Kim, on this new forum format, it is only possible to PM you if you are following that person (unless they already have your personal email). BTW, are you still going to be a So Cal guy? I hope so and wish you well on your move.

Hi Bonnie, thank you. SoCal? I think it's more Central California coast. Between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, Arroyo Grande, Pismo Beach area. Thank you! If the PM doesn't work, its easy. Use my screen name here and it's on America On Line. That should give enough information to enable direct emails without opening myself to spam! Kim

Additional roses to the list...

Mel's Heritage - own root. I propagated a smaller one for myself.

Mr. Bluebird - own root.

Pookah - own root.

Mutabilis - own root.

R. Hugonis - own root, no suckers.

R. Roxburghii - own root, no suckers, the double form.

Pink Poodle - own root.

Mary Rose - budded, established Star commercial plant.

Pink Pet - own root and VERY unhappy as it has always been here.

Anda - own root, (2).

Kim, could you send them to Australia please, I will give any you have left a good home.

Regards David.

Sure, David! Better yet, you and Carole come visit, dig them up and help move! LOL! Kim

Off topic: Good to see you Kim. I was concerned because I hadn't see you on the forum for so long. I even emailed Jeri. She filled me in on your move, and how busy you've been. And gosh darn it, I live too far away to take your orphan babies off your hands, lol.

John

Hi John, thank you! I appreciate your noticing I wasn't around as much. I'm excited and sad about the move. The house is wonderful. I would move it with me in an instant, but that isn't possible, unfortunately. It's been a GOOD house for sixty years and could easily remain so if the land weren't too valuable for too small a house for the area these days. No one wants a 2,000 sq ft mid century custom, not built by a known builder/designer, in an area of McMansions, particularly with a killer view and a large, private, secure hill. The thoughts of it being torn down hurt, but that's the nature of things today. I wish you were close enough to tote these things home. They feel like family members. As you would feel about a litter of puppies or kittens you want to find loving homes for. Dumb, huh? Thanks! Kim

Hi Kim. I guess with the major change in your life, the changes to this forum seem petty/trivial in comparison, lol. And no, it's not dumb to be attached to your roses and want the best for them. You're talking to the guy who cried when he had to dig up a 30 year old City of York taken as a cutting from my grandmother's plant, because it succumbed to RMV. I did. I sat down on the ground and cried, lol. Here's hoping SOMEone will take your roses and love them like you have.

John

Thanks, John. Thankfully, RMV doesn't kill roses here. I can understand your feelings about the City of York from your grandmother's garden. Kim

New property have a well, Kim? Nice area up there; we visited a couple of months ago. Best wishes to you on your move.

Hi Hoov, thank you! No well, thankfully! City water, city sewer, no septic no worries about a well running dry or someone fouling it. Should anything happen to the water, the whole city is behind you. Not a guaranty, but better than going it alone! Kim

OH, I so wish I could come out and dig up a few for you! I wish you good luck and good fortune on your move though!

Thank you, Sharon! I wish you could, too. Thank you for the best wishes, I appreciate them. I honestly don't think I'm going to need them, though. The hardest part is sorting through all the "stuff" which has accumulated over the years and getting all that needs to go with me, packed. Most of the roses have gone to loving homes. I'm taking "my roses", the new seedlings from last year, last year's seeds which haven't been planted yet and a smaller, choice collection of commercial, found and breeder roses to the new place. It's going to be quite a learning experience with them, going from savannah (hot, dry, sunny) to much milder, nearly coastal conditions. Plus, I have the ability to get bud wood and cuttings from them all should I determine I should have hung on to any of them. Best of all, though, dear friends now have new "babies" to learn to love as I have. That's fun! Kim

You are a little too far from Texas for me to come dig, but would if I could. I have always found it sad to leave where I have lived, but where I am now is where I will be. All the best to you in your move, I know what a lot of work that is. Hope you will continue to post, I read everything you write and respect your opinion so much. Also hope you will post photos of your new home!

Judith

Hi, Judith! Thank you! Yes ma'am, I'll still be here, thank you! It's going to take a little while to mitigate some landscaping issues to prepare the space for roses, but I'm used to a "pot ghetto". At least there, they won't fry as badly. When everything is pretty great for all the goals except the landscaping and engineered soil, you make compromises. Once settled, I get to hire someone to remove two, HUGE Washingtonia (trash palms), two liquid ambers, one white birch, two tree junipers and a long hedge of waist high junipers as well as long established bermuda grass lawns. It WILL get done! Kim

Well, PINK GATE has a new home now, from Kim's place to mine. Thank you, Kim for giving the rose and Cristina for bringing it to me. I hope it will like its new spot. I wonder if I need to trellis it, or will it grow like a massive shrub and reach out for the wall?

You're welcome, Bonnie. I think you will enjoy it. As soon as I suggest it will be "mannerly", it will eat your yard, pool and daughter, so I am going to plead the Fifth! LOL! Kim

Ha Ha. That area is by my driveway, so it will probably go for the car first. I'll be sure to keep you updated with photos. :)

At least I know Pink Gate is healthy, smells good and doesn't BITE! Thanks. Kim

I have cuttings growing from guessing this pink gate and they have been very mannerly so far

We are actually coming down to SoCal to visit the family this week and I would love a couple of the roses you have listed (if still available). But I can only make it out on Monday on my way back to NorCal. Would that work for you? I'm going to try to PM you!

Thank you. Someone who really "needs" more roses brought "her man" with her and has removed everything I was concerned with. Her husband must be "sticking pins in my doll" because of them as I am feeling my over exertion! LOL! Now, it's just a matter of getting things packed and all the dominoes in place so they all fall where they need to fall, when they need to be there. Enjoy your trip! Kim

Wow! Well it would have been nice to adopt some of your plants and meet you! but I'm glad they didn't get bulldozed all the same :) good luck with the move! We have moved many times just in the past 8 years of our marriage for school and work, and are finally in a stable home. So I am well acquainted with the hassles of packing and moving and I wish you well. I hope that one day we can say we've been somewhere for 60 years :)

Congratulations! Thank you. Though I've not been here that long (five or six years), I'm helping deal with forty years of "collecting". Fun stuff. Kim

Oh good! I was worried when I only saw a few find homes!

Many have! From nine pages on HMF to five and over three hundred named varieties to fewer than 148. But, there are MANY unnamed seedlings!

Oh gosh! I completely merged 2 different threads that I was reading in the wee hours last night. Someone else was talking about living in their home 60 years. Hhahaaa funny mistake.

Thank you Kitty. We'll see how long it takes to back hoe out all the existing stuff and created some drainage in the engineered soil. Going to be "interesting"! Kim

So you are moving closer to my neck of the woods, Monterey Bay. Pismo Beach area is only about a 2.5 hour drive away from Santa Cruz area. Good luck with your move and going through everything. Wise to do it before rather than after like I did when we moved here 29 years ago. And happy to hear that all your roses found a home.

Clare (Formerly aptosca but someone took my name so had to come up with a new one.)

Thank you, Clair. I'll look forward to running into you at some rose events up there! Kim

Are you planning to do a cleanup spray on your plants before you move them? Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to go to new ground without any rust or b.s. hanging around. My friend down the street can water late into the day with never a problem. He never had diseases come in. It used to be that way for me but I brought in plants by mail that carried them in. I have a quarantine on both sides of the house where it has never been and I can grow the roses that struggle under the pressures of disease. They grow very well and keep their leaves until I remove them by pruning or they drop of old age.

I was wondering if you had thought of this since you are moving your plants. It seems like a great opportunity to be free of leaf problems. If I had to do it again, I would have quarantined my plants at first. I am slowly getting areas of the garden cleaned up but it's been a long battle especially without the help of sprays.

No ma'am, I don't spray and it won't make any difference spraying them here or not. There are fungal issues where I'm going and some where I am. You can't tell what is resistant to what if you use chemicals. Plus, I react to many of them and I am simply too cheap and lazy to go to the expense and effort. Kim

The plus side of moving to that area is the soil must be fairly good to start with since it has been farm land for a long time. It was nice and cool and very green as I drove through the area yesterday. Costco had citrus trees in case you want one

Thanks, Carol. I don't need/want any more trees of any kind. The area does have wonderful, sandy, farm-land soil. MINE, however, was built in 1984 and sits on totally engineered, seismically stable soil. I took a shovel with me for the home inspection and, as I feared/expected, I couldn't dig holes anywhere. But, that date also means no lead, no asbestos, copper plumbing, seismic stability and the appropriate wiring. As I've written, there are plenty of "deal breaker" plants in that yard and they will all require a back hoe to eliminate them and their roots. Fortunately, there is room in the budget for that and some of it will be required to replace a run of fencing that should have been replaced some years ago, with block wall. (also budgeted). Hopefully someone will actually want to buy the two, fifty-plus-foot Washingtonias by the front public sidewalk, and, hopefully, with underground utilities, they aren't right on top of something preventing the use of mechanical extraction. The white birch (gross!) is in the middle of the front yard and MUST go to the landfill, as do the tree and bush junipers and the two liquid ambers in the rear. I know, awful choice for wanting to actually PLANT anything, but a great one for location, durability, safety, logically arranged floor plan, space, condition and price. I've dealt with this kind of soil situation before and it isn't "fun", but it is doable. I can live with those kinds of problems more easily than having to abate hazardous substances and issues in the house which shouldn't have been issues in the first place.

And, as I just remembered, NO gophers! Every neighborhood I viewed potential homes in which weren't on engineered soil, had gopher issues. None of them on rock hard, compacted soil had any obvious gopher activity. The final, remaining in-ground roses left here a little while ago in the rain. Miracle on the Hudson seemed too easy to dig. I expected from the three new mounds near it and the filled escape hole next to the plant, there were few remaining roots. That happened between last night and this morning as the plant had freshly opened flowers on it with new growth and none of it expressed any displeasure with not having water intake. Bare rooting it to be soaked in a tub of water than potted in the rain will make it completely happy. It shouldn't even notice it had its root system eaten. And, I shoudln't have to worry about these "rodents" again! Kim

Kim

Hi KIm: You don't like white birch trees? I think they are so pretty. How do you deal with engineered soil? Put good soil on top? Bonnie

I'm wondering the same thing, jasmine- are you looking at raised beds, Kim?

Kim -- It sounds like most, if not all, of the roses is gone. Glad to hear it. And I look forward to knowing that you're so close to our "beaten path." We will pass you several times a year, so I figure, we'll be seeing you.

I could learn to love any soil that kept away gophers.

Thinking Kim wants a power auger for a house warming gift.

LOL! Thank you. Yes, pretty much all of them, except the climbers, Hugonis, Roxburghii and the Ausins (which aren't worth the effort in this climate) are now moved to new homes. Engineered soil requires mechanical digging to excavte a hole. Refill it with the native, unamended soil and plant on top of the uncompacted mound. It will settle with time and the "bucket" you've created will eventually collect water. The difference is, that is all very much inorganic sub soil which often has ground water in it. Inorganic material doesn't sour when submerged under water. The deeper tap and anchor roots of pretty much any plant is suited to finding that kind of water and making good use of it. The feeder roots remain in the upper inches which are initially above grade but which will settle with time to about the soil grade level, and will spread out in the upper layer of "top soil" always installed over the engineered soil. That's the issue with planting trees in the stuff. The builders place a thin (often much less than a foot) of "top soil" (read "dirt") over the engineered soil bed then plant in excavated holes which the roots can't penetrate due to lack of air space and drainage. The tree roots grow to the surface where there is oxygen and where they splay out under the turf, resulting in surface roots running in all directions. Some tree and shrubs generate them naturally, such as liquid amber and pepper trees. When planted in engineered soil, their bad traits are exacerbated to the extreme. I plan to have them mechanically removed and the soil excavated to create a bed of loosened sub soil. All organics will go on top of that layer where they will break down and condtion the loosened sub soil as they digest.

White Birch? Nope. Hateful things. Not that they aren't "pretty", but they are much prettier where they are suited, meaning where there isn't aridity, alkalinity and saltiness and where there aren't drying winds and extreme sun and heat. They like cooler, damper climates where their foliage doesn't fry easily, much like avocados and Japanese Maples do. Birches generate a tremendously thick, dense, fibrous root mass under the turf, very much like a carpet backing. I've dealt with many people who love the look of the birches and who virtually always want pansies planted around their trunks to flush out the "Connecticut in the desert" look they desire. Try it once. It doesn't succeed here. The only way to accomplish it is to create a planter around the trunks using large stones; lay in a heavy plastic liner and fill it with potting soil. The stones hold it in place and hide the edges of the plastic from view and support the soil. Do NOT puncture the plastic sheeting or the tree roots will inflitrate the potting soil in a matter of weeks, destroying the whole project. Then plant the annuals you want in the potting soil. IF you're lucky, it will take a year for the tree roots to grow up between the stones and the plastic liner before they infiltrate the soil in it and kill the annuals. I've repeated that process around the same birch trees for the past eight or so years and it has worked as long as there are no drainage holes to give access to the tree roots. When you replant, you often have to rip it all apart and surgically remove the tree root infested root ball, cutting it away from the ground, then replacing the stones and a new liner with new soil and new plants. Because the surface of the makeshift planter is wide enough and it isn't deep, any water that fills the bottom of the liner is either utilized by the annuals, or evaporates quickly enough to prevent it from souring.

I have seen that birch root mass literally expand, pushing Schedule 40 PVC sprinkler lines to the point of shattering. Their roots are perfect for stabilizing creek banks, nearly eliminating erosion. They aren't good to deal with in any area you hope to be able to actually PLANT anything in. If the trees are young, without a great deal of spread yet, you can establish beds of agapanthus or other invasive types and they can do battle quite effectively with the tree roots. A friend has that combination around the front of his home where they have successfully growth together for over thirty years. But once the trees are established and those bloody roots have generated their characteristic mass, you are NOT getting a shovel into the ground from outside their drip zones anywhere near the trunks. Hateful things. Kim

Gophers are like water, electricity and humans, they take the path of least resistance. They are not going to dig through solid rock, which is what engineered soil is created to mimic. When you compress all the air space from between the particles, you are left with rock. No water penetrates as there is no air space between the particles. There is no liquefaction during earthquakes because there is no water in the soil to liquefy it. Seismic waves pass through bed rock very quickly because it is solid, resulting in very little shaking. Sandy or any looser soils, slow down the shock waves so they linger and shake harder. Engineered soil is man made "bed rock". No gopher is going to waste the energy. That's why I have so frequently asked posters here when their homes were built. If it was in the late seventies/early eighties or later, that's what it sits on by State law. Kim

I'm getting the picture, Kim. PINK GATE will need to find its way around Sycamore tree roots. I don't have engineered soil though. I wish you the best with your new home.

Kim, glad to know this about birches. Is it true of river birches as well as white birches [or are they the same thing?]? I planted one in my backyard a couple of years ago. It stands alone - may just have to stay that way. Do the roots spread a long way or are they confined to just around the tree? Hope you will post photos of your new place!

Judith

Hi Judith! River birches are more heat tolerant than white birches, and here can get even larger with larger root systems. They're pretty trees, in the right places and condtions, but their root systems evolved to stabilize wet soil against erosion and to stabilize them in looser, wetter soils. They just don't play well with hard scape, gardening, plumbing and foundations. We have several other more suitable trees for those types of situations. Koelreuteria paniculata and bipinnata are both much more suited to lawns and gardening with deeper growing, less massive roots for SoCal areas, but even those can be problems on engineered soils. Kim

Kim - I have been in and out of GW for a while with my own issues and hadn't realized you were moving! It sounds like you have a terrific plan and the worst of the rose moving accomplished for now. I don't envy you the hassle of reshaping and tearing out the existing trees, but as you say the ground stability and lack of gophers makes up for the hassles in the long run. Do any of those trees have invasive suckers that you'll have to watch for, or possible regrowth from pieces of the roots? In my old house, we had invasive deep-rooted plants like Virginia Creeper and "Tree of Heaven" (a massively mis-named junk tree), that I swore I wouldn't deal with in the new house. I was actually glad our new house owners weren't remotely gardeners, so there was little to need to remove to get started.

I'm very glad you've been able to save your own seedlings, since those are priceless and irreplaceable testaments to years of work. In the renovations of the new yard, would that include a greenhouse, or is that unnecessary in your coastal paradise of temperatures? That would be a top wish for me in my retirement here in zone 5, but since I'm nowhere near that age yet I'm not pining too much.

Best wishes on the move and let me know when you're settled enough to want some more band pots. I'll just hang onto them until you want them, as you have plenty of work cut out for you in the meantime, but I always have a collection of them.

Cynthia

Thank you, Cynthia! Great to "see you"! Much appreciated. I don't think what has to be removed will regrow, except the Algerian Ivy (ewww!). The worst is, especially in engineered soil, ALL roots possible must be removed or the potential for oak root fungus increases dramatically. It's going to be a "word deleted", but you have to do what you have to do. No, ma'am, a green house isn't a necessity as freezes are virtually non existent. I'm looking at the mountain of "stuff"...a dumpster is looking better and BETTER! Kim