I agree with Donna re climbers. in the north their hardines should be considered; in the south their resistance to blackspot. In the second category (climbers for the south) Crepuscule, Jaune Desprez, Prosperity, Colette, Papi Delbard and Laguna worth testing. In the shrub rose category I recommend for testing Belle Epoque (Fryer), Floral fairy tale (Kordes), Folksinger (if it isn't already included), Irish Hope. In my garden these roses have either zero blackspor or minimal but Certaubly are better then Duchesse de Brabant. As always, YMMV.

Thanks for the kind words Hoovb and walkin. I too love pomegranate and we have three varieties, you just can't beat pom. jelly. I love high country gardens and have been ordering plants from them every spring for fifteen years. If you are in the high desert most of their selection should be great but we are lower and hotter and not all of it is good for us here but it never hurts to try something new out. At both our houses we started out with bad trees dirt with burmuda naturalized in it. Getting rid of that beast has been our biggest challange but is doable. If you have a running grass lawn changing over a section at a time might be hard but if it is a fescue it can be done that way. Make sure you have some negative space in your plan. If you end up with a solid glob of plants it won't be attractive. Lawn does the job in wet climates but in dry areas hardscape and gravel can do the same thing. If you do have a hard to get rid of grass like burmuda persistance is key. I've dug it out, covered with black plastic to exclude light, and sprayed with roundup. The main thing is to keep after it. Here's another pic of two great desert plants almost as showy as roses and more heat and drought tolerant, cassia nemophylla and penstemon parryi(and my daughter). Maria

Oops, sorry! I forgot to answer about rose hips. Flowering is ovulation. Hips are pregnancy. Everything in Nature is programmed to reproduce to perpetuate its species before it dies. When a plant flowers, it's simply trying to perpetuate its species. We dead head, cut off the spent flowers, to encourage the plant to continue ovulating in its attempt to reproduce. Most organisms won't continue ovulating when pregnant. What you want from the rose depends upon whether you let it form hips or not. Though I have no personal experience with this, it's often written that in more extreme climates, you permit the plant to form hips to help "shut it down", become more resistant to harsher, colder weather. I've been fortunate (at least to me) to not have lived and grown roses under those harsh conditions. Some write that allowing them to form hips during extremely hot conditions should help slow them down, reducing their water needs, during that extreme heat and water stress. Maybe, but hip formation also increases their water needs to form all that "fruit". It is fruit, distantly related to apples and some other stone fruit, and the hip flesh can be processed and used as people food. Ever notice teas and vitamins which contain "rose hips"? Yup, those. If you desire them for culinary purposes, do not use any systemics on the plants. There are enough toxins out there trying to poison you without your helping! If you want your roses to continue flowering as heavily as the conditions and their genes will allow, just remove the spent flowers as soon as they form and you are able. Allowing them to remain and begin setting hips would have no "benefit" that I can think of and the only down side would possibly be a reduction in their "beauty" to some and a possible slowing of their repeat flowering. If the rose is one whose hips are particularly attractive and you desire them for floral work or landscape ornamentation, let them form. If you want them to help feed the birds or other wildlife over winter, they're great for that purpose, too. Except, hips are VERY attractive to rats, mice and squirrels. If they are an issue where you are, be forewarned. If you are interested in raising new roses from seed, of course you want the hips as they contain the rose seeds. This is one of my seedlings. I have harvested the hips containing seeds from crosses on it I have deliberately made. I want to see if it makes decorative hips to add longer seasonal interest and perhaps provide self set seed to possibly raise to explore what else it may create. Knowing that helps provide information to possibly market it if it's found worthy, as well as direct me whether it is a worthy breeder. This is Basye's Legacy, a thornless, very healthy species hybrid which I've used for breeding. It is primarily once-flowering, though in this climate, it can provide later blooms. It is deciduous, leaving its autumn colored canes with its colorful hips. They look great in Thanksgiving arrangements. Gina's Rose, a Ralph Moore hybrid from Basye's Legacy. Gina repeats but she's also so outrageously fertile, she sets hips all over the plant which require frequent attention to prevent her from fruiting...if you want to prevent them. These are on one of my R. Minutifolia hybrid seedlings. They're pretty and it's rather remarkable it even sets hips and seed. I will raise some of them to see what else is possible from the cross. This is a sister seedling of the Minutifolia hybrid above. This one flowers all spring through fall and sets copious hips, containing very fertile seed. It is the seedling which has permitted second generation Minutifolia hybrids. These are some out back right now and they can be quite pretty. And, yes, you do see spider mite issues in some of the photos because they are an issue here. My conditions will not permit the use of oils of any kind or strength without high levels of foliage and cane burn. Add there are five small dogs of varying ages whose domain is shared by my roses and you can imagine the mess of oily, dirty dogs. Not to mention they eat everything. They LOVE rose hips as to them, they are tomatoes, their FAVORITE treat! I could wash the plants more regularly, but that also makes mud for them to run through, sit in, lay in and definitely walk into the house and on the furniture. If a plant contracts something worse, such as mealy bug, it is moved to an area I can keep the critters out of to be treated by more thoroughly washing until it's clean, when it is returned to its spot. So, if you want something from the hips, let them form. If you want more continuous flowering, remove them. Neither is "wrong" nor "harmful". It just depends upon what you want from the plant. Easy, isn't it? Enjoy!

Got curious about compost tea. This is the second time I checked. Early this summer time I spent 1 hour researching but was disappointed. Here's one link from United Kingdom on compost tea (unbiased, NOT sponsored by compost-tea industry): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardeningadvice/11121288/Compost-tea-does-it-really-work.html " What did they find? In a glasshouse study on lavender and choisya, none of the compost teas had any effect on growth or on susceptibility to botrytis (grey mould) or spider mites. Sometimes plants treated with compost tea were taller, sometimes they were shorter, sometimes there was no difference. Sometimes plants treated with compost tea were of higher quality, but often they weren’t, and treated choisya plants at one nursery were significantly worse. In short, the effects of compost teas were “extremely inconsistent”. Other links from U.S.A: http://www.walterreeves.com/landscaping/compost-tea-does-it-work/ From University of New Hampshire: https://extension.unh.edu/articles/Does-compost-tea-really-work From University of Vermont: http://www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/factsheets/composttea.html Excerpt from above link: " It’s not clear whether it’s necessary to aerate during compost tea production. Aeration can speed up the production time, but it may also add to equipment cost and complexity. There are claims that aeration helps kill off the organisms that can cause illness. Very few studies have compared aerated and non-aerated compost teas. Some recent research. A 2-year study by the Rodale Institute and Pennsylvania State University evaluated the use of aerated compost tea for disease suppression and crop stimulation in grapes, potatoes, and pumpkins. During year one, approximately 50% suppression of powdery mildew was observed in the compost tea treated grape plots. A slight reduction of gray mold, along with an INCREASE in the level of downy mildew, was observed in the compost tea treated plot during the first year at one of the vineyards. Compost tea failed to suppress powdery mildew on Howden pumpkins in year one, but reduced the number and size of pathogen colonies in year two. Compost tea did not reduce severity of late blight on Superior potatoes when disease was present in year two. " http://www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/factsheets/composttea.html *** From Straw: FOR ROSES, just spraying with alkaline tap water alone is enough to suppress mildew, as testified by Roseseek (Kim Rupert) in CA and rosarian Dave Boyd in HMF. For mildew, just plain tap-water spray (alkaline pH over 8) is enough to contain mildew, as rosarian Dave Boyd in a dry climate (only 13" of moisture per year) testified in HMF: http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=3.4748