so people can reference similar posts in the past . I appreciate Terri (treehugger) questions, since I wondered the same in the past.

The bright white background seems to hurt my eyes terrible so I haven't been able to read many posts today... That's going to be a problem for me... :-(

I used my credit card so they charged me an extra $5 for that so actually my total was $78

There's a small button in front of the computer screen (on older models), or one get into control panel (in the Start program) to control the brightness of the display, so it's less bright. When I was overdosed in calcium (from my hard water, my eyes were sensitive to bright light). Now I take magnesium, to balance out the calcium-overload, and I'm less sensitive to light.

Great idea Straw! That helped! I was freakin blinded by houzz...lol

I got my name back... lol... I went to your Houzz at the top right of the page. Clicked on Edit Profile then in my first name space I typed in jim1961 zone 6a Central pa. then hit update... :)

Thanks for the tip, Jim, I'm getting to like Houzz, save me time in posting. Gardenweb was a nightmare with all the green-inserted character, posting was a real-pain.

I could not get on Houzz yesterday at all as everytime I tried computer would lock up on this site. I had no trouble with my other sites... And I kept getting emails to register again... :-/

Hi Jim: Those e-mails are SO ANNOYING !! I got a message "Please confirm your e-mail" every time I logged in, just because I changed my e-mail in Houzz. So I e-mail Houzz at support@houzz.com, and that was fixed. If you e-mail Houzz at Noreply@... , your e-mail won't go through. Houzz CANNOT accept old-user-name, until it's followed by _gw, like strawberryhill_gw, which is too long, so I changed mine completely to strawchicago. When the e-mail address, or username is changed more than once, Houzz keeps sending annoying message. One needs to e-mail Houzz at support@houzz.com, and that will be fixed.

Oh ok thanks Straw! lol I could not even get the site to open yesterday but it's working fine today....

Pat at Roses Unlimited is very nice, she cleared up the shipping confusion, by listing an example for CA, where the shipping charge is $8 for each additional rose, rather than $5 to my zone 5a, Chicagoland. Here's what Pat of Roses Unlimited e-mailed me:

"I will list the cost for CA just to show how it works-

1-2 roses - Minimum $22

3 roses - $35

4 roses - $35

5 roses - $40

After 5 roses the charge goes back to $8 per plant which was the same as last season so for 6 roses, it would be $48." Pat of RU.

*** From Straw: For my zone 5a, IL, shipping cost would be:

1-2 roses: Minimum $16

3 roses - $26

4 roses - $26

5 roses - $31

After 5 roses, the charge goes back to $5 per plant, which will be 5 x 6 = $30 for 6 roses. So if someone buy 6 roses, then one gets the best deal in shipping. It's still confusing to me, since Pat gave me the breakdown for CA, and I had to figure out the break-down for my Illinois, which is east of Miss, River, with minimum of $16 shipping charge. Roses Unlimited is out of Young Lycidas, so I'll wait until next year to place an order. Pat also inform me that Boscobel won't be available next year, since it takes a few years before David Austin releases new roses.